Access to clean and safe water is a big problem for rural communities in the North

By Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya with fellowship from the West Africa Water and Sanitation Journalists Network and partnership from WaterAid, and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council

It is the end of the rainy season and the soil keeps drying and water losing on it. This is marking the start of the struggle to get clean and affordable drinking water for communities in remote areas of Sierra Leone. Children and their mothers are greasing up their feet and stretching up their heads to start searching for any source of water they can set eyes on for their domestic uses.

As part of a fellowship from the West Africa Water and Sanitation Journalists Network, I traveled 248km North of Sierra Leone to get an information on how rural communities are coping up to access safe and clean water in their localities. On my arrival at Kamabala in the Tonkoh Limba Chiefdom of Kambia District, the situation is very much appalling seeing community of more than 7000 people struggling to fetch water from a more deplorable water source dug by an 18 year old village boy.

Clean and affordable water is now regarded as a great commodity by the international community. A 2007 statement from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights states that “it is now time to consider access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right, defined as the right to equal and non-discriminatory access to a sufficient amount of safe drinking water for personal and domestic uses—drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation and personal and household hygiene—to sustain life and health. States should prioritize these personal and domestic uses over other water uses and should take steps to ensure that this sufficient amount is of good quality, affordable for all and can be collected within a reasonable distance from a person’s home.”

Madam Fudia Conteh scooping water for their domestic use in Kamabala Village. She is one of the many rural women in the North that suffers to get clean and safe drinking water for their homes

The statement above is not the real situation for rural communities in Sierra Leone. The water source for the Kamabala community was dug below the Bamboo canes and located down a hilly route from the village. There is no electricity to help purify water in major provincial communities in the country and digging a well in Bamboo trees like this will certainly help get natural coldness of water for the community. A visit and sit of half an hour made me to see more than 100 women and children struggling to fetch water in the well.

The distance is about 200 meters from the last house in the community and during the raining season, all the debris and filthy including human wastes from the community are transported to this downstream valley. The dung beetles are rolling balls of human feces whilst the flies are dancing around and singing praises to a child who has just deposited some human wastes about 5 feet from the water well.

The local water-village-savior, Sieh M Dumbuya attending the Wesleyan Secondary School, Kamabala has been searching for water points during the past years and “when I discovered that people have started to suffer for clean and affordable water, I came to this water-find which I believe will serve a long way this year” he said. All residents in the Kamabala Community depend on this water for both their drinking and domestic use as confirmed by Sieh and the Chief of the community. Sieh said he dug the well so that he can save the health problem of the community.

Even the school going children like Rugiatu get the taste of water shortage in Kamabala, Northern Sierra Leone

A 45 year old Fudia Conteh said “this water source will soon dry up and after such; we will start to fetch water at the tap provided through the assistance of a local NGO in the district.

But all these taps are not reliable for the community. The Banekeh River is dividing Kambia and Bombali Districts and it is also flowing North of Kamabala settlement. When the tap water and some major water source in the community dry up, the only source for the women at the peak of the dry season is to walk a distance of 4km to get water for their homes. “Even if you want to cook or drink, you must walk this distance to get water or else you stay with none” the 45 year old Fudia said. She said “the water is not clean but it is the only source which has been keeping us alive for the past thirty years”.

A 25 year old house wife, Sallaymatu Kargbo also confirmed that there is no other means of getting clean water for the community and because of this situation they must adopt to the water system. They are used to drinking red-dish water in the community with no official health problem reported from them. “We have no way to do” she said.

School going Children in the Kamabala Community will first fetch water for their parents in the morning and probably wash their mouths at the water well before they can think of going for their schooling on week days. If they try to avoid such task for a day, they will be meted with a lesson that they will never forget in their life time. “I fetch water before going to school and after school also” a class 4 school pupil said.

The official service providers for water supply in Sierra Leone are the government owned Guma Valley Water Company in Freetown and the Sierra Leone Water Company (SALWACO) and the Local Councils. With a new decentralization policy, embodied in the Local Government Act of 2004, responsibility for water supply in areas outside the capital city was passed from the central government to local councils.

