water, sanitation & hygiene in sub-saharan africa

Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

in Sub-Saharan

Africa

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/

http://www.unicef.org/ec

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Contents

Regional Overview

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire

Ethiopia

Kenya

Nigeria

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Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire

Ethiopia Kenya NigeriaRegional

Zu-Noogo Noba was born during a spectacular thunderstorm in the early hours of 22 June, 2010. There were few medical supplies and not so much as a lightbulb in the rural dispensary in Burkina Faso where he was delivered. Yet Zu-Noogo’s name means ”good things” and he bears it well. Because he was born in Rapadama where clean water and sanitation are now commonplace, his chances of

survival are far greater than they would have been 10 years ago when the world adopted the Millennium Declaration.

It is not so for others of West Africa’s bairns, one in six of whom still die before the age of five (169 deaths per 1,000 births). Under-five mortality has dropped in every region of the world since 2000, except sub-Saharan Africa where it hasn’t shifted by a single percentage point.

The slow progress is due to high levels of fertility but also to diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid fever, malaria and other diseases linked to poor sanitation and lack of clean water. In sub-Saharan African countries that are battling for cleaner lives for their poorest citizens, 80 per cent of afflictions killing children are linked, not to lacking medication or vaccinations, but directly to deficiencies in sanitation and water.

With 47.6 million euros from the European Union (EU), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has in the past three years executed a successful programme of water, sanitation and hygiene initiatives (known as WASH) in needy regions of 16 sub-Saharan countries. They aim to achieve progress towards two key objectives:

•Ending the most dangerous practice for human health, open defecation, which in 2008 was still practised by 34 per cent of Africans (44 per cent urban and 24 per cent rural);

•Moving towards the 85 per cent Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for access to drinking water, which stood at 65 per cent in 2008 (47 per cent rural and 83 per cent urban), having risen from a 1990 total in sub-Saharan Africa of 49 per cent.

The EU-funded initiatives have, in keeping with UNICEF policy, targetted the poorest of the rural poor, partly by using schools as key platforms for disseminating messages about, for example, the virtues of handwashing. The WASH initiatives also incorporate key EU objectives such as strengthening governance and empowering communities.

Contents

Professionals in the sector are impressed by the can-do spirit they have encountered. ”In the past, agencies would go into an area, build latrines and leave,” said Guibril Kamssoko, a UNICEF WASH officer in Côte d’Ivoire. ”If you go back to those communities you find people still defecating in the open and using the latrines as nice storage spaces. These days, the villagers build the latrines themselves. These become a matter of pride among neighbours.“ Another UNICEF WASH officer, Kinfe Zeru in Ethiopia, remarked that as part of moves to encourage the use of local materials, communities in Tigray had devised a latrine vent made from a hollowed-out stem of sisal. ”UNICEF is not simply turning up and building shallow wells or latrines. When drilling machinery needs to get through, the community builds the access road,” he said.

To the EU’s chargé d’affaires in Nigeria, Pierre Philippe, the WASH initiative – which targets 1,000 communities in six of the country’s 36 states – has been a valuable testing ground for what he sees as a trend to move away from standalone projects towards a sectoral approach. ”Before we finance work such as drilling boreholes, we have to make sure the regulatory environment is right, that necessary sector reforms have been carried out and that there is political commitment to make changes which will have a lasting impact on the population,” he said.

Beyond borehole-drilling, the WASH initiative in Kenya is intended to assist a remote and historically-disadvantaged region in implementing decentralization policies that pass responsibility for water – including the upkeep of pumps – to communities.

In Kenya, as in other countries, UNICEF partners work with communities, informing them of their rights and helping them to establish water committees. These create a fee structure for the borehole water and use the money to buy fuel for their generator – if they have one – and keep a fund for pump repairs. Contractors can be hired on maintenance contracts.

UNICEF WASH official Ally Tifow said the system presented problems. ”Low levels of literacy, high levels of poverty and the population movements of pastoralists are the issues we are dealing with in Samburu district.“ But he said local solutions could often be found. ”Working through partners who know the community, we are able to achieve a great deal. For example, in one area, elders have undertaken to protect their water catchment area, a forest, by invoking a traditional system whereby defaulters are fined for breaching social contracts. Consequently, the forest has become a no-go area for people and livestock.”

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


WASH in Tigray, a drought-prone region of Ethiopia, is intrinsically tied to the devastating impact of climate change and deforestation. Epidemiologist Aynalem Assefo said the link between health and climate became evident to him last year. ”Much more of our water is unsafe than it used to be because the rain is lacking,” he said. ”We had a typhoid outbreak in three sub-districts of Edgasehelus, with 161 cases and one death. Those who fell ill lived in three villages where people use unsafe water because the river is much closer to their homes than the closest pump. Areas where water schemes have been developed and sanitation has been improved had no cases of typhoid. In fact, they are healthier in almost all respects.

“When you talk to people about water and sanitation, there is a broader beneficial effect. Mothers complete their babies’ vaccinations and become curious about nutrition,” said Assefo who, as a local government employee, is a key player in a process that aims to devolve the responsibility for WASH implementation from UNICEF to national and local government as soon as practicable.

Stultified by eight years of political uncertainty, Côte d’Ivoire is finding that WASH initiatives in the north of the country play a role in reviving community cohesiveness.

In Assafou, near Bouaké, 56-year-old retired civil servant Dominique Krakoffi emerged as a ”natural leader” when he and the other 300 villagers were introduced to community-led total sanitation (CLTS) through the highly-theatrical ”triggering” process that was pioneered in Bangladesh in 2000. Krakoffi urged fellow villagers to dig pits for latrines and within a month of Assafou undergoing ”triggering”, 23 latrines were in the process of being built.

But introducing latrines can be complex in West Africa where some communities believe it is bad luck for women’s excrement to come into contact with men’s. That rule does not apply in Assafou but Krakoffi said some villagers were resistant to giving up open-air defecation. ”Nature provides,” he said. ”In our forests, we have leaves for tea when you have diarrhoea. We also have leaves that are softer than toilet paper, and twigs that serve as toothpicks and even toothbrushes.

“People have for generations snuck off into the bush to do their business, braving spirits, snakes and scorpions. Visitors know the code. They say: ‘When you have killed the chicken, where do you go to pluck it?’ and everyone understands that they wish to relieve themselves. For us, culturally, it is a big step to start talking openly about such things as defecation. It is embarrassing,” said Krakoffi who is now a firm believer in CLTS.

Contents

Even though the EU-funded UNICEF WASH initiatives have changed hundreds of thousands of lives in sub-Saharan Africa, they have not provided an MDG magic bullet for the countries concerned. The reason is that, in keeping with UNICEF policy, the initiatives have targetted the hardest-to-reach populations – the poorest of the rural poor.

In Burkina Faso, UNICEF WASH specialist Jean-Paul Ouédraogo explained; ”The job is huge. We have a good chance of reaching our water MDG as we have already achieved 76 per cent provision. But on sanitation, we started at a much lower point; the MDG is 54 per cent, and we are way off. The EU-UNICEF project is aimed at 75,000 people in three years. That is a good score but it is a drop in the ocean. The rural sanitation rate is currently about 10 per cent and, given the huge number of people that still needs to be reached, we will be lucky to reach 12 per cent by 2015.”

Yet reminders are constant of how urgent the need is for clean water and sanitation. In August, both Cameroon and Nigeria were dealing with their worst cholera outbreaks for several years.

But there are also moments of triumph that buoy campaigners for water and sanitation. Separate from WASH, a 20 million euro EU-UNICEF initiative in Ghana is close to declaring guinea worm eradicated, only four years after the country was listed as having the second-highest number of cases of the parasite in the world.

Chris Cormency, UNICEF’s regional adviser for WASH in Western and Central Africa, said more than 1,000 villages in the region had been declared ”open-defecation free” since the launch in late 2008. But he added that several issues still need to be addressed for water and sanitation efforts to move forward faster and more cohesively. ”Governments need to better coordinate and prioritize both water and sanitation in their national strategies. This has happened in Mali where the government now has viable plans that are interesting other donors to support and press on with WASH programmes.

“We also need to support governments to settle on one or two makes of pumps to allow easier spare part managment. More needs to be done to tackle the cost of drilling, in partnership with government and the private sector. In Chad, for example, UNICEF has helped train groups of manual drillers, including some demobilised child soldiers. They have now independently won contracts to drill for the EU,” said Cormency.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


In Eastern and Southern Africa, the WASH partnership between UNICEF and the EU began in Zambia in 2007. As a result, that country can now boast entire districts that have been declared ”open defecation free”. But WASH regional adviser David Delienne said approaches for ensuring reliable water provision and effective sanitation still need perfecting. ”We know that schools are a very good platforms for introducing handwashing but we still need to do more to ensure that we achieve true behaviour change. One idea could be to design latrines that include a handwashing area.

“While we have had great success in Zambia, neighbouring Zimbabwe has so many internally displaced people that it remains difficult to work there. In South Africa, four million people are practising open defecation and we believe the government should take on this problem. One of the advantages UNICEF has is that we can talk directly to government.”

Delienne also called for more ”reflection” over rural drinking-water provision. ”In countries where we see 30 per cent of pumps out of order, that is actually not good enough. We have gone from systems where governments were responsible for repairing pumps, to the privatization of pump maintenance. Recent experience suggests the pendulum has to swing back somewhat, so that governments have at least a supervisory role.”

An open and frank debate is under way among WASH specialists to improve a system that is already hailed as the best yet among efforts to secure reliable sanitation and clean water – thus improved health – for the poorest people in Africa.

