Access to safe water and sanitation
By The Post
Wed 23 Mar. 2011, 04:00 CAT
Marking the United Nations World Water Day under the theme “Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge”, we were reminded by Paul Kapotwe, country representative from WaterAid in Zambia, that “with the rapidly growing urban population lacking clean water and toilets, the developing world is facing a massive public health crisis.
Half of our country’s population lives in urban and peri-urban areas. Statistics show that Zambia’s population with access to safe drinking water is only 43 per cent. And only 23 per cent of our population has access to safe sanitation.
This is so despite commendable investment programmes being implemented with the support of donor agencies during and after the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade.
The past two decades have seen the passing of an unprecedented number of declarations seeking to ensure that the great majority of our people have access to safe water and sanitation .
Yet to date, the great majority of our people do not have even the most basic levels of access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
Why is this so? Is it because there is no money for our government to provide these services to the great majority of our people? Yes, this can be so because our country doesn’t have much money.
But there is much more to this than just money.
Although the lack of financial resources is a factor, the key constraint to providing water to the great majority of our people is the political decision to implement the rights of our people.
And this is why those advocating the inclusion of socioeconomic rights in our Constitution do not want to compromise on such issues and are seeking a rights-based approach to these problems.
They believe every citizen has a basic right to safe drinking water and therefore, it should be a responsibility of government to ensure that every citizen has access to safe drinking water.
It is unacceptable that in the 21st century only 50 per cent of our people have access to safe drinking water and only 23 per cent have access to safe sanitation.
This is both morally and practically unacceptable. Water is life, so it is said.
Truly, water has always been an important and life-sustaining drink to humans and essential to the survival of all organisms. Water constitutes approximately 70 per cent of the human body by mass.
It is a crucial component of the metabolic processes and serves as a solvent for many bodily solutes.
Therefore, every person, whether rich or poor, should have access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
One cannot claim to uphold the sanctity of life if there is no provision for the minimal access to safe drinking water and sanitation for all.
Waterborne diseases cause many deaths each year because people lack proper drinking water and safe sanitation.
Over 90 per cent of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases in our country today occur in children less than five years old.
Malnutrition, especially protein energy malnutrition, can decrease children’s resistance to infections, including water related diarrhoeal diseases.
We can’t continue to lose so many children when improved water supply can easily reduce diarrhoea morbidity.
Our children are dying every day from causes that could be easily prevented if their families had easy access to safe drinking water and to a toilet that is built well enough to protect them from contact with human waste and the diseases that it carries.
Poor water and sanitation and unsafe hygiene practices are the main causes of diarrhoea. In addition to illness and death, lack of safe water and sanitation has many other serious repercussions for children.
Well too often, girls are forced to skip classes to go and draw water, resulting in loss of critical time for learning.
Clearly, improved water and sanitation services are a prerequisite for child survival and development.
And that is why they are a key component of the millennium development goals.
We know that throughout most of the world, the most common contamination of raw water sources is from sewage and in particular faecal pathogens and parasites.
It is clear that our people need to have access to good quality water in sufficient quantities, water purification technology and availability and distribution systems for water.
At the rate we are going, it will not be possible for us to achieve the millennium development goal of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.
We seem to be facing serious challenges in this goal.
Our rural communities are the furthest from meeting the 2015 millennium development goal on safe drinking water and sanitation.
Water and sanitation are services that no responsible government can ignore.
There is nothing which makes people more appreciative of a government than that it is able to deliver safe drinking water and sanitation to them.
It is therefore the task of our government to give the millions of Zambians an essential piece of dignity in their lives – the dignity that comes from having access to clean running water and safe sanitation.
Labels: IGNATIUS CHAMA, WATER, WORLD WATER DAY
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We’re far from accessing clean water - Bishop Chama
By Ernest Chanda
Wed 23 Mar. 2011, 04:00 CAT
MPIKA Catholic diocese Archbishop Ignatius Chama says Zambia is very far from reaching the required percentages of clean water provision.
In an interview in commemoration of the World Water Day which fell yesterday, Bishop Chama said the fact that the country commemorated the day every year meant that very little had been done in providing the commodity to the masses.
“I think it is a song that has been sang many times. And the fact that we participate in commemorating the World Water Day means that we are very far from reaching the required levels,” Bishop Chama said.
“It is an issue that requires serious concern by those responsible because water deals with life. As the situation stands, we are still very far from accessing clean and safe drinking water in this country.”
Bishop Chama called for concerted efforts to ensure that everyone in society accessed clean water.