Official reports at the Sierra Leone Water Company indicates that as of 2012, SALWACO only provides piped water in Lungi in the Port Loko District, Makeni in the Bombali District, Bo and Kenema districts and was in the process of providing for residents in part of Pujehun and Koinadugu Districts. Officials at the SALWACO and Local Council in Kambia out of anonymity revealed that there is yet no ways for providing pipe-borne water in many major towns of Kambia District, not to mention of smaller ones. The Water Company is supposed to transfer water service provision to Local Councils and this has not happened so far because of little capacity to do so.

There are still many people in the world that still do not have sufficient access to safe drinking water. Official United Nations report indicates that about 884 million people don’t have access to clean water of which about 340 million people live in Africa.

Globally and on a daily basis, 200 million hours of women’s time is used in fetching water and official statements indicate that this leaves them extremely vulnerable.

Results also highlight that 3.6 million people die annually from water-related diseases. Sub-Saharan countries only store 4% of their annual renewable flows. Compare to 70-90% in developed countries. In Sierra Leone, the Government of President Ernest Bai Koroma has just separated the Ministry of Energy from the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources to further responsible for water and sanitation policy in the country.

With the unavailability of plastic and bottled water supply in the rural town of Kamabala, it is not yet clear when these rural women will stop drinking red colored water that has great potential of making them and their children get sick.

Besides the fact of the government Sierra Leone’s key and importance role towards ensuring clean and affordable water for its citizens in the country, sons of the soil of Kamabala may come in for assistance towards this trend. The town itself is a producer of prominent descendants presently living in the city with some working and holding vital positions at the University of Sierra Leone and the National Revenue Authority but they hardly come back to the village and help to the water or whatever assistance the Community may need.

Definitely and most certainly, if all these personalities come out and start mobilizing to save their Community, the crisis the Kamabala is facing will obviously be a thing of the past one day and rural women will breathe a sigh of relief.

Written by Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya with fellowship from the West Africa Water and Sanitation Journalists Network and partnership from WaterAid, and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council. Email: kindamadumbuya@yahoo.com, Mobile: +23276897169

 

 

$8 million Water Project: 300 taps for Kambia

By Mustapha Sesay, Water and Sanitation Media Network Sierra Leone

Residents of Kambia Town, northern Sierra Leone have commended the Government of Sierra Leone for providing them with pipe -born water after forty years to address the acute shortage of water and reduce the spread of water born diseases.

The Kambia Water Supply Project was made possible through a grant -aid from the people of Japan as a token of friendship and corporation to the tune of eight million dollars through the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA).

ALWACO and JICA Officials testing some of the taps in Kambia Town

Officers of the Sierra Leone Water Company (SALWACO), the Contractor of the Kambia Water Supply Project Dai Nippon Construction Japan and the Consultants from Eight-Japan Engineering Consultants Incorporated have ended a working visit to the completed Kambia Water Supply Project, installed distribution network and staff quarters.

Briefing the delegation the SALWACO Kambia District Engineer Yankuba Tarawalley said the Kambia water supply project is now ready for use by the local authorities.

He said the source of water for the Kambia Water Supply Project is the Kollenten River, which provides a treated water of 1,200 cubic meters of water per day to an elevated tank of 400 cubic meters.

The SALWACO Engineer said the project constructed three hundred taps of one hundred stand post at a distance of 100 meters range, he added that the 2,300 household have also been registered to enable them benefit from the pipe born water.

 The JICA project Manager Kazumi Matsuda said the Kambia water treatment plant and its distribution network has state of the art technologies that ensure the delivery of safe drinking water to households.

He said the treatment plant has an automated system that diagnosis faults on the machinery as local staff will also be trained on the use and maintenance of the Kambia water supply facilities to ensure sustenance of the project.

The Ag. Director General of SALWACO Victor Hastings Spaine after a conducted tour of the facilities said the Kambia Water Supply Project is one of the best in the country and calls on Kambia residents to embrace the project.

He said SALWACO will provide seed money for the commencement of water distribution within the Kambia Township for a period of three months and called on the Kambia Local Council and the water management Board to support the project.

The Ag. Director General of SALWACO Victor Hastings Spaine also stated that his company will also provide technical and managerial assistance towards the Kambia water supply project and also promised to construct toilet facilities within the project site.

The Chairman of the Kambia Water Supply and Sanitation Board Ibrahim S. Njai said the people of Kambia have not received pipe born water for the past forty years and assured that the water project will be sustained for the benefit of residents.

