At least 34 cases of acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) have been reported in the Rift Valley town of Nakuru in the western region, a senior health official has said.

[...]

The cases were attributed to the contamination of a spring in the Mbaruk area in the district.

Intervention measures included supplying the residents with clean water, a ban on the hawking of food in the area [...] and health and hygiene education.

Health officials were waiting for laboratory results to confirm whether the AWD was cholera.

Meanwhile, an outbreak of cholera in the western district of Kisumu East [attributed to seepage from latrines, which contaminated wells] has still not been brought under control.

Read more: IRIN, 3 Jul 2008

The Accra Metropolitan assembly appears to be taking a very proactive step by tackling pragmatically the crucial issue of sanitation in the national capital, but we wonder if the way it is going about it is the best way to achieve good results.

A current AMA advertisement in the press reads in part:
ABOLITION OF PAN LATRINES IN THE METROPOLIS BY 2010
ACCRA METROPOLITAN ASSEMBLY
(URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION)

The AMA has taken a decision to ban the use of pan latrines (bucket latrines) in the Accra Metropolis by the year 2010. The AMA further wishes to bring to the notice of the general public that toilet construction facilities are available in the metropolis. (…)

Wed, 28 May 2008 Regional News

Read all Modernghana.com

Somali gunmen have kidnapped five local aid workers, four of whom, including team leader Fadumo Hajiyow, work for the Italian NGO Water For Life (WFL) on 30 June 2008. The fifth victim was identified as an agronomist with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

WFL founder, Elio Sommavilla, said two of the kidnapped Somalis had been due to fly to Italy to receive an award. WFL team leader Fadumo Hajiyow was among those ,WFL trains Somali geologists.

Sources: Reuters, 1 Jul 2008 ; IRIN, 2 Jul 2008

Every morning soon after sunrise, Fatne Abdaraman walks a short distance across the Iridimi refugee camp in eastern Chad hauling a twenty-litre plastic jug. She lines it up along with other women’s containers at the water distribution point, then awaits her turn to draw her daily allotment of one of Central Africa’s scarcest resources, one that underpins ongoing conflict in the region.

Fair access to water and firewood are motivators in rebellions in Chad, Central Africa and the Darfur region of Sudan, according to Alain Lapierre, a manager with aid group CARE International.

Indeed, these two things are never far from the minds of Abdaraman, the other 18,000 North Darfuri refugees in Iridima and the original residents of the nearby town of Iriba. Both vital resources were in short supply even before the Darfur conflict sent 250,000 refugees streaming into eastern Chad. Now they’re being consumed faster than Mother Nature can replenish them — and shifting weather patterns are taking their toll, too.

Despite desperate efforts by international aid groups, local authorities estimate the wood will run out next year. Water might soon follow.

Read more: David Axe, IPS, 26 Jun 2008

Children in Tanzania are were well aware of the contradiction between a curriculum that teaches the importance of clean water and good nutrition and what they actually receive at school. This is one of the conclusions from a participatory research involving a survey of 512 children aged from 7 to 14 years from ten regions in Mainland Tanzania.

As the ‘consumers’ of education, children provide useful information for those working for and with children - from policy makers to teachers. The report of survey contains their opinions on a range of issues relating to education, such as school services (including healthcare, water supply and food), textbooks, performance by teachers, discipline, extra charges, and their desired improvements to education.

UNICEF Tanzania provided the funding for the study.

Research and Analysis Working Group (2008). Tanzanian children’s perceptions of education and their role in society : views of the children 2007. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Research and Analysis Working Group (REPOA) and MKUKUTA Monitoring System, Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. ix, 41 p.
Download here

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) invites applications for the ThinkTank Initiative from independent organisations from East and West Africa that are committed to using research to inform and influence social and economic policy. The Initiative will provide multi-year funding to promising think tanks, and will work with successful applicants to improve their organizational performance.

The ThinkTank Initiative is a multi-donor programme dedicated to strengthening independent policy research institutions - or “think tanks” - in developing countries. The Initiative will focus its activities in East and West Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.

The first Call for Expressions of Interest in East and West Africa, applies to the following countries:

• West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal
• East Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda

Grants will provide up to 30 per cent of an institution’s overall budget over the funding period. Core grants will be either a four-year renewable grant or a two-year renewable grant combined with dedicated capacity development to address key weaknesses. Newly-established think tanks may be provided with a short-term grant to support a strategic planning exercise.

Up to 20 institutions are expected to qualify for support as a result of this Call.

Application deadline: 19 August 2008

More information:  do not respond to this blog but go directly to Call for Expressions of Interest on the IDRC web site.