It is three months since the heavens opened over Rapadama in rural Burkina Faso, and Zu-Noogo Noba came into the world. His mother, Catherine, gave birth at the dispensary, rather than at home, because UNICEF’s WASH partner had explained the advantages of an attended birth. Catherine was then encouraged to defy tradition and give Zu-Noogo her first milk – the immune-building colostrum. Clean hands and water, and washed greens, should become a routine in his life.

On condition that a few more good things come to him, he will be five years old in 2015. He will then have vanquished that awful statistic, called ”under-five mortality”, that means the first years of an African life still remain the hardest.

Contents

Population, 2008821,6 million

Under 5 mortality rate, 2008144 per thousand

MDG target31 per thousand

% of population using improved drinking-water sources, 200860% of population using improved sanitation facilities, 200831% of population practising open defecation, 200827

Sources:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/html

http://www.wssinfo.org

http://www.afro.who.int/en/countries.html

http://www.unicef.org/mdg/mortalitymultimedia/index.html

Sub-Saharan Africa

Scope of the EU-UNICEF WASH partnership

Comoros

Uganda

Benin

Guinea Conakry

Ghana

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire

Mozambique

Zimbabwe

Somalia

Kenya

Ethiopia

Sudan

Nigeria

Angola

CAR

EU-UNICEF partnership countries

Non-sub-Saharan countries

Sub-Saharan countries not partof the programme








Women Lead the Way

Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

in Burkina Faso



Population, 2008

15.23 million

Primary cause of death among under 5s1 Pneumonia2 Malaria

3 Diarrhoea

Under 5 mortality rate, 2008

201 per thousand

MDG target

69 per thousand

% of population using improved drinking-water sources, 200876% of population using improved sanitation facilities, 2008

11% of population practising open defecation, 2008

64

Burkina Faso

Ouagadougou

Ganzourgou

Gnagna

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Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Sanitation for all is still a distant dream in this Sahelian country, but a self-help project supported by political and traditional leaders has achieved memorable

results

Nurse Roland Nikiéma need only reach for a pile of dog-eared ledgers to produce evidence that his under-equipped rural dispensary is contributing towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

“If I compare, say, January 2009 and January 2010, the evidence is clear,” says the 26-year-old as he fumbles for the records in the half-light of the three-room clinic at Rapadama where he is single-handedly expected to serve the health needs of 10,000 of Burkina Faso’s poorest people.

The odds are against this landlocked Sahelian country of 15.23 million people, recently described as “ground zero” for climate change. Wedged between the Sahara desert and Côte d’Ivoire, a southern neighbour emerging from civil war, Burkina Faso is currently suffering the knock-on effects – especially price increases – of a food crisis in Niger, to the east.

Despite feeling tired after delivering three babies overnight, Nikiéma’s optimism grows as he peruses his ledgers. “When it comes to children with diarrhoea, I recorded 14 cases in January 2009 and only seven in the same month this year. Let’s try intestinal parasites. Here we are: We had eight of those in January 2009 and three in January 2010.”

It may be microscopic in scale but Nikiéma’s data provides tangible evidence that children in this village of Ganzourgou province, 150 kilometres from the capital Ouagadougou, are becoming healthier. Credit, says Nikiéma, goes to two grassroots organizations, CREPA (Centre Régional pour l’Eau Potable et l’Assainissement) and Chant de Femme. Since 2007, the two organizations have worked with UNICEF and 1.7 million euros’ funding from the European Union to change the sanitary habits of 75,000 people in the provinces of Ganzourgou, in the centre of the country, and Gnagna in the east, and bring safe water to within 500 metres of their homes.

Nikiéma has seen incredible changes in the short two years he has spent at Rapadama. “When I arrived in 2008, CREPA and Chant de Femme were getting down to work. CREPA was helping people build latrines and Chant de Femme was informing the women about how to improve sanitary practices.

Contents

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


“Now, apart from seeing fewer cases of vomiting and diarrhoea in children, I am noticing that the mothers have changed their behaviour. They come to the dispensary to have their babies, rather than giving birth at home. They now mostly complete their babies’ vaccinations and they talk to their husbands about family planning. The women have started monthly information groups and I am regularly called to answer questions about contraception and female circumcision. What has happened is tremendous. It should be expanded to all villages.”

Sociologist Ida Ouandaogo coordinates the sanitation programme in Ganzourgou for CREPA, a body that works in 17 West and Central African countries. In the past three years CREPA has made it possible for 8,000 homes in the pilot area to build latrines – 5,000 more than the project had envisaged. She says the success of the EU-UNICEF pilot programme lies in the fact that it has broad support. “It is very important to gain the moral backing of customary chiefs, of the mayors and councillors. And the crucial element holding everything together is the mobilization of women. It is they, after all, who not only fetch water and prepare food but who look after the children.”

Assèta Ilboudo, a 46-year-old mother of four children from Salogo village, does all of the above. She is also among more than 680 latrine-builders trained in bricklaying by CREPA in Ganzourgou and Gnagna. Most of the bricklayers are men but Salogo village – which has a woman mayor – was amenable enough to Ilboudo taking on the traditionally male job. “It is mostly the other women who say mixing cement and laying bricks is no job for a woman. But I just get on with it,” she says.

Ilboudo became a bricklayer by chance. “We had received a visit from CREPA at which they explained the advantages of latrines. They told us that our food was being poisoned by the children defecating in the fields outside the compound where we gather greens. My husband and I were immediately convinced and decided to dig a pit right away. CREPA came back on a visit with someone from UNICEF and they were so delighted that we had already dug our own pit that they asked whether I would like to learn to become a bricklayer,” said Ilboudo who lives with her farmer husband, his two other wives and a total of nine children.

Contents

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


CREPA’s rule is that in order to obtain the services of a trained bricklayer such as Ilboudo – whom the organization pays 50,000 CFA francs (80 euros) for each latrine she completes – residents must themselves dig their pit and purchase or collect the sand, gravel and bricks needed to build the small edifice.

Her latest clients, Mouni and Aminata Kaboré, say they became anxious to own a latrine after their sons, Adama, 12, and Oumarou, 14, explained the benefits of handwashing, hygiene and the privacy they enjoyed thanks to three new latrines that had been built at their school. The EU-UNICEF pilot project included building 80 latrines at primary schools in the area.

UNICEF water and sanitation officer Jean-Paul Ouédraogo cautioned that the Ganzourgou-Gnagna project was one small success story in a country beset with a “deeply worrying sanitary situation, high infant mortality, high childbirth and severe health challenges linked to sanitation and water”.

Burkina Faso set itself the goal of sanitation for 54 per cent of the population and clean water for 76 per cent of households by 2015. “We are close to achieving the goal for water access but on sanitation we are way behind. Fifty four per cent was an ambitious target given that, when we set out, the rural sanitation figure was about one per cent. We have made strides as a country but I doubt whether, taking into account both rural and urban sanitation, we have even reached 10 per cent access,” he said.

Ouédraogo warns that the work in Ganzourgou-Gnagna is not over. “Sensitising people implies responsibility. If you tell people the advantages of latrines, you have to be certain these will continue to be built and maintained for years to come. Similarly if you tell women to go to the clinic with their babies, then the vaccines have to be available and the health facilities functioning.”

Rapadama dispensary has no electricity. Wounds are dressed with bandages that are cut so as to avoid wasting a single centimetre. The young nurse and de-facto midwife, Roland Nikiéma, hardly ever gets a full night’s sleep between deliveries. Yet fuelled by optimism and the encouraging figures in his ledgers, he stoically ploughs on, dealing with a stream of malaria and pneumonia cases that would defeat some qualified doctors twice his age. Why? “It is obvious to see,” he says. “Things are getting better and better. It is exciting to be involved.”

Contents

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

THE RURAL CHALLENGEAgainst a backdrop of climate change and insufficient economic growth to accommodate the 400,000 new babies that are born every year, Burkina Faso will fall well short of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While the under-5 mortality rate had in 2007 fallen to 191 per thousand, against 206 per thousand in 1990, the MDG target is a far-off 69. Water provision has long been a government priority in the Sahelian country and Burkina Faso’s goal of clean water access for 76 per cent of rural and urban households by 2015 is close to being achieved. Previous attempts to introduce latrines have failed – mainly because these were provided without sufficient community involvement and hygiene training. There are examples from the past of latrines being built for communities and later being found being used as storage spaces, while open-air defecation continued. Given past failures, the ambition of bringing latrines to within everyday use of 54 per cent of the Burkinabé population will not be achieved, with most experts believing that a current figure of about 10 per cent is realistic, due to lack of progress in rural areas.

“The crucial element holding everything together is the mobilization of women. It is they, after all, who not only fetch water and prepare food but

who look after the children”

Ida Ouédraogo, CREPA coordinator of sanitation in Ganzourgou

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


• 75,000 people were targeted in Ganzourgou and Gnagna Provinces, including 250 water management committees.

• The aim was to build 3,000 household latrines. 8,000 have so far been built across the two provinces.

• The target was to build latrines in 80 primary schools. By August 2009, latrines had been completed in 57 schools.

• Since 2008, 72 wells have been drilled in Ganzourgou Province.

• 180 pumps have been supplied by UNICEF.

• 178 pumps have been repaired in both provinces.

• In the period, more than 2,000 pousse-pousses (carts to transport water) have been provided.

• 400 bricklayers have been trained in Ganzourgou.

• 286 bricklayers have been trained in Gnagna.

