WASH news Africa

Gereigikh was one of 17 villages in Sudan’s arid Northern Kordofan State whose residents were helped to adapt to climate change over a period of six years (1994-2000) in a project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Farmers in this region have traditionally relied on rats and the position and brightness of certain stars in the sky to forecast droughts. “When we see the rats gathering food and hiding it in their nests we know there is a drought coming,” said Ad-Dukhri Al-Sayed, a community leader in Gereigikh.

In a time-honoured tradition, the farmers followed suit, burying harvests of watermelons - an important source of water for their families and livestock during summer - and their staple grains, sorghum and millet, in storage pits in the ground.

Gereigikh’s farmers say they have continued storing food underground for the lean season, but since the project they have learnt a few more things about survival, and how to take steps to relieve pressure on the fragile ecosystem and take care of the marginal land available for agriculture.

A feature of the project was the Village Development Committee, which provided villagers with credit to diversify their livelihoods, like keeping livestock and growing vegetables fed by water pumps.

The villagers of Gereigikh have learned to prevent conflicts between pastoralists and farmers over natural resources, common in most other areas in Northern Kordofan, because they have developed a mutually beneficial relationship.

“Our farmers discovered that whenever the Kawahla tribe [traditionally pastoral] brought their livestock into the fields, the animal droppings helped improve production, so the members of the Gawamha [traditionally farmers] started planting watermelons to attract the livestock to the field,” recalled Ad-Dukhri Al-Sayed, a community leader in Gereigikh.

The tribes in North Kordofan believe they should share three things: water, rangeland and fire, “according to their religious and cultural principles”. “This has been the way of life for the tribes for centuries, because each of them knows that next year might turn out to be a lean year for them and they might need their neighbouring tribe to share their resources, so the principle - help your neighbours when you can - always applies”.

Sources: IRIN, 6 May 2008 ; IRIN, 13 May 2008

For years, Lole Laila Lole, chairperson of an association for people living with HIV/AIDS in southern Sudan, had to drink, cook with, and bathe in the dirty, contaminated water he fetched from the River Nile. “There was no other way,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.

Due to their weakened immune systems, people living with HIV are particularly susceptible to infections and diseases that can be present in untreated water. But after testing positive [in Khartoum], Lole was forced to return to the virtually non-existent water system of Juba, the southern capital, which had been at war for close to two decades.

The conflict ended in 2005, but government leaders in the south say they lack adequate resources to redevelop the war-ravaged region and deliver services such as providing safe water.

Since the end of the war, treatment tablets have become available in the shops, and HIV-positive people who can afford them are now able to protect themselves from the outbreaks of cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases.

This year, Population Services International (PSI), with funding from the US Centres for Disease Control, began including water treatment tablets [Water Guard] in the basic care packets they distribute to people with HIV every three months. The decision to include Water Guard in PSI’s care packets was partly in response to pressure from people living with HIV.

Women in Sudan also face very high maternal health risks. The risks are significantly higher for HIV-positive mothers and babies, particularly if they are unable to access safe drinking water.

Read more: IRIN/PlusNews, 12 May 2008

Hundreds of families have been displaced in Somalia’s southwestern region of Gedo after two days of inter-clan fighting in which 13 people were killed and 24 wounded, according to locals.

The fighting was triggered by revenge killings for the deaths, a year ago, of a Gaadsen man in Dulmuruh village over ownership of a salt mine. The area of the fighting was also close to water points and salt deposits, which has become a very lucrative trade. Almost 600 families abandoned their homes in the two villages for fear of renewed fighting. Many of the displaced families had no access to wells or Barkads (water catchments).

The latest fighting was attributed to disagreements over water sources and grazing lands, as well as ownership of the salt deposits. It had been “exacerbated by the current drought, shortage of water and the easy availability of heavy weapons”.

Read more, IRIN, 6 May 2008

The 53 nation African Union (AU) will hold its next summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh from 24 June - 1 July 2008. “Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on Water and Sanitation” will be the key theme of the 11th Ordinary Session of the Assembly, taking place from 30 June - 1 July. The choice of this theme follows a recommendation submitted by the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB), which the AU adopted at its 10th Summit.

Source: AFP / NASDAQ, 08 May 2008

A landmark High Court ruling against a multimillion-dollar prepaid water scheme in South Africa’s largest township, Soweto, has been heralded as a global precedent in the struggle for the basic human right to water. The City of Johannesburg is expected to appeal the judgement and residents realise that “the struggle will not end anytime soon”.

In a class-action suit, five residents of Phiri, one of Soweto’s poorest townships, asked the court to order the city to provide at least 50 litres of free water per person per day.

They also asked that they be given the choice of an ordinary credit water meter instead of the prepaid system imposed by the city, on which the court ruled in their favour as well.

The prepaid system was part of a larger scheme called operation Gcin’amanzi, meaning ’save water’, to improve and expand Soweto’s aging waterworks. “The problem for the city had been the large amount water that was unaccounted for,” said Virgil James, spokesman for the City of Johannesburg. Estimates on the City of Johannesburg’s website put water loss in the township alone at about seven billion litres a month. “The meters have already led to a significant reduction in unaccounted water loss [52 billion litres of water had been saved so far], saving money.”

Although James argued that free water was not sustainable, [...] the court said there was no need for the water utility to recoup investments, and insisted that Johannesburg City had both the financial means and access to sufficient water to provide 50 litres per person per day.

