Malawi: school menstrual hygiene management – more than toilets

School menstrual hygiene management in Malawi: more than toilets, 2012.

• Full-text (pdf)

SHARE; WaterAid

This study identifies the needs and experiences of girls regarding menstruation. It draws upon participatory group workshops, a questionnaire and semi structured interviews with school-age girls in Malawi to make various recommendations, including lessons about menstrual hygiene management (MHM), girl-friendly toilet designs, and the provision of suitable and cheap sanitary protection.

AfricaSan 3: civil society demands African governments “walk the talk on sanitation”

Civil society organisations (CSOs) are calling on African leaders and international governments to take urgent action on the continent’s critical sanitation situation. The call was issued on the eve of AfricaSan 3, the only Africa-wide conference on sanitation, which is taking place from 19-21 July 2011 in Kigali, Rwanda.

“Despite our collective efforts, since the last AfricaSan 2.1 million children under-five have died of diarrhea caused by poor sanitation, water and hygiene in Africa,” said civil society leader Doreen Wandera Kabasindi from Uganda.

“We are striving to bring an end to these preventable deaths and this huge suffering so we call on our governments to take urgent action.”

In consultation with over 230 African CSOs, INGO WaterAid, Freshwater Action Network (FAN), the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and the End Water Poverty campaign, they are demanding that their governments and development partners to:

• Develop clear financial plans to ensure that 0.5% of GDP is spent on sanitation, as per the eThekwini Declaration, and that these funds are targeted to those most in need
• Work together to support the global Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership to ensure high-level coordination of funds, targets and practises.
• Work transparently so their progress can be monitored and assessed, especially in relation to the implementation of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation

Read the full statement

Ghana: only 0.1% of budget committed to sanitation

In spite of the Government’s pledge to commit 0.5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to sanitation, the 2011 budget made provision for only 0.1%, said Executive Secretary of the Coalition of NGOs in water and sanitation (CONIWAS), Mr Benjamin Arthur. Ghana is one of the signatories of the 2008 eThekwini Declaration in which 17 African governments pledged to allocate a minimum of 0.5% of GDP for sanitation and hygiene.

Arthur said despite the government’s 2010 promise to commit 200 million dollars every year towards water and sanitation activities beginning in 2011, this year’s budget did not reflect that commitment.

East Africa Practitioners Workshop on Pro poor Urban Sanitation and Hygiene, Kigali, Rwanda, 29-31 March 2011

This three-day workshop aims to identify proven good practices in the sanitation and hygiene sector, as well as drawing lessons from failures to enter into the policy dialogue. It focuses on urban sanitation with an emphasis on learning and innovation in the sector.

Organised by: UNICEF, GTZ, WSSCC, WaterAid and IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, and hosted by the Rwandan Ministry of Health.

Programme: the first two days of the workshop will focus on sharing and discussing proven good practices whilst the last day will be used for the discussion on key lessons learnt and follow up activities such as, the initiation of policy dialogues, advocacy messaging or linking with existing programmes.

Outputs: all papers will be published on the IRC web site. A short, select list of policy messages will be formulated for advocacy opportunities. Possible follow-up activities will be identified.

Deadline for abstracts for either a case study or photoessay: 10 December 2010

No registration fee

For full information go to www.irc.nl/page/39588 or download Second Announcement

Uganda / Tanzania: photo exhibition highlights women in WaterAid & Simavi projects

A photographic exhibition “Making Ground” examines the challenges of life and the struggle for change in three communities in Uganda and Tanzania.

Photo from the exhibition. Olivia Arthur / WaterAid

In 2008 and 2009 Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur travelled to two regions in East Africa: Amuria in the warring north-east of Uganda, and Chigongwe and Michese, two small rural communities in Tanzania. Although these areas differ in many ways, they all lack the water and sanitation facilities they need to take their first steps out of poverty.

International charities WaterAid and Simavi have been working with these communities and local partner organisations since 2008 to bring improved hygiene, clean water and latrines.

Arthur’s photographs explore the effects that this work has had on the communities’ lives.

Change is gradual but Making Ground is a portrayal of hope, stability and growth told through the personal stories of the inhabitants.

