To celebrate International Toilet Day, every 19th of November, the United Nations increases awareness on the urgency to advance in SDG 6, which seeks to ensure water and sanitation availability for all, by 2030
4.2 billion people have no access to properly managed sanitation services, and 3 billion lack basic facilities to wash their hands. These figures, shared by the United Nations on International Toilet Day, seeks to create awareness about this reality and its consequences. On this day, BBVA Microfinance Foundation (BBVAMF) joins this effort through its Peruvian institution, which has developed a specific program to facilitate access to water and sanitation to low-income entrepreneurs, in collaboration with Water.org, an organization that has already helped improve the lives 25 million people around the world. Additionally, the partnership will replicate this initiative in other countries where BBVAMF is present: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Chile and Panama.
“This agreement with Water.org will provide access to clean water to our entrepreneurs living under precarious conditions, as an essential resource for their development”, guarantees Concepción Blanco, head of Sustainable Finacial Solutions in BBVAMF.
For her part, Jessica Jacobson, senior manager of Financial Institituions for Water.org, also mentioned the importance of partnerships such as these to reach more people, especially in a country like Perú, where 3 million people still don’t have access to clean water, and 8 million have no access to sanitation; a large proportion of them are concentrated in rural and peri-urban areas. “However, microfinance, through organizations like BBVA Microfinance Foundation in Peru, allows us to bring these basic services closer to the homes of vulnerable populations”, shared Jacobson.
This is reflected by the more than 30 million euros in loans that the Foundation’s Peruvian institution has disbursed so far this year, through this initiative, which aims to take one step ahead towards sustainable development in Latin America, still the most unequal region in the planet until now. This objective is shared by the United Nations, and its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In fact, this year, the UN has borrowed the Agenda’s slogan, “Leave no one behind”, for International Toilet Day, to increase awareness around the urgency to achieve SDG 6, which strives to ensure water and sanitation accessibility for all, by 2030.
(Subtitles in english are available for this video)
BBVAMF, committed to the SDGs
Aside from its impact on SDG 6 (“Clean water and sanitation”), and SDG 12 (“Sustainable consumption and production”), the Foundation contributes to the achievement of another 10 SDG, highlighting: SDG 1 (“No poverty”), SDG 5 (“Gender equality”), and SDG 8 (“Decent work and economic growth”). In its 12 years of activity, the Foundation has served more than 5 million vulnerable entrepreneurs in five Latin American countries and has disbursed more than 13.6 billion dollars through its six microfinance institutions.