Key aspects of the programme

Contents

A PILOT PROJECT WITH NATIONAL POTENTIALIn Burkina Faso, the European Union provided 1.77 million euros of the 2.53 million total cost over three years. The pilot project was deployed in rural areas of the Provinces of Gnagna and Ganzourgou, about 150 kilometres from the capital Ouagadougou. The provinces are largely rural and inhabited by settled subsistence farmers whose survival has become more precarious due to population increases and changing rainfall patterns.

KEY PLAYERS: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE COMMUNITYIn three years, the project aimed to reach 75,000 people by means of linking the improvement of water access to hygiene training, through the work of local NGOs such as Chant de Femme and the regional body CREPA (Centre Régional pour l’Eau Potable et l’Assainissement). In line with Burkinabé government decentralization policies, mayors, local councillors and customary chiefs have been brought in as key players. This strategy not only respects traditional hierarchies but benefits the growth of democracy by giving cash-strapped locally-elected officials an opportunity to be seen to be directly involved in efforts to improve the lives of their constituents.

NOTHING FOR FREEVillagers have dug their own latrine pits and selected members of the community have been trained in latrine-building and water management so as to allow them to take charge of their new facilities and maintain them for many years to come. Bricklayers have been trained and are called on to build latrines once households have gathered sufficient materials. Among the newly trained bricklayers are women who, as a result of the project, have gained a new skill and therefore a means of supplementing household income.

BEYOND EXPECTATIONSIn 36 months, 72 boreholes have been sunk and 178 pumps repaired. Two thousand water carts (pousse-pousses) have been donated to allow several jerrycans to be transported at once. As a result of the initiative, 75,000 people including the pupils of 80 primary schools and the users of 20 clinics have gained regular access to drinking water.The most resounding success has come through the work of CREPA and Chant de Femme – grassroots organizations that have addressed community concerns head-on and engaged local politicians and customary chiefs in the process. Villagers have received support to build their own latrines. While the project’s target was to inspire 3,000 households to build latrines, 8,000 had been constructed by June 2010.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

MEGUETThe Naba Saaga (chief) of Meguet, with a servant. The chief is a fervent supporter of efforts to build latrines, provide drinking water for all and end female circumcision. His spotless compound stands as an example to the community of good hygiene practices.

Greens collected around the compound are rich in vitamins and essential minerals. However, they can prove to be a sanitary hazard in households where children in a hurry defecate or urinate only metres from home.

Fetching water is a woman’s job and girls take on this responsibility from a young age. UNICEF supports efforts to supply handcarts to lighten the burden.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


RAPADAMA VILLAGE 4After hundreds of people went blind here in the 1960s from river blindness, the area was considered cursed and was abandoned. In the 1970s, after the government declared the zone free from the disease, many inhabitants returned. UNICEF works in close partnership with Chant de Femme, a grassroots NGO that supports women’s groups in Ganzourgou Province. The groups meet monthly so that women can exchange useful hygiene and health information. As part of its work, Chant de Femme provides recipes for nutritious porridge made with local ingredients.

Chant de Femme coordinator Valentine Bakyono heads a team that ensures the entire community is informed about hygiene issues. Chant de Femme carries out workshops in villages that have yet to give up open-air defecation. Known as “triggering” the hands-on workshops graphically describe the dangers to health of faeces left out in the open. Inhabitants of successfully “triggered” villages tend, very rapidly, to start digging pits for latrines.

Bricklayer Moumini Soudré built 101 latrines in 2009 and 98 in 2010. He says it takes 12 days on average to complete a latrine – from digging the pit to completing the walls.

Q: What do you learn at school?ADAMA: We learn to read and write so that we can become the men of tomorrow.Q: And?OUMAROU: We learn that when you go to the toilet you must wash your hands very well and clean the toilet.

Adama Kaboré, 12, and his brother Oumarou, 14

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“Defecating in the open was unpleasant and dangerous. You had to clap your hands to make sure no one disturbed you. There were snakes. Some of us thought diarrhoea was a curse. Now we know it is carried by flies and by children who do

not wash their hands”

Urcile Ouédraogo, mother of four children and member of women’s group

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

SALOGOCommunities gather to attend training sessions on safe hygiene and sanitation practices.

Hygiene education starts early in this pre-school.

The mayor, Fatimata Kafando, heads a council that is made up of 50 per cent women. Her husband is the local chief. Here she is shown on a visit to outlying communities.

UNICEF provides “taxis” that are hand-drawn by teachers and parents to help get tiny tots to school.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Watch “Women Lead the Way”(click on the movie clip)

Contents

Watch a multimedia presentation on the key issues affecting Burkina Faso around Water , Sanitation & Hygiene

(click on the movie clip)

Credits

TextWriter : Alex Duval Smith

Design & Layout: Vivien Barnes

Translation: Halif Sarki

FilmVideographer: Leonie

Marinovich

Offline Editor: Greg Marinovich

Online Editor: Zana Marovic

Music: Rob Luce, The Cooler

Stills & MultimediaProducer:Leonie Marinovich

Stills: Leonie Marinovich

Video: Leonie Marinovich

Music: Kevin Macleod

©2010 UNICEF/EC

Produced by: storytaxi.com

This project is financed by the European Union

Sources:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/burkinafaso_statistics.html




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After the FireWater, Sanitation & Hygiene In Côte d’Ivoire

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid


Yamoussoukro

Abidjan

Zuenoula Sakassou

Dabakala

MankonoKatiola

BeoumiBouake

Population, 2008

20.6 million

Primary cause of death among under 5s1 Neonatal causes2 Pneumonia3 Malaria4 Diarrhoea


114 per thousand

MDG target

52 per thousand

% of population using improved drinking-water sources, 2008

80% of population using improved sanitation facilities, 2008


27

Côte d’Ivoire

http://www.unicef.org/cotedivoire/index.html


VIDEO & MULTIMEDIAA Matter of Pride


Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

A military rebellion in 2002 divided one of West Africa’s most stable countries and displaced up to 750,000 people. Now, amid political uncertainty, efforts are under way to restore damaged water sources and introduce sanitation to save lives

At a checkpoint on the road leading to Niéméné, three armed men in uniform are more interested in nursing their rebel looks than in staring down their gun sights. Eight years after Côte d’Ivoire split in two, with Bouaké as the command centre of the rebel-held north, life is haltingly returning to normal.

Water engineer Yao Marcellin Loukou, driving a European Union-branded truck in a convoy of white UNICEF vehicles, is waved through by the former rebels of the Forces Nouvelles. For Loukou, raising money to put fuel in his official car is an everyday challenge. “Most of the time we are just stuck in the office,” says the engineer who is one of three staff at the Bouaké branch of ONEP – the Office National d’Eau Potable (National Drinking Water Agency). “Before the war there were 30 of us at ONEP but many left and some unfortunately died. The offices were destroyed and only reopened recently thanks to a European Union (EU) grant. But most water projects are funded by donors and they generally feel the political situation is still too unstable. Yet the needs are huge. In this area alone, at least 600 new pumps are required.”

Côte d’Ivoire used to be the envy of West Africa. The proceeds of cocoa production filled government coffers and civil servants delivered services, including a functioning safety net for the poor. With World Bank support over decades, boreholes had been sunk on a vast scale. Fifteen years ago, it was a matter of pride that no more than 30 per cent of pumps in rural areas were ever out of order at a given time.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


But in the mid-1990s, politicians began manipulating the concept of “Ivoirité” (Ivorianness) by turning southerners against northerners. After a first coup d’état in 1999, then disputed elections the following year, President Laurent Gbagbo came to power. During an attempted coup in 2002, rebel soldiers failed to seize Abidjan but were successful in taking control of Bouaké and Korhogo, effectively splitting the country in two. The situation degenerated into civil war and the fighting left 3,000 dead and up to 750,000 displaced. Now, thanks to 8,500 UN peacekeepers and a political cohabitation agreement that has elevated Forces Nouvelles leader Guillaume Soro to prime minister, a semblance of national cohesiveness exists. But elections keep being delayed, leaving everyone – from government ministries and foreign donors to local business people, civil servants, doctors, nurses and teachers – unsure of what is coming next.

Contents

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


But on this day, something concrete is about to happen for the 3,000 people of Niéméné. Loukou is accompanied not only by UNICEF but by local politicians, partner NGOs and contractors. They bear blueprints that it takes two men to unfold, and tape measures reeled into large metal casings. This outpost of the département of Dabakala, 60 kilometres from Bouaké, is getting a “système d’hydrolique villageoise amélioré” (enhanced village water network), with pipes and taps linked to a bore-hole.

Contents

Villagers have gathered in the covered market place. Some, like water committee members Ya Karidioula and N’né Fofana, have dressed up. Sheets of A4 paper are handed round – a village map showing the primary school, the mosque, the dispensary and the market, as well as 45 numbered circles indicating taps. Today marks the start of the first visible work – the digging of pipe trenches and the marking out of the taps – since engineers in October 2009 found a reliable water source and sank a 102-metre-deep borehole. It had taken them 18 months and three previous attempts – each costing three million CFA francs (4,600 euros) – to strike lucky.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


“We have waited so long for water that we are really determined to make the system work. You can be sure that everyone will make regular financial contributions to the water committee,” said Karidioula, a hospital orderly from Bouaké who fled back to her native Niéméné in 2004. “The fighting was so frightening that many of us left our jobs and returned to our villages.”

Fofana, who has lived in Niéméné all her life, says her daily routine will change forever when she has a tap at home. “Life,” she says, “will be less tiring. You get up early, sweep the compound then head off to get water. We have about 50 traditional wells in the village but by 8am or 9am every day, they are dry. If you don’t get water early, you have to wait until after 1pm for the water level to have risen enough again to fill a bucket.

