China-born Jason Lee has taken interesting pictures of the toilets in many countries. These can be found at:
widerimage.reuters.com/story/around-the-world-in-45-toilets

One can find groovy toilets as well as tin-sheet toilets in the collection.

I think this forum has some collection of the photos of the toilets. These new photos will make a valuable addition.

F H Mughal

WaterAid has issued a new 28-page (rather brief) eye-catching report on toilets, titled:

It’s No Joke: The State of the World’s Toilets 2015

In addition to the wonderful pictures of toilets, the publication contains useful and thought-provoking information on toilets. The publication is available at:

www.wateraid.org/what-we-do/our-approach...83-beff-a8efef8f342a

The section on “top ten places with the longest lines for toilets,” is interesting. It says:

India, the world’s second most populous nation, has a well-known problem with sanitation. Cities growing at an incredible pace with unofficial, unserviced slums, combined with cultural preferences for open defecation in fields rather than enclosed spaces, mean India has the World’s Longest Lines for Toilets.

If you stretched all 774 million people in India now waiting for household toilets, the line would stretch from Earth to the moon – and beyond! That line would take 5,892 years to work through assuming each person needs about four minutes in the toilet.

Pakistan is also not far behind. According to report, the number of people without access to ‘improved’ private toilets, as of 2015, is 68,666,800. Similar figure for India is 774,222,300.

India also tops the list of countries with most people defecating in the open per square kilometre as approximately half of India’s population defecates in the open. As many as 569 million defecates in the open, which translates into 173 people defecating in the open for every square kilometre in the country.

The report makes the following recommendations:

• Having agreed the ambitious new Global Goals to end poverty by 2030, world leaders must now step up to fund, implement and account for progress towards the goals. Goal 6 – water, sanitation and hygiene for all – is fundamental to ending hunger and ensuring healthy lives for everyone, and must be a top priority.

• The state of the world’s toilets will not improve without a dramatic and long-term increase in financing for water, sanitation and hygiene by both national governments and donor countries like the US and UK.

• To reduce maternal, newborn and child deaths, national governments must ensure that schools, health-care facilities and birthing centers have safe toilets, clean running water and functional sinks with soap for handwashing.

• To make health and nutrition programming more effective, national governments should ensure that water, sanitation and hygiene services are embedded in plans to reduce undernutrition, acute malnutrition, childhood diseases and newborn deaths.

• Many of the world’s poorest countries which are most in need of aid for sanitation and hygiene are neglected, because either the country or the sector does not fit with donors’ strategic priorities. Aid needs to be directed to where it’s needed most, at the levels required, and aligned with country systems and plans.

• National governments also need to mobilize domestic revenue to make water,
sanitation and hygiene a priority.

I would also add the following recommendations:

Political-will for action on sanitation is low in developing countries. Advocacy by developed countries and international NGOs is required. The government functionaries need to be sensitized.

There is large-scale corruption in sanitation sector. International agencies should come forward and implement the sanitation agenda.

Capacity building of local government staff is required, as the technical capabilities of the staff are low.

Microfinance aspect and mobile phones can be used effectively to enhance the sanitation base.

F H Mughal

That is nice - a very interesting slide show. One gets to see a variety of toilets.
Thanks Jan

F H Mughal

Reuters actually created a neat video slideshow from those pictures (and many more):

widerimage.reuters.com/story/around-the-world-in-45-toilets

Thanks for pointing out this article.
We cannot include the photos in the SuSanA photo database as their copyright is with the photographers - one would have to ask them one by one for permission, essentially making their photos into open access under the CC-BY SA licence.
As we have many similar photos in our photo database already, it is probably not really worth our while to do so.
Here is the link to SuSanA's photo database on flickr, with nearly 11,000 photos by now, showing toilets but also much much more, in relationship to sanitation:
www.flickr.com/photos/gtzecosan/collections/

Cor Dietvorst has circulated a interesting post from CBC News on 17 Nov 2015 (www.cbc.ca/news/world/photos/un-world-to...sanitation-1.3321536 )
which gives interesting pictures of toilets, across the globe.

I would suggest that, if possible, the secretariat may save these pictures in the Susana library.

F H Mughal