Simavi campaign photo

Simavi is using the exhibition to support its fundraising campaign “Who caries the world“, which starts on 5 March 2010, and focuses on the crucial role of mothers for family health in developing countries, especially as carriers of drinking water.

In 2010 the exhibition is on tour in The Netherlands, UK, Tanzania and Uganda.

The Nationale Postcode Loterij (Netherlands) is funding the exhibition.

Source: WaterAid ; Simavi [in Dutch]

Mozambique: remote villages out of sight, out of mind?

Mcondece village in northwest Mozambique has a population of around 400; its original inhabitants moved here many generations in search of fertile land. It is one of several settlements in the region which lacks a borehole or water pump, and therefore has no access to clean and safe drinking water.

“The major problem we have with water is that the whole village is using the same small river that you just saw earlier,” says Agnes Kapondela. “The same river is used for bathing, washing plates and for drinking, so the water is not clean. If kids are thirsty at school they have to run down to the river to drink the same water, which is not very hygienic.”

Bad water, bad health

Villagers complain of stomach aches, diarrhoea, vomiting and the flu as a result of drinking the water. The closest clinic is a day’s walk away, so they’re not sure of the exact diagnosis of their ailments.

The option of boiling water to purify it is not a popular one with villagers.

”People don’t like boiling water,” says Nema Mswachi, a woman from Mandambuzi, another village in the same area which is lucky enough to have a deep well with a water pump.

“Because of tradition, people are used to drinking water straight from the river. Sometimes people use tablets like Water Guard, or sometimes they’ll boil water just for the small babies.”

Women do most of the farming, firewood collection, cooking, cleaning and also take care of children in rural communities like this one. Felo Mtela, from Mtepwe village, a four-hour walk north of Mcondece, says not having clean water to drink has an impact on women’s ability to work.

“Sometimes I feel my body becomes very weak because I do a lot of work,” she said, “and (in addition) when we don’t drink good water, it makes it harder to work when we’re sick…”

The water source makes the work difficult even when villagers are healthy. To irrigate their fields, women often dig a shallow well near the river, and transfer water to their farms one bucket at a time.

“We have had no help in getting water pumps yet,” said Mtela, “and it would help a lot because we wouldn’t have to carry water on our heads so much, we would just pump it to our farms.

“

Some villagers dig small wells closer to home for drinking water, however, according to Mtela, these wells aren’t covered so insects and other contaminants get in.

No outside help

Villagers in the region say they have been asking for assistance for a long time.

WaterAid is an international NGO that works with communities to install wells, water pumps, and composting latrines. They have a range of basic hand pumps which are cheap enough for communities to afford, and quick and easy to fix.

The NGO claims to have helped 270,000 people gain access to water across Mozambique, and has been working in Niassa Province since 1995.

There are several factors which contribute to water, hygiene and sanitation problems in the province, says Heike Gloeckner, WaterAid’s Southern Africa regional programme officer.

“Broadly I would say that the issues we are facing are: water tables are decreasing, population is increasing (in some areas) and topography is making it very hard for our partners to access the aquifer for drilling a borehole,” she says.

WaterAid’s technical support manager, Erik Harvey, says the sinking water table means communities are forced to rely on outside support to reach deeper more reliable water reserves.

“Most communities have existing survival strategies that can simply be reinforced. Most have basic wells that, with very little effort, can be protected, (lined with bricks, raised above ground level, closed with a lid, used with a single bucket and rope as opposed to many),” he adds.

“In the absence of this, basic filters can be made with layered cloth, or drinking water, particularly for babies, elderly and the ill, can be boiled.”

When asked why no one has yet reached villages like Mcondece, Mtepwe and Magachi, Harvey responded, “The process of prioritisation and community selection is normally undertaken by the government with some assistance from WaterAid staff.

“WaterAid’s funding is limited,” says Harvey, “and we have, where possible, focused on choosing districts that have historically had the lowest coverage levels.

“The key here is to get government to take up our learning, to combine the efforts of all role-players and funds in the sector to reach the unreached villages. WaterAid alone just does not have the resources to reach everywhere.”