“We have a proper well, which is about 20 years old, but during the conflict it broke down. So the men removed the pump head and we have been using ropes and a bucket. But that well also dries up every morning, and using a rope is unhygienic because you can’t help it touching the ground and that allows germs to get into the water,” said Fofana.

Karidioula added that villagers had felt immense frustration at waiting since March 2008 and enduring three failed drilling attempts. “We received information about hygiene and clean water and how to prevent our children from getting sick but we still had to wait until now for the clean water.”

Contents

Niéméné is one of five villages in Dabakala to benefit from a 3.5 million euro EU-funded post-conflict programme, facilitated by UNICEF through partner NGOs, civil servants like Loukou and local administration. The money is also being spent, across 123 other villages over three years, on drilling 84 wells, restarting village water committees and building 465 demonstration latrines – largely in schools – to inspire thousands of families to follow suit.

The programme budget is spent on training a range of people – villagers, facilitators from NGOs, politicians, contractors and masons – as well as on buying materials. In parallel, in the départements of Dabakala, Mankono, Béoumi and Zuénoula, the EU is providing 70 per cent of funding for a two million euro programme of new pumps, refurbished traditional wells, a latrine-building drive and education about sanitation. There is overlap between the two efforts but at least 300,000 people – including at least 50,000 children under five – are set to benefit. The target, by January 2011, is for 85 per cent of people to have ready access to clean water and for three-quarters of them to be using latrines.

Loukou briefs the villagers on the work ahead. Later, he admits he has some worries. “I just hope the village water committee does its work and collects regular payments. In Côte d’Ivoire, people have become used to the State fixing broken pumps. Twenty years ago we tried to shift the onus to the villagers by introducing a payments system to provide the water committee with a budget to pay for pump spares and the services of a professional.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

One of Côte d’Ivoire’s greatest handicaps is that the lack of new elections has given rise to a cankerous stalemate in public life. But despite ongoing challenges over delivery, UNICEF and the EU, unlike others, have never left the country.

“For us the priority will always be the welfare of women and children,” said UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire’s water, sanitation and hygiene manager, Fiorella Polo.

The idea was good, but the profit margin on the spares was not sufficient to motivate hardware stores to stock them. So the repairmen could not get the parts, the system fell apart, and everyone went back to waiting for ONEP to come and fix their pumps.”

Local politician Onhué Ouattara, vice president of the regional council, enters the debate to reassure Loukou. “This time it will work,” says Ouattara. As an elected official with no resources to deliver on his own electoral promises, Ouattara welcomes the arrival of pumps and sanitation as progress of which he can reap partial political ownership. “The regional council will be the arbiter. Already, with UNICEF’s help, we are organizing the tender process which will see contractors selected by villages to maintain pumps. We as a regional council want to have a central role. That’s what local politicians are for.”

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


“We already have five pilot projects in Côte d’Ivoire where, for four years, a system of maintenance contracts – rather like the ones you would have for office printers – has seen villagers and repairers live up to their obligations. There are challenges, some of them very human like simply convincing people that paying for their water should be a priority, and others of a more structural nature. But over the past few months, we have seen local politicians take a growing interest, and that is a good sign for the future.”

EU head of infrastructure in Côte d’Ivoire Fabio Di Stefano says that water and sanitation programmes worth 75 million euros between 2003 and 2009 provided 8.5 million urban and rural people in Côte d’Ivoire with reliable access to water. “In the context of the crisis, working with UNICEF makes sense because thanks to their international status they have access to areas where others will not go. We have already made great progress and are now approaching pre-crisis levels of accessibility to water in rural areas.”

Contents

OUéRéGUéKAHA

Pegban and Apatcho Touré have had a tap outside their house for seven years. “It makes life a lot easier,” says Pegban who has seven children with his wife Apatcho, “but you do tend to use more water when you have it to hand, so it becomes a little expensive.” The generator running the village pump broke down four years ago, leaving the Tourés and the 63 other households with taps with no option but to use a manual pump 500 metres away. This year, they got their water back after the system was repaired by CREPA, a regional water body working with funding from the EU. Farmer Yacouba Touré maintains the generator and is tasked by the water committee with buying up to 300 litres of diesel each month. “I do the job voluntarily because the community has asked me to. But fetching fuel and looking after the generator takes me away from my field. It would be better if I could be paid a small salary,” he said.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire



•Through three water and sanitation partnerships between the EU, UNICEF and the Ministry of Infrastructure worth 6.2 million euros 1,200 villages have gained access to clean water and have built latrines.

•Now, around 30 per cent of pumps are out of order at any one time.

•In the two main partnerships between UNICEF and the EU, 200 villages and about 300,000 people are benefitting, including 50,000 children under the age of five.

•In those villages:

•290 pumps and water networks have been repaired.

•120 new boreholes have been sunk.

•420 bricklayers have been trained in latrine-building.

•More than 2,000 households have dug latrine pits.

•40 pump repairers have been trained.

•Targets:

•Improved water to 85 per cent of the population in the partnership area.

•Use of latrines to 75 per cent of people in the catchment area.

Contents

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


“We have waited so long for water that we are really determined to make the system work. You can be sure that everyone will contribute to the

water committee” Niéméné water committee member Ya Karidioula

Contents

DEFYING THE STALEMATEAmid ongoing political uncertainty in Côte d’Ivoire and confusion over when elections might be held, the current priority is to create conditions for life to return to normal for the estimated 750,000 people who were displaced after 2002. Schools in the north of the country need teachers. Hospitals and clinics require staff. Confidence needs to be restored among hundreds of civil servants who formerly were based in Bouaké and fled during the crisis to the safety of the capital, Yamoussoukro.The European Union (EU) and UNICEF have never left Côte d’Ivoire. Across all sectors, the EU has spent 488 million euros since 2003 on top of the bilateral cooperation contributions from its member states. The EU has joint projects with UNICEF in the sectors of health, education and humanitarian aid. One of the biggest shares of the EU’s spending – 106 million euros – has gone to water, sanitation and energy projects. Before the crisis, Côte d’Ivoire had the enviable record of only 30 per cent of all water pumps being out of order at any one time. A range of partnerships have now resulted in a return to the pre-conflict rate of pumps out of service. Nearly 1,200 villages in 19 départements have gained access to clean water, hygiene training and latrine-building schemes.

SPOTLIGHT ON TWO PROJECTSTwo of the EU-UNICEF projects began in March 2008. Worth 5.5 million euros, of which 4.7 million euros was provided by the EU, they cover more than 200 villages in seven départements – Bouaké, Béoumi, Dabakala, Mankono, Zuénoula, Katiola and Sakassou. The areas covered are largely rural and have seen vast population movements in the past eight years – ranging from people fleeing to the south of the country to an influx of people escaping violence in Bouaké and other urban centres. The displacements during the worst of the crisis led to village water committees falling apart and to broken pumps not being fixed. Villagers returned to collecting water from unsafe sources, such as rivers. Sanitation efforts were abandoned.

TWO PROJECTS, THOUSANDS OF LIVES CHANGEDAround 300,000 people have benefitted from the two projects which have seen 290 pumps and piped water networks repaired and 120 new boreholes drilled. More than 2,000 households have dug latrine pits, 40 pump repairers and 420 bricklayers have been trained. Within the two projects, the target is to provide access to improved water to 85 per cent of the population and use of latrines to 75 per cent of people living in the catchment areas.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


KOMOROSSOUUNICEF water and hygiene administrator Virginie Mahan leads a “triggering” workshop with children. She explains: “I first ask the children to trace an outline of the village on the ground. Then, using pieces of paper and stones, they indicate key buildings such as the school, the mosque and the church. I then ask the children to indicate places where others defecate in the open. This leads to a lot of giggling but eventually I get the information out of them. I then ask the children to take me on a tour of the village, to see spots were people defecate. When we have been round the village, we gather again and I offer the children glasses of water to drink. After a while, I pull a hair from my head and run it through a piece of excrement before dipping it in a glass of water and offering it round. I explain to the children that the hair is a similar vector of germs to a fly’s feet, and that food becomes contaminated through the insects’ flight. Contaminated food hurts the children’s tummies and I explain that latrines can help solve the problem. “What can you, as children, do to help?” I ask. In every village, the answers are different. In Komorossou, the children said they would help their parents collect sand and stones to build latrines,” said Mahan who has “triggered” 13 communities since June 2009, five of which have now been declared free from open-air defecation as a result of latrines being built by villagers.

During Mahan’s workshop with the children, adults watch a lively presentation on hygiene. They calculate that their village, in one year, produces 180 tonnes of excrement and that they spend 900,000 CFA francs (1,370 euros) on anti-diarrhoea medicines.

“I ask the children to indicate places where others defecate in the open. This leads to a lot of giggling”Virginie Mahan, UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire water, sanitation and hygiene officer

Contents

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


ASSAFOUVillagers dig pits for latrines after Assafou, in Sakassou district, underwent “triggering” in May 2010, as part of moves towards it being declared “open-defecation-free”. Villagers use local materials, such as date palm trunks, to build the floors of their latrines. Retired civil servant Dominique Krakoffi (right) emerged as a “natural leader” during the “triggering” process and has been driving the fast-track process to move all households in Assafou to latrine use. “Within two months of ‘triggering’ we have dug pits for 23 latrines. Four of them are ready,” he said.

