Donors to pay attention to sanitation issues

Donors to Pay Attention to Sanitation Issues
Isabella Gyau Orhin
The Senior Vice President of the KFW Development Bank of Germany Mr. Bruno Wenn has said although the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number seven highlights the need to provide access to water and sanitation, the issue of sanitation services in Africa has been neglected for a while by the donor community.
Speaking to a group of African media personnel in Frankfurt last Week, Mr. Wenn said the neglect was due to the fact that donors concentrated on providing services in rural communities which have no huge sanitation problems like urban areas.


This therefore led to the focus on the provision of water to the detriment of sanitation services, especially in urban areas.
"In economic sense, there is the need to focus on sanitation in urban areas where there are slums and where people are in dire need of sanitation services," he said.
He said the donor community has a plan to support the provision of sanitation services up to the year 2020 in Africa.
Key indicators according to him are being developed for smooth and effective implementation of the programme.
Studies show that at least 300 million or 40 percent of Africans do not have access to basic sanitation and hygiene services; this number has increased by 70 million since the year 1990. Those without access are concentrated among the poorest and most vulnerable, and the problem is particularly severe in rapidly growing peri-urban areas.
Experts however, say epidemics do not respect geographical boundaries or social status, so a threat to the most vulnerable is a threat to all.
It is estimated that every hour; a hundred African children die from diarrhoea. Most of these lives can be saved through better access to sanitation and improved basic hygiene; the simple act of washing hands with soap can reduce deaths from diarrhoea by a third! Poor sanitation and hygiene weaken Africans through disease, disrupt the environment, exacerbate poverty through medical cost and lower productivity, while robbing the poor and vulnerable of dignity.
In an interview, a Member of Parliament of the Greens Party in Germany Dr. Ursula Eid said it is important for Africa to pay attention on sanitation issues.
Dr. Eid who is an advisor on sanitation to the UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki Moon said she is working very hard to get the African Union to focus on sanitation in one of its up coming meetings.
At the end of the African Sanitation and Hygiene conference in 2002 in Johannesburg, participants pledged to develop and strengthen the clear policies and institutional frameworks needed to improve sanitation and hygiene; as a first step, identify departmental leadership and clarify the responsibilities of the many government departments usually involved in the sector.
Participants further pledged to ddevelop realistic local, national and global targets for improved sanitation and hygiene in particular, and to support the adoption and implementation of a global target of halving the number of people without access to sanitation and hygiene by 2015.
They also pledged to increase the financial and human resources available to achieve these targets, and ensure that adequate resources are also available to monitor progress.
Participants also recognised the leadership of women in sanitation and hygiene. "As care-givers who suffer the consequences of managing health within the family, women have always been quicker than men to appreciate the importance of sanitation and hygiene; they have been at the forefront of efforts to improve them," a statement issued at the end of the summit said.
This does not mean that men can "leave this challenge to women", but rather that the role of women must be understood, respected, and supported if the challenge is to be met., the statement added.
Participants also pledged to make the most of public resources in sanitation and hygiene by using them only for those items for which households and others cannot or will not pay
In Ghana, the National Sanitation Policy which was published in May 1999 by the Local government Ministry looks at environmental problems and constraints and lists inadequate funds to pay solid waste contractors who are doing about 80 percent of the collection not paid for by residents.
Others are lack of intense and sustained public education on sanitation, land acquisition for public waste disposal and not in my backyard syndrome.
The policy also encourages private sector participation in the delivery of sanitation services and this is where Zoomlion, a private waste management company operating in Ghana steps in with public education on sanitation alongside its work.
At the launch of a Public education on sanitation in Accra last month, the Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Environment (MLGRDE), Mr. Kwadwo Agyei Darko appealed to Ghanaians to desist from the "blame-game syndrome" and find ways of solving and controlling sanitation problems whenever they occur.
He said sanitation isses are very important for accelerated growth and therefore should
A dirty environment, he said, can lead to serious environmental hazards such as floods and outbreak of diseases like malaria and cholera.
"It is we ourselves who dirty the environment and not anyone else. Keep the plastic and liquid wastes in cars in which you are sitting in rather than throwing them out to litter the streets", he said.
He urged Ghanaians not to wait for the government to come and clean their environments for them. "We must clean it ourselves", he said.