Alexis Tove, community manager for the Manda Wilderness Community Trust, an NGO which works with 16 communities in this part of Niassa province building schools and clinics, says the reason no one has come to inland villages like Mcondece is simply their inaccessibility.

“NGOs are the same as government,” he says. “They work within the accessible areas, If villages are so remote, it’s much less likely that they’ll be visited. You’re unlikely to see government officials or NGOs trekking over mountains to visit villages.

“

The WaterAid website states that for as little as $1,800 a well can be hand-dug and a rope pump installed, and $2,280 will pay for the training of a water committee and six months of education on hygiene.

“If the money is the main problem with implementing the systems,” says Tove, “and if it’s relatively inexpensive then we should be able to find funds for it. But we will need the resources and help from those NGOs and from government who have experience in
 this area.

“It seems ridiculous that the solutions seem so simple and easy to implement and yet nothing has been done for those communities who have been drinking dirty water for years,” he said.

Source: Jessie Boylan, IPS, 21 Oct 2009

Ghana, Accra: Owning Latrines “Makes us Fat” – Local Community

Generally, the main perceived advantages of latrine ownership are proximity/easy access and privacy. For the people of Gozakope in the Dangme West District of the Greater Accra Region however, ownership of household latrines means all of these plus massive improvements in their health status.

Raymond Kotoka Lusu, Chairman, Water and sanitation (WATSAN) Committee of Gozakope, has said the introduction of the Community Led Total sanitation (CLTS) approach, which has led to the construction of latrines in various households in the small settlement, has improved health tremendously.

“We used to have diarrhea and stomach problems but now we are growing fat,” Lusu told members of the Ghana WATSAN Journalists Network (GWJN) who took a field trip to the area recently to know at first hand the state of water sanitation and hygiene issues (WASH), as well as, the state of interventions by the Professional Network Association (ProNet) Accra, a partner of WaterAid Ghana.

About a year ago, ProNet Accra introduced CLTS to the Gozakope community located in the Asutwuare Sub-district of the Dangme West District. Hitherto, the community engaged in “free range” defecation. Men, women and children alike defecated in the bush.

A defecation map showed that sometimes the indigenes “did their own thing” close to water bodies and on hills where it was very easy for water to run off into water bodies. Also, they had satellite refuse dumps scattered all around. Though, they experienced health hazards and its attendant problems, they appeared oblivious to the need for alternatives.

Derick Abandoh, ProNet Accra Officer in charge of Hygiene, said the organisation introduced the CLTS approach to the community because it saw evidence of open defecation. Besides, its research proved that there had not been any previous funding of any projects relating to WASH in the community.

Upon entry, ProNet officials took the community through pre-triggering (getting to know the community), triggering (mapping defecation routes), post triggering and the walk of shame (leading the community members to the defecation site and holding discussions at the scene). All of these were supposed to alert the community about the unpleasant outcome of defecating in the open.

The construction of the latrines was undertaken by the community members themselves, using locally available material and local labour. Some of them have estimated the construction cost to be between GH¢70 and GH¢100 [US$ 49-70].

According to the people, the latrines are helping to keep flies away, leading to fewer disease germs being spread from place to place and there is less fecal seepage into water bodies. The result has been that there have been fewer diseases – less diarrhea, less worms, less cholera, and less typhoid fever.

Lamisi J. Dabire, Communication and Campaigns Officer of WaterAid, Ghana, said “All these monies came from their own pockets; it shows their commitment.” She added, “We want to bring the self-help spirit in the community up.”

ProNet has also been working to improve water supply situation in the area [by] putting iron removal plants in some boreholes to make the water safe for use.

Source: Public Agenda / Peace FM Online, 23 Oct 2009

Zambia: water everywhere, but not to drink

Inadequate access to safe water and poor sanitation facilities are fuelling poverty in Zambia, [WaterAid] told [news agency] IRIN. “There is a relatively high incidence of water- and sanitation-related diseases, particularly diarrhoea, which result in high health costs to individuals and communities,” said Moses Mumba, a programme officer for WaterAid.

[...] Analysts concede that the country has made inroads to providing greater access to safe water as part of its MDG, but the provision of adequate sanitation has been largely unaddressed.