“Villagers must build their own latrines. If people just turn up and construct them without explaining what they are for, the latrines get used as storage spaces”

Guibril Kamssoko, UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire water, sanitation and hygiene officer

Contents

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Watch “A Matter of Pride”(click on the movie clip)

Contents

Watch a multimedia presentation on the key issues affecting water, sanitation and hygiene in a post-conflict region


Credits




FilmVideographer: Greg

Marinovich





Stills: Thierry Gouegnon, Greg Marinovich

Video: Greg Marinovich

Music: Kevin MacLeod

©2010 UNICEF/EC



Sources:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cotedivoire.html





http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cotedivoire.html





Parched EarthWater, Sanitation & Hygiene In Ethiopia




Tigray

Amhara

Benisshangul-Gumaz

Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples

Gambela

Somali

Harari

DireDawa

Oromia

Addis Ababa

Population, 2008

80.7 million

Primary cause of death among under 5s

1 Diarrhoea2 Pneumonia3 Birth asphyxiaUnder 5 mortality rate, 2008

123 per thousand

MDG target

68 per thousand




60

Ethiopia

http://www.unicef.org/ethiopia

Tigray

Amhara

Benisshangul-Gumaz

Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples

Gambela

Somali

Harari

DireDawa

Oromia

Addis Ababa


AUDIOKinfe Zeru (UNICEF)

Denis Thieulin (EU)

Birki Schoolchildren

VIDEO & MULTIMEDIAParched Earth


http://www.unicef.org/ethiopia

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

Two thousand years ago, Tigray was a verdant kingdom in a trading powerhouse. Climate change and deforestation have turned it into a parched

landscape battling to reach the Millennium Development Goals.

Meles Gebregziabhere, 84, cannot remember how many great-grandchildren he has. But his memory is a treasure trove for the children who gather to hear his recollections of their village, Tsahilo, in northern Ethiopia.

“This was an evergreen area with many different kinds of indigenous trees, some of them tall. There were rivers!” he exclaims.

“We had adequate land for grazing our cattle and growing our crops. We could even plant slow-maturing crops like millet and sorghum, and we had two harvests every year. We had milk for everyone. “Those were very nice days.”

It is a good thing children believe in fairy tales. Tigray, the once-lush region that in the first millennium hosted a wealthy international trading empire, is now a dustbowl circled by jagged crystalline rocks swept bare of topsoil. Only pocket handkerchiefs of land are cultivated by 3.7 million rural people living among the humblest existences on the planet: Oxen draw ploughs, mud roofs remain more common than corrugated iron sheeting and, in homes, earthenware pots and bowls still have not been replaced by plastic.

In the past 30 years the Biblical landscape of Tigray has turned apocalyptic, as marching deforestation, coupled with the unpredictable rains of climate change, have pushed the environment to the limits of habitability. A key concern is how – against these odds – to bring water and sanitation to pastoralists and subsistence farmers whose survival becomes more precarious with every season that passes.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Six districts of Tigray and a further 72 in the rest of Ethiopia are currently being targeted by UNICEF, the European Union (EU) and the government in a 23.1 million Euro programme aimed at bringing water and sanitation to one million people in the five years leading up to 2011.

In the village of Chila, Letay Gebregiorgis, 32, used to have to get up before daybreak to collect water from a river that was sometimes polluted. She and her donkey braved hyenas and other dangers that stalk the valley in the half light of dawn. But in November 2009, under the EU-UNICEF initiative, a broken pump less than 15 minutes’ walk from her house was repaired. Earlier last year, after district officials supported by UNICEF came to the village and explained the benefits of sanitation, her husband built a latrine for her and their four children.

“The access to water and the latrine at home have meant great improvements to our lives,” says Gebregiorgis who is a member of the village water committee which – since the pump was rehabilitated – collects contributions towards its upkeep. “I use the pump water for baking njera (teff bread) and for food preparation. But to be economical, I still wash our clothes in the river. The biggest improvement has been in the family’s health. The children never get diarrhoea any more,” she says.

Contents

Epidemiological records show that before the EU-UNICEF programme got under way in 2006, 80 per cent of all diseases affecting children in targeted areas were a result of lacking water and sanitation. One of the objectives of the sanitation programme is to reduce rates of diarrhoea and trachoma by 40 per cent. In Ethiopia, the under-5 mortality rate is 123 per thousand and nearly half those deaths (46 per cent) are as a result of diarrhoea.

Illnesses linked to poor sanitation not only keep children out of school on sick days but are known – in the case of parasitic amoebas – to impair their ability to learn. Schools have been a focal point of the EU-UNICEF effort in Tigray, with 156 of them having been equipped with girls’ and boys’ latrines.

At the top of a parched hill, 40 kilometres from Mek’ele, headmaster Getachew Kiros talks with pride of how the EU-UNICEF’s sanitation programme – including the building of latrines and the introduction of entertaining activities teaching handwashing and hygiene – has changed the fortunes of Birki school. “We started in 1998 with 70 pupils from two villages. Since then, 824 children have passed through and recently we have expanded the curriculum. Since 2009, when we began our water and sanitation activities, the learning environment has improved enormously. Clean children hold themselves better and seem more keen to be good students.”

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Since 2006 in Tigray, the influence of the EU-UNICEF partnership – in particular the hygiene training and the construction of demonstration latrines – has encouraged more than 750,000 households to build their own facilities. As a result the number of homes with latrines has increased from 60 per cent to 90 per cent. Gebrehiwot Smur, the acting administrator for Kilte-Awelailo, says the programme – which has hinged, for implementation, on the support of his staff – has produced tangible results. “In our district since 2006, we have seen a reduction of 64 per cent in cases of communicable diseases while 74 per cent of people have gained access to safe water.”

Contents

In a country where 80 per cent of the population remains rural, the overall number of people with access to clean water stands at around 52 per cent. Denis Thieulin, head of cooperation at the EU Delegation in Addis Ababa, said the figure marks a great improvement. “In 2000 coverage was about 28 per cent so the situation is already twice as good as it was. But we are still a long way from the target of 85 per cent. Despite government enthusiasm for working towards the Millennium Development Goals, one of the challenges we have faced is the lack of capacity in the local administration,” he said.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

Another challenge, in a country where climate change is so brutal, is to convince sceptics of the viability of bringing water and sanitation to people living in a dustbowl. UNICEF water and sanitation officer Kinfe Zeru admits to sometimes asking himself the question. But he adds: “The way we are working is the best approach to ensure our work is sustainable. We are not simply turning up and building shallow wells or latrines for people. When drilling machinery needs to get through, the community builds the access road. When households are helped to construct latrines, they supply their own stones and sand. The communities have even, themselves, devised latrine ventilation made from a stem of sisal.

Listen to UNICEF WASH officer, Kinfe Zeru, talk about whether their efforts will be

worthwhile, given the rapid deterioration of the environment in Tigray

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

“We are working with climate change in mind. Our shallow wells generally go at least to 50 metres, which should protect them from drought. In some places we are able to introduce micro dams and we are finding, through them, that springs are returning. I very much hope that our work will not only prove to be sustainable but will help reverse the environmental degradation in Tigray.”

To the old storyteller in Tsahilo, the environmental degradation in Tigray is God’s work. But Meles Gebregziabhere nevertheless holds up a glimmer of hope for his great grandchildren: “What has happened is God’s work because humans did something to make him angry. Humans now must make him feel happy again.”

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

A REGION ON THE BRINKTigray’s lowest point is 700 metres above sea level and 80 per cent of its 4.6 million people are rural. Their need for clean water and sanitation is considered particularly urgent due to the devastating effect of climate change on the landscape and population. Since 2006, the European Union has been supporting UNICEF water, hygiene and sanitation projects countrywide – in 78 woredas (districts) of Ethiopia’s nine regions. As part of an accelerated programme towards achieving Ethiopia’s MDGs for water and sanitation, the EU has contributed 10.8 million euros, out of the total 21.6 million euro cost of UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene programmes targeting 1.4 million people countrywide. Ethiopia’s ambition for the Millennium Development Goals was to extend clean water to 85 per cent of the population. By 2008, coverage was about 52 per cent, up from 28 per cent in 2000. UNICEF’s water, hygiene and sanitation teams are working in eight districts of Tigray and five of the district projects are supported by the EU.

A POWERHOUSE OF ANTIQUITYThe apocalyptic landscape that is Tigray today jars with its historical heritage. In classical Antiquity – the millennium that included the birth of Christ – its main city, Axum, headed a kingdom that was the most powerful Red Sea state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia. The Axumite Kingdom traded with Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, India and Ceylon and adopted Christianity in the 4th century. Axum’s Saint Mary of Tseyon (Zion) is, according to Ethiopian tradition, the repository of the biblical Ark of the Covenant.

THE FALL OF AN EMPIRENo one can date the decline of Tigray but as recently as the 19th century, Emperor Johannes IV had a throne the size of a house built for himself by an Italian carpenter using locally-grown juniper wood. It stands today in a museum in the administrative capital, Mek’ele, and is evidence that the excesses of empire may be the root cause of the deforestation that began destroying Tigray even before climate change compounded the environmental crisis. In 1985, pop stars Bob Geldof and Midge Ure organized Live Aid to raise funds for famine relief for the area.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Listen to Denis Thieulin, Head of co-operation at the EU in Addis Abeba,about the EU-

UNICEF partnership in Ethiopia.

PARTNERSHIP WITH GOVERNMENTIn keeping with European Union policy to work hand-in-hand with government and thus to increase service delivery capacity, the EU-UNICEF scheme depends for its implementation on active input from district administrators and their staff. Under the Ethiopian government’s Universal Access Plan, tens of thousands of health extension workers have been trained at kebele (sub-district) level. Past efforts to encourage households to build latrines using slabs provided by government were largely unsuccessful, prompting the government to switch from subsidy to the UNICEF method of community empowerment.

