On Thursday, after 23 years of hard work and a major setback, Ghana finally declared victory over Guinea worm.
Vice President John Dramani Mahama has called on volunteers and co-ordinators of the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme to be extra vigilant in ensuring that guinea worm did not resurface as the country entered the final phase of the eradication of the disease.
Read the full stories in Times Live, 28 July 2011 and GNA/Ghana, 28 July 2011
Africa could finally be turning a corner in the sanitation crisis, say civil society groups, ANEW and FAN, NGO WaterAid, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and the End Water Poverty Campaign.
Source: Public Agenda / allAfrica.com, 25 July 2011
Twenty years after the UN launched the Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, and 10 years into the MDGs, the news from a global think tank this week, that more than one billion people still live without access to safe drinking water, health care, and other essentials of daily life doesn’t really make headlines or frighten anyone in Africa.
Source: Ako Amadi, Next, 27 July 2011,
Posted in Policies & legislation
Tagged access to sanitation, access to water, development aid, MDGs
During the third Africa Sanitation and Hygiene Conference (AfricaSan 3) the Rwanda Environment Care (REC), a local NGO that provides a variety of sanitary facilities across the country, scooped the Utilities Award in Africa for its efforts to improve sanitation and hygiene. Announcing the Utilities Award, the head of Unilever, Dr. Myriam Sindibe said that REC was awarded for raising the bar on service delivery of sanitation services. Others awarded include the Mayor of Ouagadougou, who received the local government award for formulating and implementing clear policies on sanitation that have contributed to large-scale improvement in sanitation and hygiene. Prof. Sandy Cairncross received the AMCOW roll of honour for his outstanding lifetime contribution in advancing the sanitation and hygiene agenda in Africa. Kenya won a hand washing award for the private public partnerships that saw the country win the Guinness World Record for the most number of people washing their hands at the same time at a single location on October 15, 2010. The WASH United received the media award for their sustained coverage of sanitation and hygiene issues have provided high visibility in the media space and contributed to raising the profile of sanitation and hygiene on the continent.
Source: Edwin Musoni, The New Times / allAfrica.com, 23 July 2011 ; Claire Wanja, KBC News, 21 July 2011
Posted in Burkina Faso, Campaigns and events, Kenya, Rwanda, Sanitation
In September 2010, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded, Management Sciences for Health (MSH)-led Sudan Health Transformation Project, Phase 2 (SHTP II) piloted a 3-month Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) project to determine the most effective strategies to increase sanitary defecation methods in Southern Sudan. CLTS motivates or “triggers” communities’ desire for change and influences them to create “open defecation –free” sites, through the construction and utilization of latrines.
In Lologo South, a residential community just south of Juba, thousands of new houses, fences, and animal carrels are in various states of construction. And importantly, thanks to MSH, there are also latrines.
Source: Mary Burket, Management Sciences for Health / allAfrica.com, 5 July 2011
Posted in Hygiene promotion, Sanitation, Sudan
Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque, United Nations independent expert on the right to water and sanitation paid a week-long visit to Namibia. She noted that the country has over the past 20 years achieved significant progress in extending its water network across the country. Ms. De Albuquerque urged the Government to make similar efforts to ensure that proper sanitation is available to more people in the country. She stressed that access to water and sanitation are human rights, and while that did not mean that the two services must be offered free of charge, it meant that systems must be in place to ensure availability to those who face economic barriers to access. Water points are still far away from households and water remains too expensive. She added that community participation in the design and implementation of water and sanitation projects was indispensable.
Ms. De Albuquerque will prepare a report to be presented at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next year, describing her main findings and providing recommendations.
Source: UN News Service / allAfrica.com, 11 July 2011
Posted in Namibia, Participatory management, Sanitation, Water supply
Tagged right to sanitation, right to water
Bushmen living in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve will receive a crucial new water supply next month after winning a lengthy court battle, the diamond firm mining the area said on Wednesday.
Source: Fin24, 22 June 2011
Related news: Outrage as Court denies Bushmen access to water
Posted in Botswana, Water and livelihoods
Tagged access to water, human rights, right to water
At a capacity building workshop for members of the Ghana Watsan Journalists’ Network (GWJN), an organization, which focuses on water, sanitation and hygiene, Mr Minta Aboagye, outgoing Director (Water), Ministry of Water Resource, Works and Housing (MWRWH), has said that there are plans to introduce rain water harvesting to help address water challenges facing the people.
Source: Modern Ghana / GNA, 22 June 2011
On 29 July 2010, the General Assembly of the United Nations recognised, in a proposed resolution by Bolivia and adopted by 122 votes with 41 abstentions, ‘the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.’ The resolution also calls upon ‘states and international organizations to provide financial resources, capacity-building and technology transfer, in particular to developing countries’.
It was a historical decision. But what explains the need to proclaim this right is that it is barely respected around the world. Despite UN recognition it is a right that is far from being realised in most parts of the world, writes Jacques Cambon of Pambazuka News.
Source: Fahamu / allAfrica.com, 9 June 2011
Posted in Governance, Policies & legislation
Speaking to the press on 27 April 2011 Water Management Resources Authority Narok official Jared Anekeyah said “We need to move towards greener water and sanitation projects such as rainwater collection to keep pace with booming urban populations. We should encourage the harvesting of rain water and preserving natural systems such as forests and wetlands which could help to filter waste water that is not treated.”
Source: Kiplang’at Kirui, Nairobi Star / allAfrica.com, 28 April 2011
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