Luapula Province [has] the lowest coverage in terms of safe water (18.8 percent) and sanitation (2.3 percent). The last census, in 2000, listed four of its seven districts among the top 10 with the worst access to both water and sanitation nationwide.

[...] In Luapula Province, [WaterAid] has so far funded the construction of some 205 water points and 4,577 improved latrines.

Web site: WaterAid – Zambia

Source: IRIN, 26 Mar 2009

Malawi: learning from water supply failures in Malawi

The Lilongwe Water Board is the sole water supply authority in Malawi’s capital city. However, its service suffered from inadequate response to system and community problems and lack of transparency in water billing. In response to a request for assistance from the community, WaterAid Malawi developed a strategic partnership with the Lilongwe Water Board, aimed at improving management of water services in unplanned low-income neighbourhoods.

An [April 2008] paper from WaterAid Malawi describes its partnership with the Lilongwe Water Board and a local non-governmental organisation – the Centre for Community Organization and Development (CCODE).

WaterAid research indicated that the system to distribute water through water kiosks was not working. Poor households owed huge sums to the Lilongwe Water Board – the monopoly water provider. They were paying far too much: prices at communal kiosks in low-income areas were twice as high as those in high-income areas. Charging systems were inconsistent and billing was not transparent. Some households paid equal monthly fees for different levels of consumption while others were paying per bucket.

Political and traditional leaders corruptly controlled kiosk management committees and failed to pass on funds they collected from communities to the Lilongwe Water Board. The private operators who were able to pay their utility bills resold water to poor people at high and unregulated tariffs. Many meters were vandalised but even those still working were often not read for over a year. The water board charged customers for estimated, not actual, consumption. Without consultation with users, the utility factored in arrears into water bills to cover money misused by community leaders.

Further problems included: illegal installation of boreholes, failure to check water quality, dependence of on unsafe sources when kiosks were disconnected, high leakage rates

[Following a reform programme] the utility now regards itself as a public service provider with obligations to consult users and to extend the network to unserved communities, while also embracing private sector principles to improve the efficiency of billing, debt collection and reduction of water losses.

Reform has also involved:

• establishing a focal point within the Lilongwe Water Board to whom community kiosk users could take their grievances: the Kiosk Management Unit regulates prices and promotes timely reporting of faults and prompt action to fix them
• WaterAid providing technical and financial advice and funding to rehabilitate communal water kiosks, replace meters, construct meter boxes and improve drainage facilities at kiosks
• building CCODE’s capacity to mobilise communities’ capacities to identify kiosk management options, settle debts, monitor the utility and promote hygiene education.

Source: id21, 01 March 2009

Mali: Raising money and hygiene standards

Women in one of the poorest areas of Mali’s capital, Bamako, have found a way to tackle hygiene issues and earn money at the same time – by making soap.

Djibril Coulibaly, Project Coordinator for JIGI, Mali. Photo: WaterAid.

[...] “Hygiene standards in the Nafadji [slum] area of town were very very low, due to lack of infrastructure and because of ignorance,” Djibril Coulibaly, hygiene coordinator of Malian non-profit JIGI, told IRIN. “We carried out research that showed contaminated water and a lack of water were causing disease, but also that behaviours surrounding hand washing had an impact.”

JIGI (hope in the local language Bambara) has been collaborating with the international charity, WaterAid, for the last eight years to build public faucets and install household latrines in Nafadji.

But when JIGI began its hygiene education programme focused on hand washing [people said] “that they could not afford industrial soap, it was too expensive at 300 CFA [57 US cents].” Coulibaly added. “So we decided to work with a women’s group to look at the problem.”

[...] JIGI and WaterAid supported the Nfadji Women’s Association (AFSAN), a group of some 20 neighbourhood women, to set up a soap-making business in 2003. [...] The number of soap pieces made per week has risen from 150 to 225, and demand is increasing, which has prompted plans to expand the business, said Coulibaly.

[Some] long-held traditional beliefs discouraged individual hand washing [for example that handwashing makes you poor]. [Therefore JIGI runs] weekly awareness meetings on washing hands with soap.

Source: IRIN, 26 Feb 2009