Illnesses linked to poor sanitation keep children out of school on sick days and can impair their ability to learn. With EU support, UNICEF has equipped 25 schools in Tigray with

girls’ and boys’ latrines.

“Since we began our water and sanitation activities, the learning environment has improved. Clean children hold themselves better and seem more keen to be good students”

- School headmaster Getachew Kiros

Contents

UNICEF has constructed girls and boys’ latrines at 25 schools in Tigray.

Since this school introduced lessons and games around the subject of water and sanitation, teachers have noticed an overall

improvement in school attendance and in children’s desire to study. Children bring water containers to school for drinking water and

often arrive in class at midday after a morning of doing household chores or working in the fields.

AT SCHOOL

Schoolgirl Askual Gebremeden (in the background) and her younger sister. The 18-year-old dropped out of school to work in the fields

but later regretted her decision. Girls who have access to latrines at school are more likely to finish their education.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Since 2006when EU/UNICEF-supported health extension work began in five districts of Tigray, more than 30,000 latrines have been built.

Percentage of households in the five districts which now have latrines:•Hawzien, 66 per cent•Alaje, 72 per cent•Emokeni, 81 per cent•Enderta, 87 per cent•H/Wajirat, 90 per cent

•924 water, sanitation and hygiene committee members, pump operators and community representatives have been trained.

•74 shallow wells drilled and equipped with hand pumps.

•33 wells dug and equipped with hand pumps.

•32 on spot springs developed.•14 existing water supply schemes rehabilitated.

Contents

Listen to toddlers sing in Tigrinya about washing their hands.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Watch a 5-minute documentary : Parched Earth(click on the movie clip)

Contents

Watch a short multimedia presentation of the key issues around the EU-UNICEF programme in Tigray, Ethiopia.


Credits




FilmVideographer: Dusko Marovic






Video: Dusko Marovic

Music: Kevin MacLeod

©2010 UNICEF/EC



Sources:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ethiopia.html



http://www.unicef.org/mdg/mortalitymultimedia/

index.html

http://incompetech.com


http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ethiopia.html





Forest of the FathersWater, Sanitation & Hygiene In Kenya




Nairobi

Mandera

Wajir

Garissa

Ijara

Tana River

Isiolo

MoyaleIsiolo

Samburu

Laikipia

Population, 2008

38.8 million


1 Diarrhoea2 Pneumonia3 MalariaUnder 5 mortality rate, 2008

121 per thousand

MDG target

32 per thousand




15

Kenya

http://www.unicef.org/kenya/


AUDIOZissimos Vergos (EU)

Ally Tifow (UNICEF)

Mark Leagile (CODES)

Samburu women

VIDEO & MULTIMEDIAForest of the Fathers


Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Contents

Effective water management presents particular challenges among pastoralists who are moving into sedentary living in one the most remote

areas of Africa

Zebras and elephants roam among the cattle and goats. Lolpulelei is 200 kilometres from the nearest tar road and the preoccupations of the pastoralists who live here are a million miles from the busy minds of politicians in faraway Nairobi. Yet teacher Mary Kaoni’s day is every bit as hectic as theirs.

“It is a bit too much,” says the 36-year-old mother of six children, as she describes a routine that starts before daybreak on her homestead, among 35 goats, 18 sheep and two cows she shares with her brother. “I first check on my animals and milk them. Then I walk up to the water tank and check how much is in it. If it needs filling, I go to the school and turn on the generator for the pump before attending to my morning pupils. After lunch, I check the tank again and if it still needs filling, I restart the machine and let it run while I am teaching my young shepherds, from 3pm to 7pm.”

As a result of educational opportunities but also economics and the weather, Kaoni and the 200,000 other Samburus have gradually moved away from the nomadic lifestyle that defines their pastoralist identity. But the infrastructure and governance structures necessary to sedentary living are not in place in semi-arid Northern Kenya. Working with community-based organizations, UNICEF – backed by 1.8 million euros’ funding from the European Union (EU) – is helping the Samburus to bridge the gap.

Kaoni’s heavy workload is the price she pays for being part of a transition that pits young against old, educated against illiterate, and which questions long-established gender roles. Because she went to school, she is Lolpulelei’s teacher. Because she can keep records, she has been chosen to be the volunteer water attendant. All this in a community that, within living memory, relied on the free bounty of flowing rivers, and considered it more important to quench livestock thirst than to find clean water for humans.“Sometimes I spend my whole day by the pump. When I need fuel for the generator it is an 80 kilometre round trip to Maralal and I have to walk and take public transport. It takes two days to get there and back, and I go about once a month,” she says.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


Kaoni became Lolpulelei’s water attendant in October 2009 after a major scandal in the community. Mark Leagile, community organizer for CODES (Community Organization for Development Support) explains: “Elders who were collecting contributions for pump maintenance and diesel purchases were found to have embezzled money. With support from the EU and UNICEF we came in and trained the community to understand their rights and know how to manage their water system.

“This prompted a group of women, including Mary Kaoni, to tackle the elders,” said Leagile, himself a Samburu. “The women called a meeting of the community and argued that water is women’s responsibility because it is they who collect it for the homestead. They asked the elders to give them a chance, offering to hand back responsibility if the community was unhappy.”

CODES, which has worked in the area since 2002, arranged training for Kaoni. The busy teacher now keeps books and has opened a bank account on behalf of the water committee. “In Lolpulelei, the people have turned things around but in the three districts where we are working, three-quarters of community water committees are corrupt. We need every community to hand over water management to women because they are more honest than the men,” says Leagile.

Contents

An added problem in Northern Kenya – an area neglected since before independence for being deemed “low-potential” for agriculture – is poor governance. Leagile says: “The 2002 Water Act contains a system of checks and balances so that people can be taken to court if they are abusing funds. But it is just not happening. The only tool we have, unless water boards act, is to empower women and give communities as much information as possible.”

Among the tools used by CODES is Serian FM, a community radio station in Maralal that, partly with funding from the UNICEF initiative, broadcasts messages about water and sanitation, and rallies listeners to put pressure on the local authority to improve the environment.

Besides focusing on the important role of women in water provision, the UNICEF programme – which totals 2.4 million euros thanks to added support from the Swedish development agency, SIDA, and UNICEF itself, in addition to the EU funding – takes care not to sideline Samburu men.

Burkina Faso

Côte d’Ivoire


A few hundred metres from Kaoni’s home, in a clearing by a wood, CODES project manager Joseph Lepariyo leads a meeting of elders. The men, some of them dressed in traditional crimson wraps, engage in lengthy greetings before humming a prayer and incanting “ngai” (God) through rhythmical movements of their sticks and spears.

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For the first time in two years, the prayers worked this year, and the “short rains” of April came. Nevertheless, it is clear that pressure on the land is huge. “Two weeks ago Pokot rustlers came and took 30,000 of our cattle. We launched a counter-raid and recovered maybe 4,000 of them. But times are hard for us,” said Philip Lekimaroro, aged 43, who lost 45 of his own animals.

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Mary Kaoni leads the women in her community in song

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Lepariyo says that even though cattle-rustling is an age-old pastoralist tradition, rivalries between communities have worsened – and become more violent – due to pressure on the land caused by increasingly severe droughts. “The need for pasture has forced the pastoralists to take cattle into the forests. By doing so they destroy the catchments. We are explaining to the men that they should protect their catchment. If they do, the water systems downstream where their cattle drink and the borehole they depend on for drinking water will be replenished by percolation from this forest. The elders seem enthusiastic, and so are we. Despite all the challenges the Samburus face in this area, the water system can be sustainable if it is properly managed and if the catchment is protected.”

EU Head of Infrastructure, Zissimos Vergos, in Nairobi, on the programme.

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Despite her extensive commitments and the long days she has to endure, Mary Kaoni says she will continue in her volunteer role, chiefly because of the health benefits she has seen in her community. “I would like some support but if that is not possible I will still carry on. We used to have a hand pump that had been put there by the government. But the supply was not very reliable. It was a long way for women to walk and some of them miscarried or suffered other injuries from the carrying.

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“Since the EU gave us a generator last year, 600 families have been benefitting from clean water. There have been plenty of improvements – we can tell because one community not far from here is still drinking the same water as the animals and their children have coughing and vomiting and diarrhoea like we used to. I wish we could have pipes on our system so that we could supply them, too.”

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A CULTURE IN TURMOILThe 200,000 Samburus, who live in Kenya just north of the Equator, are related to the better-known Maasai. The isolation of the Samburu National Reserve, where many of them live, has protected many of the tribe’s ancient pastoral traditions. But the reserve was only created because the land it occupies was considered sub-standard for agriculture.

In recent years, the exposure of growing numbers of Samburus to education, to migrant work opportunities and certain comforts of sedentary life has spawned tensions between generations and between men and women. Environmental pressures on the land have heightened rivalry with neighbouring pastoralist tribes, such as the Pokot. On both sides, cattle-rustling forays are now led by men armed not only with spears but with rifles.

The Samburu men and women wear bright cloth and many necklaces, bracelets and anklets. A girl chosen for marriage will be given a string of beads by her suitor. The beads will be gradually increased in number until they can be sown into a large collar. The tribe’s initiates, the moran, pay particular attention to their appearance. They wear their hair in long braids which they shave off when they become elders. The moran are the watchmen of the tribe’s cattle, goats and sheep and traditionally lead a harsh and highly disciplined existence – characterized by a ban on contact with the opposite sex – in the wilderness. But educational opportunities and economic pressures have curtailed the amount of time young men spend as moran. It is not unusual for a modern moran to eat at his mother’s homestead – an unthinkable practice a few generations ago when the initiates were expected to hunt their own food and consume it in isolation from the community.

