Sanitation Issues in Developing Era

In terms of the needs compliance, there are basic or primary needs; secondary needs; and complimentary needs. Basically, the primary and secondary needs should be fulfilled first before the complimentary. Yet, in many countries, even in the developed one, people is prefer to prioritize their complimentary needs such as smart phone, and entertainments, rather than the primary needs like foods, and health.

For example, the statistic of India shows that 56% of 18,9 million families in Bihar own smart phones or line phones. On the other hand, 1 of 6 people still does not have any access for basic sanitary like toilet. This is actually quite concern remembering that this sanitary issue cause a problem to the country and individual.

               

Imagine that there is a community that does not have any access to sanitary. They will easily make use of any watering systems such as river, beach or canals nearby. This may be harmful because it can release unsanitary water which contains microorganism or chemical contains to the environment. Moreover, this unhealthy environment causes more dangerous water-related diseases such as diarrhoea, hepatitis, polio, cholera, typhoid dysentery, etc. In addition, the increase of unsanitary water will lack the clean water for living. However, people’s need in water like drinking and sanitary cannot be tolerated.

                

In this case, so many people think that the excess of population seems to be the major trigger of the problem since India is the third most populated country in the world. But for me, I think level of education, level of income in a country does affect the quality of sanitation on that country. Countries with higher level of education, level of income, (as general, can be seen by the Human Development Index), seems likely have better quality of sanitation. As the opposite, developing countries, usually have a low HDI, and countries with a low HDI, usually have a bad sanitation.


At the end of the day, some effective actions must be taken to solve the sanitation issues. For the instant action, It can be done both by managing the water supply system better and increasing people’s awareness toward their environment. But for the real action, a country has to try its best to increase the variables in the Human Development Index such as level of education, level of income, GDP, etc. It's true that government can provide a good sanitation system for their citizens, but it's better when the citizens themselves realize the importance of having a good sanitation, and it's best when a country having both of them.