He appealed to the Management of SLWACO for a continued support towards the water supply project and to also train the technical staff of the project for the use and maintenance of the facilities.

Mr. Ibrahim S. N’jai also appealed for transportation in the areas of vehicles or motor bikes as the Kambia water supply project site is a long distance from the township.

The Chief Administrator of the Kambia District Council Victor Kalie Kamara expressed thanks and appreciation to the government of Japan and SALWACO for their support and pledged council’s determination to provide a subsidy towards the water project to ensure its sustenance.

A resident of Kambia Town who runs the council’s restaurant Adama Turay said the Kambia water supply project is a blessing to the district as they have been suffering to get pipe born water for years which also costs them a lot of money to buy packet water for drinking and domestic use at their homes.

She said they are willing to pay for the pipe –born water provided by the Kambia Water Supply Project as it will reduce the financial burden on families and also deaths on water born disease related ailments.

 This article is produced by Water and Sanitation Media Network, Sierra Leone Chapter in partnership with West Africa WaterAid and Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

Poor WASH Polices and its Effects

By Mustapha Sesay-Sierra Leone, Email: mustaphasesay@yahoo.com

Unlike the Dry season in most African states that are characterized by acute water shortage, the Rainy season has stated and the masses are seriously going to feel the devastating effects due to lack of effective WASH policies in most areas
Sierra Leone is one of the places worst hit by poor water, hygiene and sanitation facilities at this time of the year as a result of man’s own activities to its environment.
Moving through the major streets of the cities, i.e. Freetown, Bo, Kenema and Makeni, one common feature that is visible is the piles of garbage deposited all over by petty traders after the day’s sales. The drainage are so narrow that most of the waste materials fill these places and flow onto the streets thereby polluting the environment. In the market places, the single dustbin sites built by the Councils are not only overfilled but stinky as these places are left unattended making them breeding grounds for flies, mosquitoes, and mice.

It is alarming that when Council and the Waste Management Company are unable to perform their role of ensuring a healthy clean environment, the traders are left with no option but to deposit unwanted materials in various places. Though the places are filthy and flea infested, traders with cooked food or consumable food stuff are forced to occupy these filthy places and sell to the public. It is for this reason that at the start of the rains one is not surprised to hear of frequent reported cases of outbreak of Cholera, Dysentery, etc. What worries most people is that even the roads to these market places are muddy and filthy, yet Council is not doing much to address the issue. There are times suckling mothers will be busy selling consumable goods and at the same time attending to their babies. Apart from spreading diseases to the public, the cold environment is a health hazard to the baby.
Looking at the places where most of these traders come from in the morning hours, apart from the congestion of most residential areas, it is a common practice for most to throw their dirt into the drainages rather than depositing them in the dustbins. Others will prefer looking for empty rice sacks or drums to keep their garbage for days and weeks. The ugliest part of this scenario is that when it rains during the night people will be seen carrying their piles of rubbish to be deposited in the gutters and drainages, and at most times in the frontage of residences. Not in the least worried about where the rubbish ends up, it is no surprise that most are found flooding the streets and in some cases where houses are built in low level areas these unwanted materials are flooding the compounds of their fellow community people, while still hampering the smooth flow of traffic and pedestrians as they litter the streets.
The situation is unprecedented and has been viewed as very unhygienic as it presents a bad image of the cities to the public, especially visitors to our cities and country.
In most areas shrouded with poor WASH facilities, it is very deplorable to witness as household family members defecating in buckets, locked up tightly in their bathrooms only to be thrown in to the gutters and drainages when it rains; it is not uncommon at night to find people defecating in black plastic bags and throw them in the streets, bringing with them flies. It is on this note that people are advised not to pick up black plastic bags found along the streets after a heavy downpour of rain.
Another area that is hard hit by poor WASH facilities during the rainy season are the slum areas. Most of our cities especially along the west coast of Africa, special reference to Sierra Leone, are surrounded by slum communities which are mostly located by the seaside or coastal areas. Typical examples are the MOA Wharf, Kroo Bay, and Susan’s Bay to name but a few.
The plight of housing facilities is felt more seriously at this time of the year when the population has to battle with a wet environment and flooding. The population has to be up each time it rains heavily, as the deluge of water empties itself into these areas before it finally goes into the sea. Some of the ugliest feature of these communities especially Kroo Bay in the West of the city is that they are overcrowded with makeshift structures that are poorly built
With heavy torrential rains, these houses or areas are over flooded with rooms not spared.
With this, People at night wake up swimming in their houses or rooms reaching for places of safety. For the past years, the rainy season has been a worrisome moment as animals, properties and human lives are destroyed because the rain washes all along its path into the sea. In the past, there were plans to move the people within these places to safer areas but nothing of this is now heard about. In the city, the poor drainage construction is also of concern to the public as the flooded drainages are a death trap for school children and strangers as there are cases of children having been swept away only to be later found dead.
As a result of the outbreak of diseases associated with poor water, sanitation and hygiene practices in our cities, flooding and destruction of lives and properties at this time of the year, the Central and Local Government in the past and present have used various strategies to address some of these burning issues, yet the problem still persists.
Before now, it was a common practice by the City Council in collaboration with Clean Salone and the Freetown Waste Management Company to ensure that the city and its environs are clean and environmentally friendly. Most of these strategies have been fruitless as a result of one’s attitudes towards maintaining a clean and friendly environment.
Previously, it had been scheduled that the last Friday of every month be “National Cleaning Day”; from 6am to 10am. All were expected to be within their environment cleaning their houses and compounds. Those who are caught along the streets doing nothing were either subjected to cleaning public places or arrested and later fined in the courts of law.
Though it was a good drive to ensure a clean environment, it was later misconstrued by certain sectors of the community. While it was meant to clean the environment, others were using the opportunity to throw all the dirt or rubbish accumulated for weeks along the streets. With the lack of man power/trucks on the side of the Council to speedily clear the piled up dirt, the rubbish was again scattered in the streets hampering the smooth flow of traffic. Though it is the mandate of the Council to clean the city, it was ironical that the city ended up becoming the dirtiest place after every cleaning exercise.
If today we as a nation prefer a clean environment devoid of health risk hazards, there is the need for all to observe best WASH practices in the sub-region and the country.