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SUPPORT THROUGH THE TRANSITION

As part of a partnership between the European Union (EU) and UNICEF, the Samburus are being supported in their adaptation to a settled existence on arid and semi-arid land. Started in 2006, a 2.37 million euro programme – 75 per cent or 1.8 million euros of it from the EU – centres on the provision of water in 10 drought-prone areas. Target-access is set at 1km from each dwelling or a maximum 30 minutes’ round trip. Household sanitation is targeted at within 30 metres of the dwelling. The project also extends to supporting settled people further south – the Borana and Turkana communities, near Gambela.

MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE

The tangible benefits of water and sanitation are what could be termed the “above the line” aspect of the programme which is facilitated by two community-based organizations, CODES (Community Organisation for Development Support) and FONI (Friends of Nomads International). But given the arid climate and lack of infrastructure in the area, strong emphasis has been placed on sustainability and, crucially, management. Recent reforms in the Kenyan water sector are intended to decentralise management of water resources by creating new institutional infrastructure. However, many of the institutions are in their infancy or have proved still-born, and do not have the capacity to effectively translate policy objectives into action. Thus, the EU-UNICEF programme places a major emphasis on supporting capacity development for the institutions and communities.

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“People did not realise that drinking river water was causing them to spend money on hospital bills because family members were falling ill”

Hussein Yussuf, project officer for FONI

Listen to UNICEF WASH specialist, Ally Tifow, explain how Serian FM, a community radio station, helps spread the message of water and sanitation in remote Samburu district.

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Near Isiolo, at Gambela, community-based organization FONI is working with members of the Borana tribe to put in place a water-management system. Pump attendant Ibrahim Racho was chosen for the job after the 52-year-old played a heroic role during a Turkana raid in 2007.

“People ran away but I decided to stay behind to protect the water. After that the community said my role was to look after the water but to be

honest I would like someone else to take over now so that I can go back to my tomatoes.”

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At Kambi Juu, a dynamic 27-year-old Borana community organizer, John Ekai, is working hand in hand with FONI, under the EU-UNICEF scheme – to enrich sub-standard farming land. Over an area of 200 hectares, 100 farmers are cooperating in a programme of works that includes digging rainwater harvesting dams and laying a grid of piped irrigation. The dam in the picture behind Ekai is the size of a football pitch and was dug by 273 people in the space of six hours. “We grow maize, beans, fodder crop, tomatoes and onions and we have introduced sorghum because it is fast-growing,” said Ekai who is secretary of the scheme. Ekai is one of a number of young Boranas who went to school and entered professions – in his case computer science – before deciding to return to their rural roots.

SEEDS OF CHANGE

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•Key aspects of for arid and semi-arid areas of Northern Kenya:

•The project covers 10 districts. Total funding is 2.37 million euros, of which the EU gives 1.8 million euros or 75 per cent. SIDA (Sweden) gives 20 per cent and UNICEF gives five per cent. The target is to provide water to within 1km of dwelling and household sanitation within 30 metres.

•The programme, targeting 400 communities, started in 2006 for three years. The programme is a partner project on water management and governance for the poor in northern Kenya.

•UNICEF did an evaluation at the end of the third year, 2009. It found that about 70 per cent of intended districts had been reached. An acceleration plan was activated to ensure 100 per cent coverage by now.

•Estimates of improved water and sanitation coverage for Kenya in 2002 were 62 per cent for drinking water and 48 per cent for sanitation.

•A survey by Oxfam in 2003 found that 69 per cent of people in northern Turkana had less than 5 litres of water per day while only 25 per cent had between five and 10 litres. In the same survey, the sanitation coverage in North Eastern Kenya was 23 per cent with Wajir district having only 15 per cent coverage.

In semi-arid Northern Kenya, the EU-UNICEF partnership focuses strongly on protection of catchment areas. At regular meetings Joseph Lepariyo, 47, of community-based organization CODES explains to Samburu elders that by taking cattle into the meagre forest they have, they risk destroying catchment areas.

As a result of the meetings, elders now patrol the forest, looking out for people who might attempt to collect firewood there. They also make sure that no one in the community allows cattle to use water points among the trees, nor is anyone allowed to live there.

Listen to CODES programme officer Mark Leagile explain how he convinced the Samburus of the need for clean water

Contents

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Watch “Forest of the Fathers”(click on the movie clip)

Contents

Watch a multimedia presentation on the key issues affecting Kenya around Water & Health(click on the movie clip)

Credits




FilmVideographer: Tom Marais





Video: Tom Marais

©2010 UNICEF/EC



Sources:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kenya.html





http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kenya.html





Esther’s Crusade

Water, Sanitation & Hygiene in

Nigeria



Abuja

Kano

JigawaYobe

Osun

Cross River

Anam

bra

Population, 2008

149.1 million


1 Malaria

2 Diarrhoea

3 Pneumonia


157 per thousand

MDG target

77 per thousand


54.2% of population using improved sanitation facilities, 2008

31.2% of population practising open defecation, 2008

30.8

Nigeria

http://www.unicef.org/nigeria/


AUDIOSaaondo Anom (UNICEF)

Pierre Philippe (EU)

Eko Atu (Cross River State)

VIDEO & MULTIMEDIAEsther’s War


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In Cross River State, a group of dedicated people are trying to save their nation’s children. It is a daunting task, given that about a million children

under five die every year in Nigeria due to poor health and sanitation

Esther Etowa’s lively face is quick to break into an engaging smile. Yet her deep voice can change in a flash from a comforting murmur into a boom that can be heard across the width and breadth of a village. It is a quality that can be very useful to Esther’s personal calling.

She has made it her life’s work to still the crying of children and the weeping of mothers who have lost their children to water-borne disease.

“There may be a day when you come to the community, you hear people crying – one cry here, one cry there, one cry here. A lot of children are dying.”

UNICEF figures show that Nigeria alone can account for 12 per cent of all child deaths under five. This means that every day 2893 children under five die in Nigeria. Most of these lives could be saved through low-cost prevention and treatment measures.

Etowa looks down at her hands as those cries echo in her memory.

“I look at the way they (men) treat women, children – they don’t value children. I have that passion for women and children. I’ve been looking for a way to put smiles on their faces.”

Etowa began mobilizing women to talk “woman talk” in 1997. Ten years later, so many women had joined her society that she registered it as a community-based organization, and WERI (Women Empowerment and Rights Initiative) was born. Her Eureka moment came in 2008, when she was invited to attend a workshop on a new programme aimed at bringing better sanitation, hygiene and safe water to the most vulnerable rural communities. In the heart of the verdant, steaming Cross River State of southern Nigeria, this dynamic 50 year old found the perfect vehicle to empower her to tackle head-on the biggest killer of Nigerian women and children – water sullied by human faeces.

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Of the 149.1 million people who are estimated to live in the world’s eighth most populous country, 103 million do not have access to toilet facilities. As a consequence open defecation is rife in Nigeria. This in turn leads to water sources being highly contaminated, as Eko Atu, the director general for rural development in Cross River State explains: “The issue of water is the issue of sanitation. Most of our communities live by the river, and the tendency for most of those communities is to use the river – defecating into it which is not hygienic.”

A revolutionary approach to achieving sanitation was to be flexible about what a “minimum standard” toilet should be: it did not have to be a cement slab–covered pit latrine with brick walls; it could be any kind of facility that broke the “fly to food” cycle: in other words, one that made faeces inaccessible to flies which then spread contamination– and that everyone in the community used one (and no-one defecated in the open any more). The goal of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is to have complete involvement from communities, as Atu states: “The communities themselves have been able to buy into the initiative. It is not a government project. If you go out there, you will see that they have taken ownership of the project. It is the communities themselves that drive the whole process.”

Buy-in - that is what Etowa and the programme’s first contacts with a community aim to achieve.Often the contact starts at the local school, an approach that the district water board now includes in its overall policy. Atu explains: “You don’t have a school in (self-selected communities) in Cross River State without water sanitation facilities... where school children are taught to wash their hands after using the toilet.”

The platform is set by providing children with latrines, clean water and soap at schools, coupled with the knowledge to protect themselves and members of their families, against diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid, pneumonia and other waterborne diseases.

Then the children take this message home.

From here, the water and sanitation partnership between UNICEF, the European Union, local government and community-based organizations move into homes. Once a community invites Etowa and the team in, the first step is an introduction to the problem.

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Despite the obvious nature of the problem to outsiders, the way of the forefathers holds great sway, especially in rural and socially-excluded communities. Many traditionalists say that the ancestral spirits would be upset should the practice of defecating in the bush cease. Sometimes they face extremely hostile communities who refuse to entertain the idea of change – Etowa described some of these meetings as akin to a war.

She is not one to shrink from a challenge and once she has her foot in the door, she ensures that a simple yet crucial walk takes place. The community take the visitors on a tour of the village, and point out where they defecate, thus working out the relationship between these places and their water sources.

“Let them see for themselves what is their problem, not us coming to tell them. They themselves are ashamed. The walk really triggers people to shame and disgust,” says Etowa.

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The emotions felt by people is often the trigger a community needs to bring about change. Initially, not all community members may be convinced of the need to change their ancestors’ ways, but the social pressure brought to bear by their neighbours is often the major catalyst for committing themselves to ending open defecation. Using whatever materials are available locally, and the construction methods of the area, the villagers pitch in and support each other, to ensure every family has its own latrine.