Read more: IRIN, 6 May 2008

Ashfaq Khalfan, Coordinator of the Right to Water Programme of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) said, “This decision will be an immense boost to poor communities in South Africa and elsewhere. It is a warning shot against attempts to forcibly impose pre-paid water systems on the poor elsewhere in Africa and globally.” The judgment [...] creates a useful precedent for litigation globally, said COHRE on their web site.

COHRE has posted the High Court of South Africa’s judgement in full together with a summary and analysis of the judgement on their site.

The South African Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) has made the submissions of the applicants and respondents in the case of Mazibuko v. City of Johannesburg available on its site.

International support to the case was provided by:

• COHRE (Switzerland), which provided a third party submission (amicus curiae), and
• Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security (USA), who submitted a supporting affidavit (see also the Institute’s related press release).

The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) has invited public comment on the Strategic Framework on Water for Sustainable Development: Discussion document. The deadline for written comments is 30 May 2008.

Source: Participation Junction

The discussion document is quite frank about current failures/shortcomings in water and sanitation service delivery. Some quotes:

“When 77 WSA managers surveyed for the 2007 Masibambane II evaluation were asked whether those who were served would in future be rejoining the backlog queue as a result of defective infrastructure in recently completed projects, 51% said this was happening already. 16% of beneficiaries in settlements with recent water projects said they now had to walk more than 200 meters to fetch water”. [chap. 3.2.2, p. 17]

“A growing number of new flush toilets malfunction, particularly those built swiftly to meet bucket eradication targets. The number of sewage spills from overloaded systems is rising steadily. Some houses have two new VIP toilets, built by parallel programmes. Many VIPs are built badly, some are not being used at all, and unusable full pits means people are reverting to unimproved toilets or open defecation, with little net gain in health or hygiene behaviour”. [chap. 6.3.5, p. 41].

A national hand-washing programme, Hand Washing With Soap (HWWS), funded by the World Bank and other donors has been unveiled to curb diseases like cholera and diarrhoeal infections.

Speaking in Kisumu during a workshop attended by public health officers from various districts in Nyanza province, the country hand washing co-ordinator, Mr Rufus Eshuchi, said that most diseases like cholera and diarrhoea infections were at a high rate due to improper hand washing behaviour.

The Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) is supporting the Ministry of Health in a campaign that will have hand washing as part of its activities, to check cholera.

The first phase of the project, which is expected to cost US$ 200,000 (Sh12.4 million), and run for three years, starts in September, in selected towns across the country. WSP had used US$ 50,000 (Sh3 million) in preparation for the programme, which would benefit many residents of Kisumu town, in the wake of a cholera outbreak in Nyanza.

Sources: East African Standard / allAfrica.com, 28 Apr 2008 ; Business Daily / allAfrica.com, 28 Apr 2008

The water needs of communities along the Tano River Basin received a boost as the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation and the United States Government yesterday launched a 500,000 dollar initiative to improve access to safe drinking water and sanitation services in the area.

The project dubbed: ‘Transboundary Community Water Management Alliance,’ located at the Tano River Basin border area between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, would support the sustainable use and management of the River Basin, and contribute good relations between both neighbouring countries through communication on sustainable water resource management.

The US-based non-governmental organisations CARE International have the responsibility of implementing the three-year initiative. The project, which was initiated in November 2007, has made significant strides on both sides of the border, with the completion of community water action plans, formation and training of water and sanitation committees and the establishment of community nurseries.

Read More: ModernGhana.com, 30 Apr 2008

The vice President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E. Alhaji Aliu Mahama yesterday, in Accra, launched the Ghana sanitation campaign and called on all stakeholders to see environmental sanitation as a key challenging issue which requires immediate attention. (…)

He called on public and private sector players, development allies, traditional rulers and the civil society to see the current sanitation problem as a national issue and deal with it as such. The campaign is under the theme: ‘Repackaging Sanitation for Accelerated National Development’.

The campaign organised by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS), in collaboration with WaterAid, Ghana, is to keep the momentum of the National Sanitation Programme.

The campaign involves lobbying politicians to place issues on sanitation, public rallies high on their agenda to draw attention to the benefits of clean environment. They will also lobby trade unions to take on politicians to commit them to sanitation.

Sources: ModernGhana.com, 01 May 2008 ; The Ghanaian Times, 01 May 2008

Malakal, on the banks of the world’s longest river in Sudan’s Upper Nile State, should have enough water to quench thirst and clean itself; instead the town was grappling with serious challenges as it marked the international week of sanitation in March. With the onset of the rainy season, aid workers worry that cholera could become a significant danger.

The situation is compounded by a serious shortage of toilet facilities. A survey by the NGO Relief International in 2007 found that 80 percent of the residents had no access to latrines or any other toilet facilities. A 2007 household survey in Sudan, conducted by UNICEF, found that only 7.5 percent of the population in Upper Nile practised improved sanitation.

But where latrines have been provided a change had been noticed. A study of be havioural change by the NGO Solidarités in El Luakat and El Mattar suburbs of Malakal found that latrine use went up from 16 percent in 2007 to 26 percent with an increase in facilities from 5 to 35 percent.

Sanitation week, from 17 to 20 March, was intended to scale up hygiene and health information across Upper Nile and in Malakal town. School children were taught songs on hygiene and some parts of the town were cleaned, but aid workers say very little was achieved.

Read more: IRIN, 30 Apr 2008