WSSCC official charges Journalists to 'keep asking questions'

“Keep asking questions. Sanitation and hygiene are not glamorous issues that you can easily get into the front pages of the media.

You have an incredible role to play in terms of transparency, in terms of ensuring there is public accountability. You need to ask great questions that will put service providers and regulators on their foot.

Use your expertise, professional skills, and enthusiasm to keep asking questions on how Sanitation and Hygiene services can be effectively delivered to the people. “

-Amanda Marlin, Programme Manager, Advocacy and Communications, WSSCC at a Training workshop for West Africa WASH Journalists during the Global Forum on Sanitation, Mumbai, India, October 9, 2011

Experts converge in Mumbai to discuss global sanitation challenges

By Edmund Smith-Asante

Global and National bodies working in the Sanitation sector as well as leading sector practitioners have converged in Mumbai India to discuss sanitation challenges facing about 2.6 billion people worldwide.

In India, for every 1,000 children, 87 die before they reach age five (5), while national water coverage is 87% but sanitation trails at 30% nationally in the country, according to reports from UNICEF.

For Nigeria in Africa, the United Nations agency says out of a 1,000 children, 198 die before they celebrate their 5th birthday, the national coverage for water is 60%, while for sanitation it is 38%.

In Ethiopia, children who die before they are five are 169 for every 1,000, while the coverage figures for water and sanitation are 22% and 6% respectively, according to the same UNICEF source.
Thirty-seven (37) out of 1,000 of China’s children also die before their fifth birthday, while national water coverage is 77% and sanitation 44%.
For Ghana as well, the number of child deaths before age five (5) per every 1,000 as at 2009 was 50, while national coverage for drinking water was 82% and 13% for improved sanitation as at 2008 (UNICEF).

Also, 125 of every 1,000 of Iraq’s infants die before age five (5), whereas water coverage is at 81% and sanitation 80%, a rare occurrence in water and sanitation ratio, according to short profiles that include a summary of the water and sanitation status in 37 countries where UNICEF works.
Most of the children who die before attaining age five, statistics show, die mostly out of diseases caused by the lack of proper hygiene in handling food, nutrition, potable water, and improved sanitation.