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As a consequence, these low-tech interventions have lead to a noticeable decline in child mortality, decreasing year on year from 1990 to 2008 by about 1.2 per cent.

As Director General Atu notes, “We have seen that where we are currently intervening, we haven’t reported any incidents of diarrhoea or cholera in those communities.”

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Since 2008, more than 38,467 latrines have been built in 836 participating communities. One hundred and eleven of these communities have attained the goal of being declared free of open defecation in the six states supported by European Union funding.

The EU-UNICEF collaboration tackles is sustainable access to water, oneof the Millennium Development Goals – 69 million Nigerians do not have access to safe water. In fact, the numbers are probably higher, as it is estimated that about 40 per cent rural water supply systems across the country are not in operation due to lack of proper maintenance.

Onun Usani, the WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) coordinator in the Yakurr local government, believes that the reason for this is that communities that are not involved in decision-making or control of mutual assets tend to take no responsibility for them as a result: “We are trying to give them a sense of ownership, that they own this programme, and by the time we withdraw, they should stand on their own”.

Contents

“Anything that is given to you is your own property, because government does not come to use this water. We make the community adopt community by-laws to protect whatever government has given them. We involve them. We made them realize that it is their property and they have to jealously guard it.”

Through this initiative, by July 2011 about 1,000 communities and 120 schools will receive a sustainable supply of potable water. More than 1.2 million people who never had access to safe water before will enjoy nature’s most fundamental gift without fear of disease. These communities – usually the most vulnerable and isolated – have chosen to take charge of their sanitation and water supply. A sense of ownership and pride will ensure that the enterprise and ingenuity of Nigerians will safeguard and build on these foundations.

Usani feels that his work is fulfilling: “I seem to be more comfortable with what I’m doing because something tells me that I am keeping life, I am saving life. I’m contributing my quota to humanity.”

And just as with Usani, the project has found its perfect evangelist in Etowa: “My happiness is that women are happy; children are happy when they see us. They are happy that they are now healthy and that there are now no more deaths. They give us the testimonies – there is no record of cholera this year, no record of typhoid. I feel happy, I mean it’s like the sky is my limit!”

“We don’t have drinking water. We search for water like we are searching for God” Mrs Ikwo Okoi Ofem, Ugbekuma village

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THE CHALLENGE AND ITS IMPACT An estimated 103 million Nigerians do not have access to basic sanitation facilities and 69 million do not have access to potable water.Simply providing communities with a supply of safe water is not an adequate solution in the eighth most populated country in the world. Contamination resulting from open defecation and poor hygiene habits turn this source of life into a deadly cocktail of water-borne diseases, such as Guinea worm, cholera, diarrhoea and dysentery.Besides the health issues associated with lack of water and sanitation, girls’ education and security are also affected. Walking long distances, especially in rural areas, not only exposes girls and women to unacceptable hazards, but the time it can take to collect water often keeps girls out of school, while boys are free to attend classes.

THE TARGETTo attain Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 (reduce child mortality) and MDG 7c (reduce by 50 per cent the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and safe means of excreta disposal), the EU- UNICEF project aims to reach 1.27 million people in more than 1,000 rural communities in six states.Currently 58 per cent of the population has access to improved water sources – up from 47 per cent in 1990. Most of the improvement has been in rural areas where people can get safe water through household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and rainwater collection.Improved sanitation facilities provided by installing connections to public sewers and septic systems, pour-flush latrines, simple pit latrines and ventilated improved pit latrines, have not led to the same improvements. In fact the situation has worsened, bringing sanitation use down by five per cent from 37 per cent in 1990, to 32 per cent in 2008.Globally, open defecation has declined from 25% in 1990 to 17% in 2008, but in Nigeria open defecation declined from 25% in 1990 to 22% in 2008.

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THE EU-UNICEF WASH PROGRAMME –

A MULTI-PRONGED APPROACHA main priority of the programme is to boost child survival, protecting the health of pregnant and older women, and relieving women and children of some of the drudgery associated with collecting water. At the top level, UNICEF is collaborating with government at all levels to not only set standards for water and sanitation, but to ensure that this progress is sustainable through the introduction of innovative approaches, such as community-led total sanitation (CLTS). Communities are directly affected by the quality of their environment, so members are encouraged to take ownership for their own well-being and health. Schools are involved in the process of inculcating good hygiene practice among children. Environmental health clubs are set up to involve children in the management of water and sanitation facilities in their communities.On a more practical level, artisans are trained to operate and maintain water supply systems to keep them working in the long term.

“Women suffer more than men when it comes to issues of water. They go in search of water to cook, to give to their husbands, to bath their children. When there is scarcity of water, a woman suffers more”

Saaondo Anom, WASH specialist, UNICEF

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AJERE BEACH A cultural troupe from Ajere. Ajere Beach is a community that has achieved ODF (Open Defecation Free) status. This means that the provision of water can proceed with the knowledge that it will remain safe against contamination by human excreta.

Often behavioural change is met with resistance in the community, a situation Esther Etowa describes as “akin to war”, when villagers claim that their ancestors lived to a ripe old age, living the same way they do.

Cassava is processed to make “garri”, a staple in southern Nigeria. This is a labour intensive process that involves peeling the tubers, washing, then grating or mashing it to produce a mash. The mash is placed in a porous bag, allowed to ferment and then sifted and roasted. The dry garri can be stored for long periods. When garri-makers are able to access clean water close to where they work, time they would otherwise use fetching water from far away can be used to increase production (and income) – or send girls to school.

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Hon. Eko Atu, Director General of Rural Development for Cross River State, talks about the relationship between government and communties

Contents

UGBEKUMAUgbekuma is a peri-urban village surrounded by eight other villages in a community that forms part of a bigger council ward in Yakurr LGA. Because these communities are so close together, it is imperative that the whole ward give up open defecation. If open defecation continues in the surrounding areas, this stream will continue to be contaminated, putting children’s lives at risk.

A boy gets water from an unprotected well in the village. Water pumps in the village have not been working for some time, forcing villagers to use compromised water sources.

This cross-bar latrine is already one step up from open defecation, but the high number of people making use of the facility make it impossible to improve the hygiene of the community. No hand-washing facilities are provided and with human faeces left uncovered, flies and other insects continue to spread disease through the community.

The aim is for each household to have their own improved latrines, like this covered pit latrine.

Hon. Eko Atu, Director General of Rural Development for Cross River State, talks about the relationship between government and communties

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INYIMAInyima is one of the original 21 self-selected communities in Yakurr LGA that has been part of the programme since 2005. As part of the holistic approach favoured by the EU-UNICEF programme, schools are involved right from the start. Children in the environmental health clubs learn how to protect themselves and their families against diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and other water-borne diseases. Teacher Achin Albert Ach with his club.

The community also has clean water delivered by a solar-powered borehole.

Children are taught the importance of hand washing and encouraged to involve their families and friends.

SAAONDO ANOM, WASH Specialist, UNICEF Nigeria, speaks about the impact of the WASH project on communities

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SAAONDO ANOM, WASH Specialist, UNICEF Nigeria, speaks about the impact of the WASH project on communities

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With the European Union contributing 30 million euros to UNICEF’s Rural Water and Sanitation project (2005-2011), up to June 2010 the most significant achievements were:

•593,400 people now have access to an improved source of water.

•384,670 people can now safely dispose of human excreta.

•67,849 school children have access to safe water, sanitation facilities and now understand proper hygiene behaviour.

•1101 functional water points have been installed. This includes a location-appropriate mix of motorized, solar and hand pumps.

•38,467 households constructed latrines without subsidy.

•Two states, Osun and Jigawa, have a water and sanitation policy in effect, while four more are at different stages of approval.

•Three states, Cross River, Anambra and Jigawa are expanding their projects to beyond the number of targeted water sources.

Pierre Philippe, the Chargé d’Affaires of the EU delegation to Nigeria, speaks about the EU – UNICEF partnership

Contents

“Government is transient. I might be here today as the Director General and I have this passion. Tomorrow some other person might come along and will not share the passion. But the communities who have realized

what benefits they have derived from the project will ensure that the facilities are sustained so that they can continue to benefit from those

facilities”Hon. Eko Atu, Director General, Rural Development Agency, Cross River State

YAKURR: INCREASED SURVEILLANCEYakurr Local Government Area is one of 18 in Cross River State where Guinea worm was endemic. The number of cases dropped from 3,444 in 1988 to none in 2007.

This parasitic disease is exclusively transmitted through drinking stagnant water that is contaminated with the Guinea-worm larvae. The disease doesn’t kill, but people are unable to function due to excruciating pain.

While there are still cases in neighbouring countries, the numbers are dwindling through concerted efforts of governments and other agencies.

The challenge remains for community members to remain vigilant in preventing the recurrence of the parasitic disease. Providing safe water, and sustaining this delivery, is the only way forward.

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Watch “Esther’s War”. (click on the movie clip)

Contents

Watch a multimedia presentation on the key issues affecting Nigeria around Water, Sanitation & Hygiene(click on the movie clip)

Credits

TextWriter : Greg Marinovich



FilmVideographer: Dusko Marovic




Stills: Andrew Esiebo

Leonie Marinovich

Video: Dusko Marovic

©2010 UNICEF/EC



Sources:

http://www.measuredhs.com/countries/country_main.cfm?ctry_id=30&c=Nigeria

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nigeria.html







http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nigeria.html





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