A/HRC/10/6 page 10 from 2008, meeting the Millennium Development target for sanitation requires ensuring access to improved sanitation for 1.4 billion people by 2015, or on average 173 million people per year.28 Although there has been increased access to improved sanitation, WHO and UNICEF estimate that if current trends continue, the total number of people without access to improved sanitation will only have decreased slightly by 2015 - to 2.4 billion people.29 Even though these observations are extremely concerning, States and the international community have not done enough to respond. For example, according to the 2008 UN-Water Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS), external development assistance for sanitation comprises only 37 per cent of the total aid to the sanitation and drinking-water sectors combined.30 As of now, the global sanitation crisis has not yet been able to galvanize concerted national and international action.31 Sanitation has, in fact, historically been viewed as a lower priority than water supply and has attracted less investment. 27. Similarly, although the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights offers comprehensive guidance on the interpretation and understanding of the right to water in its general comment No. 15, relatively less attention was paid to sanitation. General comment No. 15 recognizes that “ensuring that everyone has access to adequate sanitation is not only fundamental for human dignity and privacy, but is one of the principal mechanisms for protecting the quality of drinking water supplies and resources”.32 However, the general comment is focused on the right to water and, notably, not the right to water and sanitation. Besides the fact that less interest has been paid to sanitation generally, there has also been little exploration of the human rights obligations related to sanitation. 28. When the independent expert took up her mandate in 2008, it was the International Year of Sanitation. Numerous initiatives have been undertaken in celebration of this year. For example, 28 See footnote 17 above, p. 8. 29 Ibid. While the number of people without access to sanitation is decreasing, if taken as a percentage of the total world population, the decrease in absolute numbers of people without access is less pronounced due to population growth. See E/CN.17/2004/5, para. 10. 30 WHO, UN-Water Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water: 2008 Pilot Report - Testing a New Reporting Approach, p. 26. 31 One of the reasons for this resides in the fact that the benefits of sanitation accrue to the wider community “owing to reduced risk of transmission of infectious and parasitic diseases, more than to the individual. This contrasts with safe drinking water supply, whose benefits are mostly captured by the individual user ... As a result, individuals are more likely to invest in, or demand public investment in, drinking water than in sanitation. Reflecting this demand, Governments in developing countries tend to invest more heavily in water supply than in sanitation.” (E/C.17/2004/5, para. 9.) 32 Para. 29.