Annual child mortality in a host of countries globally, add up to about 9 million of all children who die each year, from preventable and treatable illnesses before reaching their fifth birthday, and constitute a portion of the 2.6 billion peoples of the world who daily go without improved sanitation and proper hygiene observation and education.

Diarrhoea’s contribution to child mortality

According to rehydrate.org, a rehydration project embarked upon by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and other partners, 2.2 million children will die from diarrhoea and related diseases this year.

It continues that 80% of them will die in the first two years of their life; 42,000 a week, 6,000 a day, four every minute and one every fourteen seconds.
The site continues that Diarrhoea is the passage of loose or watery stools occurring three or more times in a 24-hour period, listing the three types of diarrhoea as acute diarrhoea, persistent diarrhoea and dysentery.

If an episode of diarrhoea lasts less than 14 days, it is acute diarrhoea, which causes dehydration and contributes to malnutrition, whereas the death of a child with acute diarrhoea is usually due to dehydration, the site states.

If the diarrhoea lasts 14 days or more, it is persistent diarrhoea. Up to 20% of episodes of diarrhoea become persistent and often causes nutritional problems, creating the risk of malnutrition and serious non-intestinal infection as well as dehydration, it continues.

Diarrhoea with blood in the stool – with or without mucus – is called dysentery and is very dangerous because of its ability to lead to anorexia, rapid weight loss, and damage to the intestinal mucosa and sepsis, according to information gathered by the project.

The project states further that although the global under-five mortality from acute diarrhoea has decreased from 4.5 million to 1.8 million annually, acute diarrhoea continues to take a huge toll on children’s health in developing countries (WHO 2006). Diarrhoea again represents a significant burden on the health system, the household, and the nutritional status of children (Bateman and McGahey 2001).

Diarrhoea is the second leading killer of children under the age of five, accounting for approximately 15% of under-five child deaths worldwide, or almost two million deaths annually (WHO 2003).
However, though the means to prevent diarrhoea through water supply, sanitation, and hygiene have been well documented, each year roughly one and one half billion episodes of acute diarrhoea occur among children under the age of five, the Rehydration Project has also documented.

Further, according to WaterAid, an international Non-Governmental Organisation, “1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation – 4,000 child deaths a day or one child every 20 seconds.”

Available statistics also indicate that 65% of all child deaths are from three causes, which are Acute Respiratory Tract infections which now kill 3.6 million children each year, Diarrhoeal diseases which are responsible for about 2.2 million child deaths every year and preventable diseases: measles, tuberculosis, tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and pertussis, also responsible for some 2.1 million child deaths every year. Of all these, almost 1 million are attributed to measles.

WSSCC’s rescue plan
It is to deal with this global albatross that the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), together with a host of partners, including the Government of India, Government of Maharashtra, SHARE (Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity), Sulabh, Unilever, WaterAid, UNICEF South Asia, Plan International, Freshwater Action Network/FAN-South Asia, ANEW, The CLTS Foundation, Public Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW), WIN (Water Integrity Network), CREPA, Arghyam, EAWAG, IDE, IDS, International Water Association, WASH United, and WSP are holding a Global Forum on Sanitation and Hygiene in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) from October 9, 2011 to October 14, 2011.

The event, according to the organisers, offers a prime opportunity to share ideas on leadership, skills, knowledge, behaviour change and actions that can improve the lives of the 2.6 billion people in the world without safe sanitation and hygiene.
They opine that the forum will not be a talk shop but will instead, facilitate learning and sharing between practitioners, policymakers and other experts inside and outside of the sanitation sector, and will energize professional communities by focusing exclusively on sanitation and hygiene.

It is also expected to showcase knowledge, investment, communications, advocacy, partnership and networking approaches, as well as strengthen national, regional, South-South, and global dialogue and collaboration and includes the plenary, break-out and workshop sessions, each with dynamic speakers and presentations.

Some topics for the plenary sessions are: Inspire to Act; Breaking the Mould; What Changes Behaviour; Getting from Small to Big; Looking at Sanitation from the Lens of the Vulnerable; What Success Would Look Like with an Equity Lens; Sharing Across the Regional Sanitation Conferences; Regional Reports on Key Actions; Closing Plenary: Where Do We Go From Here?

