Millions of people in impoverished countries are alive today because a midwife was by their side when they gave birth, or they were vaccinated as infants by a nurse, or because their families learned from a community health worker to adopt healthy behaviors like breastfeeding, hand washing, birth spacing, and sleeping under a mosquito net.
Yes, improved sanitation has improved the lives of billions of people all over the world, and it's important to note that success. But we need to make some course corrections. The stakes are just too high. Leaving billions of people to live with "improved sanitation" that includes untreated sewage--that's an economic, environmental, and humanitarian catastrophe.
What would we do differently tomorrow if we knew that the lives of 16 million women and children were at stake? Because they are. In the three years since the launch of Every Woman, Every Child, 260 entities have committed nearly $60 billion to programs intended to save and improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable women and children.
But who will pay? Building these skills is neither easy nor cheap. And investors are certainly not lining up to lose money (despite the tremendous social impacts on offer), let alone to "get real", in West's words, and take significant risks with large sums rather than drip-feeding capital through smaller, short-term investments, and at a distance.