The sanitation revolution, which started in the 18th century with the mass introduction of the flush toilet and sewers, has saved more lives than any other innovation in the history of public health or medical science. It has also stimulated the sustained economic growth of the world’s wealthiest nations by safely removing human feces—and the diseases caused by fecal-oral transmission—from homes and workplaces.

Given the huge achievements of the sanitation revolution, one might think that we would teach our children about John Snow, the physician who proved that water contaminated with feces causes deadly diseases like cholera and severe diarrhea, or celebrate the genius of Alexander Cummings, the mathematician and watchmaker who patented the flush toilet design that we still use today.

But as Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands noted in this morning’s guest blog, poop remains an unmentionable topic in polite company, and our awkward silence on sanitation is starting to create a huge pile of problems around the world. According to the publication Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water: 2010 Update, released by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2.6 billion people in developing nations don’t have access to a safe, hygienic toilet.

Moreover, we are losing ground in our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people who don’t have access to improved sanitation by 2015. Between 1990 and 2008, 1.3 billion people gained improved access to sanitation while the world’s population increased by 1.5 billion. Clearly, we need a better approach to ensure that more people can directly benefit from the revolutionary social and economic gains that improved sanitation delivers.

That’s why I’m excited to announce that the Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (WaSH) team of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will formally launch its sanitation-focused program strategy as part of the AfricaSan3 Conference on July 19. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the president of the foundation’s Global Development Program, will address technical experts and policymakers who are gathering in Kigali, Rwanda, to take stock of what African countries can do to accelerate progress on sanitation.

The foundation began its work in the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector more than five years ago, and our collaborations with experts around the globe have taught us much about opportunities and challenges in the field. The knowledge and insights that we have gained also convinced us that the foundation can play a relatively unique—and potentially catalytic—role by focusing its efforts on those who don’t have access to a good toilet.

We believe that an opportunity exists now to stimulate new thinking at every stage of the sanitation value chain. We can do so by taking action in three critical areas:

• supporting innovation in the design of healthy and affordable latrines, septic tanks, and systems used to empty and safely handle fecal matter
• helping communities take action to dramatically reduce the number of people who practice open defecation
• promoting advocacy for sanitation policies that prioritize the poor and underserved

For the past 18 months we have been building a team that is focused on these challenges and committed to learning from technical experts, policy-makers, and local communities about what works, what doesn’t work, and how we can tackle this problem together.

We look forward to sharing more details about our strategy with you in July, and we invite you to follow our discussion on the foundation blog, and on Facebook and Twitter.