聯合國報告:印度廁所不如手機普及

Far more people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet, according to a UN study on how to improve sanitation levels globally.

India's mobile subscribers totalled 563.73 million at the last count, enough to serve nearly half of the country's 1.2 billion population.

But just 366 million people -- around a third of the population -- had access to proper sanitation in 2008, said the study published by the United Nations University, a UN think-tank.

"It is a tragic irony to think in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones," so many people "cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," said UN University director Zafar Adeel.

Adeel heads the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health, based in the Canadian city of Hamilton, which prepared the report.

Worldwide, an estimated 358 billion dollars is needed between now and 2015 to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people with inadequate sanitation from 2000 levels.

Proper sanitation "could do more to save lives, especially those of young people, improve health and help pull India and other countries in similar circumstances out of poverty than any alternative investment," Adeel said.

Poor sanitation is a major contributor to water-borne diseases, which in the past three years alone killed an estimated 4.5 million children under the age of five worldwide, according to the study.

The report gave a rough cost of 300 dollars to build a toilet, including labour, materials and advice.

The world could expect a return of up to 34 dollars for every dollar spent on sanitation through improved productivity and reduced poverty and health costs, said Adeel.

He said improving sanitation was "an economic and humanitarian opportunity of historic proportions."

聯合國一項關於如何改善全球衛生條件的研究顯示，印度的手機遠比廁所普及。

據最近一次的統計數據顯示，印度手機用戶數達到5.6373億，佔該國總人口（總人口12億）數的近一半。

但據這份由聯合國智囊機構聯合國大學發表的研究顯示，2008年該國僅有3.66億人口（約佔總人口的三分之）能享受到合格的衛生條件。

聯合國大學的扎法•阿迪爾所長說：“在印度這樣一個日益富裕，近一半人口都擁有手機的國家，卻有這麼多的人用不起廁所這樣的基本生活設施及其所代表的起碼的尊嚴，不能不說具有可悲的諷刺意味。”

阿迪爾是聯合國大學水資源、環境和健康研究所的所長，該研究所總部位於加拿大的哈密爾頓，是該研究報告的主要撰寫機構。

從現在到2015年，全球預計需要投資3580億美元才能達到聯合國將缺乏合格衛生條件的人口數量減少至2000年一半的千年發展目標。

阿迪爾說，改善衛生設施“是挽救生命，尤其是年輕人的生命，以及改善健康狀況、幫助印度和其他境況相似的國家擺脫貧困的最爲有效的投資”。

根據該研究，惡劣的衛生條件是水傳播疾病的一大誘因，通過這一方式傳播的疾病在過去三年內共導致了全球約450萬五歲以下的兒童喪生。

據研究報告估計，建造一個廁所的成本約爲300美元，其中包括勞動力、材料和建築指導。

阿迪爾說，全世界在改善衛生條件上每花一美元，就能因生產力的提高、貧困和醫療成本的減少而得到34美元的回報。

他說，改善衛生條件是“一個歷史性的經濟與人道主義的機遇”。

Vocabulary:

water-borne disease: 水傳播疾病