For Break-out sessions some of the topics will be: Exploring Private Sector Partnerships in Behaviour Change; Rewards, Sanctions and Benchmarking as Tools for Behaviour Change; WASH Advocacy: How to Win Minds and Hearts; Total Sanitation: Reaching Many Millions; The CLTS Debate; Communications for Change; Urban Sanitation at Scale; Designing for the Human Life Cycle; Governance for Equity; Monitoring for Equity; Financing for Equity; Knowledge and Network Partnerships.

There will also be training sessions on Communications for Behavioural Impact (COMBI); CLTS 101: An Introduction; Sanitation Marketing; Equitable Service Delivery; Using Dev Info to Monitor Equity in Human Development; Monitoring Behaviour Change as well as urban and rural sanitation field visits.

Commenting on the forum, Anna Tibaijuka, Chair, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, said “What is needed, today, is serious engagement around the sorts of programmes and policies that are going to help us reach beyond 2015 – to a world where all people have access to decent sanitation and hygiene. As a global community we need to agree what is needed, how to get there, and what skills we need to achieve results.”

Launch of Global Community of Practice
A special feature of this year’s Global Forum will be the launch of a “Global Community of Practice for Sanitation and Hygiene.”

WSSCC is launching the initiative in response to sector demand for collaborative learning in sanitation and hygiene and it will be a space for honest and frank debate across
sanitation and hygiene thematic areas, to share experiences, lessons learned, successes and failures and identify best practices through national-international and South-South exchange.

Although over 40 sector professionals discussed this concept at the World Water Week in Stockholm 2011, the organizers believe the real conversation will start when the global gathering of participants at WSSCC’s Global Forum identify pressing questions and learning opportunities that will determine the focus of the “Community of Practice” for the coming year.

Top-level Speakers:
Top-level speakers for the forum include professionals in government and business including Sri Jayaram Ramesh, the Minister of Rural Development, Government of India; Prithviraj Chavan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra (TBC); Bindheshwar Pathak, Sulabh; and Rohini Nilekani, Founder-Chairperson of Arghyam.

Dr. Robert Aunger, a leading researcher in Evolutionary Public Health with the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, will also give a keynote speech on the science of behavior change.
From the BBC World Service Trust will be Siddharta Swarup, who will present how “Communications does its magic” in fostering social and economic development.

There will be in-depth reflections led by speakers from Unilever, IDE Cambodia and BRAC on the private sector’s participation and supply chains in providing latrines, soap and sanitary napkins in “Exploring private sector partnerships in behavior change.” Social entrepreneurs David Kuria of Ecotact in Kenya, and Anshu Gupta of Goonj – both distinguished ASHOKA Fellows – will for their part, present inspiring stories of change : be it from franchising public toilets in Africa or the ”production of sanitary napkins from recycled cloth.”
Global Participation

WSSCC has taken into consideration every aspect of the conference which is attracting hundreds of people, including participants at the six-day forum, and has therefore made sure 90% of the participants are coming from the places where the 2.6 billion people in the world without safe sanitation and hygiene live, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and China. According to them, “this will foster a dynamic and interactive atmosphere for South-South knowledge exchange and partnership building.”

WSSCC itself is sponsoring a large number of participants from many developing countries through its Bursary Fund process with support from SHARE and UNICEF.

These include Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, India, Iran, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

Sénégal: Une nouvelle station d’épuration pour éradiquer l’inondation sur l'Autoroute

Les autorités veulent des solutions durables à la récurrence de l’inondation de la RN1. Il est ressorti de la réunion présidée par le Premier ministre, Souleymane Ndéné Ndiaye, l’intensification des pompages dans le moins terme, la restauration des voies d’écoulement et la construction d’une station d’évacuation dans le long terme.
Le chef du gouvernement a présidé, ce Mardi 13 Septembre 2011, une réunion sur la libération de la Rn1 envahie par les eaux. Il a été retenu, dans l’urgence, d’intensifier les opérations de pompage. Le cumul des débits des pompes et des électropompes est déjà porté à 5000 mètres cubes par heure. « L’Etat a pris la décision de renforcer le dispositif de pompage.

Le ministère de l’Intérieur a déployé une capacité de 5000 mètres cubes pour pomper les eaux », informe le directeur de la Protection civile, Mar Lô. Dans le long terme, une nouvelle station sera construite dans cette zone pour régler de façon durable l’inondation de la Rn1 et des quartiers environnants.

