Professor Anna Tibaijuka

WSSCC contributes to the broader goals of poverty eradication, health and environmental improvement, gender equality and long-term social and economic development. WSSCC has coalitions in 35 countries, members in more than 160 countries, and a Geneva-based secretariat hosted by UNOPS.

"We live in a world of unacceptable inequality," said Prof. Tibaijuka. "A third of the people alive today – 2.6 billion individuals, most of them in Africa and South Asia – do not have access to basic sanitation, and 900 million lack safe drinking water. I want to address this inequality."

Prof. Tibaijuka grew up in rural Tanzania, and knows first-hand the impact of poor sanitation and hygiene on the health and economic well-being of a community. She has seen the benefits that small changes can make: installing a separate toilet in a school can improve girls’ attendance; providing soap and water for handwashing can reduce the spread of diarrhoea; and ensuring clean drinking water can help reduce outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera.

Recent analyses of the progress of the Millennium Development Goals have revealed that sanitation is by far the most off-track of the goals in sub-Saharan Africa.

Prof. Tibaijuka was an Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and executive director of UN-HABITAT between 2002 and 2010 and has served on a number of distinguished international panels, including the Commission for Africa, a panel set up by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. She was also co-winner of the 2009 Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development.

Prof. Tibaijuka will succeed Dr Roberto Lenton, whose second and final term of office comes to an end in March 2011.

UNOPS provides administrative services such as financial management, procurement and human resource and personnel management. UNOPS is also providing grant management services for WSSCC’s Global Sanitation Fund, which this year has already committed $15 million to fund sanitation and hygiene work in Madagascar, Senegal and Nepal, and plans to roll out 14 more country programmes over the next 12 months.