Theme: Leadership for Local Governance, Development and the Delivery of MDGs in Africa

Sub-themes include:

• Innovative practices in the provision of basic services at the local level
• The MDGs in Africa

One of the Special Workshops will be on the UCLGA/WISA Water Programme.

UCLGA and the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA), signed an MOU for a five year partnership on the 1st of October 2007. Algeria, Congo, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia were chosen to be a core-group of countries (one from each  UCLGA regions) that will assist the UCLGA in developing the partnership.

The main planned activities of the partnership programme are to:

• develop a network of African water and sanitation professionals as a component of the UCLGA
  African Learning Network;
• develop a water and sanitation knowledge centre within the UCLGA knowledge base; and
• develop an accreditation system for professionals in the sector.

For more information on the congress go to the UCLGA web site.

Susan Karungi, Education Advisor for SNV Uganda, uses a school sanitation project to illustrate “how the dependency syndrome is crippling Uganda’s progress”.

“Last year I witnessed proceedings of a joint session of a school management committee (SMC) and a parents-teacher association (PTA) aimed at formulating a work plan for the improvement of school sanitation”.

“The leader of the team presented the plan indicating the resources that would be required to finish a latrine stance for girls; including erecting a screen wall; plus who would deliver (read donate the materials). [...] Typically and unsurprisingly, the list did not have the parents and the community at large as potential donors to this small school project”.

“The issue of poor school sanitation facilities is a serious one with most districts in the country posting horrendous stance: pupil ratios of 1:150; against the national standard 1:40. You do the maths and tell me how long a pupil needs to wait to use the available facility at the school. It was indeed gratifying that the school management had decided to tackle this problem at this particular school”.

“My concern is that communities are always looking outside for support without looking internally for practical solutions”.

By posing a few simple questions at the meeting, Ms. Karungi made those present realise that they could use their own resources - local materials - to construct the latrine screen walls.

Read the full article: Daily Monitor online, 18 Jun 2008

Norconsult, a prominent consultant firm in the Norwegian aid market, will no longer bid for contracts managed by local authorities in Tanzania due to widespread corruption.

The findings of a new audit, revealing irregular payments to several projects, have made the company decide to close down its local subsidiary Norconsult Tanzania Ltd (NTZ), and to fire the Managing Director.

The new audit is the company’s follow up of an on-going World Bank investigation launched more than a year ago in connection with an irregegular USD 146,500 cash payment in the Dar es Salaam Water Supply and Sanitation Project. The Bank discovered that Norconsult employees had deleted important emails related to the matter.

Norconsult has finalised a similar report on activities in Mozambique, but no misconduct was revealed in that country, and is now preparing a full review of all its international activities.

NTZ was established with local ownership in an attempt to adjust to the new era of untied aid and local bidding processes. Norconsult’s President John Nyheim said he was now sceptical about untying aid. “Giving budget support has its challenges when the internal control systems are not in place,” he said. It is important for donors to have strong control mechanisms to follow up local authorities.

Early in 2007, Norconsult applied for membership in the Bank’s Voluntary Disclosure Programme (VDP), which gives amnesty to companies that agree to open their books to World Bank scrutiny. However, Norconsult did not qualify for the project since the firm was already under investigation for corruption in Tanzania.

The World Bank investigation has dragged on for almost two years, partly due to the backlog in cases being handled by their anti-corruption unit, following the implementation of a new sanctions regime. Only one firm was sanctioned in 2007 compared to 133, three years earlier.

Source: Development Today [subscription site], 18 May 2008 ; Norconsult, May 2008

The set of materials entitled “Local Government and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)” aims to assist Local Governments with active participation in IWRM. The information provided addresses both the theory and practice of developing and implementing a process through which the IWRM principles of social equity, economic efficiency and environmental sustainability can be applied.

The materials are primarily targeted at Local Government officials, but are considered equally useful for individuals and organisations that work with Local Governments in the management of water resources.

The IWRM set of materials consists of the following four parts:

Part I: Reaping the Benefits - How Local Governments Gain from IWRM
Part II: Understanding the Context - The Role of Local Government in IWRM [under development]
Part III: Engaging in IWRM - Practical Steps and Tools for Local Governments [under development]
Part IV: Making Water Work for Local Governments - Ten Top Tips for Integration in Water Management [also available in Portuguese]

The materials are an output of LoGo Water [1], a research project aimed at improving the capacity of Local Governments to implement IWRM, thus contributing to the achievement of waterrelated Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The complete set is available to download from the ICLEI LoGo Water web site.

[1] LoGo Water: Towards effective involvement of Local Government in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in river basins of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, EC Contract 003717