3.43 Million Sierra Leoneans lack adequate sanitation

3.43 Million Sierra Leoneans lack adequate sanitation, says…Minister of Energy

By Mustapha Sesay

mustaphasesay@yahoo.com

The Minister of Energy and Water Resources Professor Ogunade Davidson has said in Freetown that 3.43 million people in Sierra Leone do not have adequate sanitation in facilities, of whom live in urban areas. The lack of safe water, proper hygiene is major causes of sickness and death in the country. The Minister was speaking at the conference room of the Ministry of Information briefing the press about water policies that have been put together by the Ministry.

L’AFRIQUE POURRAIT SE TROUVER A UN TOURNANT FACE A LA CRISE DE L’ASSAINISSEMENT

L’Afrique pourrait enfin se trouver à un tournant face à la crise de l’assainissement disent les groupes de la société civile ANEW et FAN, l’ONG WaterAid et le WSSCC, ainsi que la campagne End Water Poverty participant à AfricaSan 3 à Kigali.
Ces commentaires sont émis à la fin de la conférence dont l’objectif est de « replacer l’Afrique sur les rails pour atteindre les Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement (OMD) pour l’assainissement ». Ces groupes sont d’avis que le haut niveau de participation et l’engagement démontrés par les gouvernements africains nous permettent d’être optimistes.
Cependant le défi reste immense. Les données présentées montrent que le Rwanda – pays d’accueil de la conférence – fait partie des seuls quatre pays en Afrique subsaharienne qui sont en voie d’atteindre la cible sur l’assainissement. 584 millions de personnes en Afrique n’ont pas accès à un assainissement amélioré et les plus pauvres sont 18 fois plus susceptibles de pratiquer la défécation à l’air libre.
L’assainissement a toujours été l’OMD le plus négligé et le plus éloigné de l’atteinte de la cible, avec trop peu de financement, ressources diverses et volonté politique pour répondre à la crise. Or la conférence a connu un niveau de participation inégalé auparavant de la part de délégations de 42 pays africains. Ces dernières ont inclus les ministres de l’eau, de la santé, de l’environnement et de l’éducation. Les leaders de la société civile ont également joué un rôle essentiel et se sont engagés à travailler avec AMCOW (Conseil Ministériel Africain sur l’Eau) pour effectuer le suivi des progrès, identifier les défis et rechercher des solutions conjointes. Plus critique encore, les pays se sont pour la première fois mis d’accord sur des plans d’action détaillés pour répondre aux blocages clés au progrès.
Cependant le défi unique le plus important identifié pendant la conférence est le financement. Il y a eu peu ou pas de progrès dans l’atteinte de la cible d’investissement reconnue de 0.5% du PIB.
« Si l’Afrique veut avoir la moindre chance de revenir sur la bonne voie dans l’atteinte des OMD pour l’assainissement, ces plans et stratégies ont besoin d’un financement urgent », dit Lydia Zigomo, Cheffe de la région Afrique de l’Est de WaterAid, « Mais les ministres africains des finances et les bailleurs de fonds ont une opportunité de taille pour combler cet écart de financement au travers du partenariat Sanitation and Water for All (assainissement et eau pour tous). Des engagements financiers concrets de la part des deux parties sont essentiels pour sortir des millions d’Africains de la pauvreté, en particulier les femmes et les filles, et leur permettre de vivre leurs vies dans la dignité ».
Fin
Pour plus d’information veuillez contacter : meltompkins@wateraid.org +44 (0)779 328 2764, 250 (0)784870389 ou tatiana.fedotova@wsscc.org +41 79 903 78 18.

