page_title: World Toilet Day
section_title: Convener
hierarchical_section_title: World Toilet Day / Convener
caption_attribution_description: English: The Urgent Run 2014 being celebrated by school kids in Germany
context_page_description: World Toilet Day is an official United Nations international observance day on 19 November to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. Worldwide, 4.2 billion people live without "safely managed sanitation" and around 673 million people practise open defecation. Sustainable Development Goal 6 aims to achieve sanitation for all and end open defecation. World Toilet Day exists to inform, engage and inspire people to take action toward achieving this goal.
  The UN General Assembly declared World Toilet Day an official UN day in 2013, after Singapore had tabled the resolution. Prior to that, World Toilet Day had been established unofficially by the World Toilet Organization in 2001.
  UN-Water is the official convener of World Toilet Day. UN-Water maintains the official World Toilet Day website and chooses a special theme for each year. In 2019 the theme is 'Leaving no one behind', which is the central theme of the Sustainable Development Goals. Themes in previous years include nature-based solutions, wastewater, toilets and jobs, and toilets and nutrition. World Toilet Day is marked by communications campaigns and other activities.
context_section_description: In 2013, UN-Water and the "Thematic Priority Area (TPA) on Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation" received the mandate to oversee World Toilet Day each year. This mandate is described in the United Nations Resolution A/67/L.75. 
  In consultation with the UN-Water World Toilet Day Task Force, made up of UN-Water member organizations, UN-Water selects the theme based on that year's World Water Development Report and develops content for World Toilet Day communications campaigns.
  UN-Water manages the World Toilet Day website which promotes key issues and stories, provides communications and campaigns resources, and announces events and opportunities to participate.
  The overall World Toilet Day campaign mobilizes civil society, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, academics, corporations and the general public to participate in the associated social media and communications campaigns. Ultimately, the aim is to encourage organizations and governments to plan activities and action on sanitation issues to make progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6.
caption: School children in Germany running the "Urgent Run" to celebrate World Toilet Day 2014
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