“I am appealing to those in the opposition as well, let them join in and help provide clean water to our communities. In our culture, whenever a lion attacked a community there was no separation. People fought as a community to ensure that everyone’s life was protected. There was no difference between clans and tribes, but they all confronted the common enemy which is the lion and killed it,” said Bishop Chama.
“Equally now, let all our leaders, both opposition and government sit together and resolve water problems among our people.”
On Monday, Earth Organisation executive director Lovemore Muma said it was impossible for any country to reach socio-economic development without good quality water.
Muma stated that it was important for governments, especially in Africa to give priority to the preservation and good management of water as they planned for social and economic development, whether they were focusing on health and education development or on agricultural and industrial development.
And WaterAid Zambia urged governments across the world to prioritise provision of clean water and sanitation services.
Country representative Paul Kapotwe stated that water and sanitation services should be provided in line with the world population demands.
“With a rapidly growing urban population lacking clean water and toilets, the developing world is facing a massive public health crisis. One of the biggest challenges facing the developing world is the rate of urbanisation,” said Kapotwe.
Labels: IGNATIUS CHAMA, WATER, WORLD WATER DAY
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Sanitation no longer a cousin of water in Lusaka
By Simon Mwale and Kennedy Mayumbelo
Mon 22 Mar. 2010, 04:00 CAT
THE theme for this year's World Water Day is “Clean water for a healthy world.” The catch-word is “clean” because although there is a vast quantity of water in the world, this water is not suitable for direct human consumption unless it is treated. But when we talk about water, we cannot do so without making reference to sanitation because the two are like hand-in-glove or, to use the current street lingo, they are like a cell phone and its sim card.
Improved water supply and sanitation projects impact in various areas of life, from health to time savings to social status. While access to water supply and sanitation has improved in the last 20 years, it has been neither as widespread nor as rapid as had been expected.
What is sanitation? According to the Water Supply and Sanitation Act number 28 of 1997, sanitation services means:
a) the disposal, on site or off-site of human excreata,
b) the collection of sewage excluding untreated toxic waste and storm water, from residential, commercial or industrial sources; or
c) the treatment and disposal of waste water in accordance with the Act, the Environment Protection and Pollution Control Act or any other written law.
Simply stated, however, sanitation is the hygienic means of preventing human contact from hazards of wastes to promote good health. Good sanitation and hygiene has clear and distinct benefits and improves health. Poorly controlled waste means daily exposure to an unpleasant environment.
More specially, improved sanitation saves lives by reducing diarrhea-related disease, ensures a clean environment free from pollution and garbage while promoting personal dignity.
Water and sewerage companies like Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company ( LWSC) have an important, and we dare say, a mandatory, or compulsory role to play in providing good sanitation. In ensuring good sanitation, LWSC and its counterparts are responsible for
a) treating and supply of adequate clean and safe water to all customers,
b) collecting and disposing of waste water in their service areas and
c) extending sanitation services to areas not serviced.
In line with this year's theme, LWSC has already commenced the provision of sanitation in peri-urban areas. This follows the development of the sanitation strategy with support from the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Programme-Africa for effective service delivery of water and sanitation services to the peri-urban areas.
The sanitation strategy document expounds a roadmap for expanding sanitation and hygiene promotion services to Lusaka's peri-urban area based on a sanitation marketing approach.
In an effort to elevate attention and action on sanitation, LWSC introduced a sanitation levy and set up a sanitation fund to be used to improve sanitation in the peri-urban areas.
A sanitation marketing approach has been chosen to test in Lusaka to give people a choice, to ensure financial sustainability, and to promote behavior change. Lusaka will be the fore-runner on the use of this approach and in applying the strategy programmatically. Financing will no longer guide the process and implemented activities. The strategy will guide all players under the leadership of LWSC.
LWSC has set up a sanitation unit within the peri-urban department to spearhead the roll out of the sanitation programme in the peri-urban areas. The unit is in the process of constructing 200 toilets in Kanyama, Chaisa and Chipata compounds under the promoting peri-urban sanitation services (PPURSS) Project which is being financed by the European Union through CARE International and LWSC through the sanitation fund.
Training of artisans of the three areas was conducted for 45 artisans from Sept 22 to 24, 2009 on general building skills, but more inclined to improved latrine construction. The Artisans were drawn from the three beneficiary communities and the response was overwhelming.
A demonstration toilet has been completed for a 103-year-old woman of Kanyama while 99 are still under construction.
In the long term, LWSC intends to build water borne toilets as the sanitation service to the peri-urban areas. Designs and bills of quantities for Kanyama and Kalingalinga are being finalised. To this end, efforts are being made to source for financial support for this task and 2010 will prove to be real year of sanitation for Lusaka's peri-urban.
Labels: LUSAKA, UTILITIES, WATER, WORLD WATER DAY
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