Accès à l’eau potable : la Banque mondiale débloque 45 milliards pour le Niger

Le Projet eau et assainissement en milieu urbain (PEAMU) du Niger a bénéficié d’un crédit de 90 millions de dollars américains (45 milliards de francs CFA) de la Banque mondiale (BM), a appris l’APS, à Dakar.
Ce financement devra permettre de renforcer l’accès à l’eau potable et à l’assainissement pour tous les Nigériens et à un tarif acceptable, rapporte un communiqué de la Banque mondiale. Par ce financement, signale l’institution, ‘’un demi-million de personnes dans les villes de Niamey, Agadez, Arlit, Tahoua et dans 23 autres centres urbains secondaires auront un accès direct à l’eau courante’’.
Cet approvisionnement sera effectué avec l’extension du réseau et l’augmentation des capacités de distribution et de stockage de l’eau ainsi qu’avec les connections domestiques et les bornes-fontaines publiques.
La construction de milliers d’ouvrages de collecte d’eaux usées permettra aussi d’offrir des services améliorés d’assainissement à 235.000 personnes dans les quartiers et à 60.000 élèves dans les écoles, ajoute le communiqué.
Cet accord a été signé par Ousmane Diagana, directeur des opérations de la BM pour le Niger, et Boubacar Cissé, ministre nigérien du Plan, de l’Aménagement du territoire et du Développement Communautaire, en vue d’exécuter le projet.

Leo Atakpu leads ANEW

 

The African Civil Society Network for Water and Sanitation (ANEW), has appointed new set of officers with Nigerian Leo Atakpu emerging as the Chair of the Board.

Read more: http://assemblyonline.info/?p=8194

 

Africasan3: Governments fail to make commitments

The Africa Sanitation and Hygiene Conference (Africasan3) www.africasan3.com ended yesterday in Kigali, Rwanda, with Africa national governments reaffirming their commitments to implementing the eThekwini Declaration (2008).

The 42 African Ministers of water, health, environment and education that participated in Africasan3, also agreed on detailed action plans to address key blockages to progress in the sanitation sector, but failed to make financial commitments on allocating 0.5% of their national GDP to sanitation.

Read More: http://assemblyonline.info/?p=8215

 

Ecological Sanitation: Human excreta as nutrients

Human excreta contains valuable nutrients, and these nutrients can be used in valuable ways to solve accelerate group of valuable tress and crops.

-Peter Morgan on ‘Ecological Sanitation’ Presentation at Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) Working Group 5 meeting during the Africa Sanitation and Hygiene Conference 3 (Africasan3) www.africasan3.com . July 17, 2011

 

CSOs call on African Governments to implement the Right to Water and Sanitation

Babatope Babalobi in Kigali, Rwanda

Representatives of civil society organizations in Africa have called on National Governments to urgently implement the Human Right to Water and Sanitation.

Rising from a one day Civil Society Forum in Kigali, Rwanda as part of the on going Africa Sanitation and Hygiene Conference 3 (Africasan3), http://www.africasan3.com,  the civil society organizations organized under platform of the  African Civil Society Network for Water and Sanitation (ANEW)  also called for a clear timetable and measureable targets for achieving expenditure of 0.5% of GDP on sanitation (as per the eThekwini Declaration); separate budget lines for sanitation spending in national budgets;  and better targeting of resources towards countries with low sanitation coverage and a higher burden of sanitation related diseases.

WASH-JN Le west african wash journalist network (réseau ouest africain des journalistes wash), est né.

Impulser une dynamique aux réseaux nationaux et contribuer à une visibilité de la problématique du secteur eau, hygiène et assainissement dans nos pays respectifs tel est la mission première du nouveau réseau créé.

Une cinquantaine de journalistes venus de la sous région (Bénin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinée Conakry, Libéria, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sénégal, Sierra Léone, Togo, du Ghana) et du Cameroun ont pris part à l’assemblée constitutive.

Rencontre organisée avec l’appui de la coalition WaterAid et du Conseil de concertation pour l’approvisionnement en eau et l’assainissement (WSSCC), deux ONG partenaires œuvrant dans le domaine.

L’objectif de la rencontre

Communique issued at the 2nd General Assembly of the West Africa WASH Journalists Network (WASH-JN)

1. We, Water and Sanitation Journalists working in Television, Newspapers, Radio and Online media  in fourteen West African Countries- Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Cote d Ivoire, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger,  and Guinea.
2. Gathered at  our second Annual General meeting in Accra, Ghana, Wed 27^th-Fri 29^th April 2011.
3. Concerned that West African countries like several other sub Saharan countries are off track towards meeting the WASH related MDG goals and other targets.
4. Aware that the poor in rural, semi urban and urban areas lack access to WASH services the most.; and this has adverse effects on the socio economic and health status.
5. Aware of the need for all stakeholders to take actions towards increasing the access of  our people to water and sanitation services
6. Conscious of our role as media practitioners to uphold the responsibility of the government to the people

Hereby resolved as follows: