Sanitation Updates

Warning that a global water and sanitation crisis was looming, development experts and Government and civil society representatives called for accelerated action on water-management issues in general, and sanitation in particular, as the Commission on Sustainable Development devoted a second full day to reviewing water and sanitation decisions taken at its thirteenth session.

Also today, Commission Chairperson Francis Nhema of Zimbabwe introduced part I of his summary of the Commission’s work during the sixteenth session, which runs through Friday. The summary outlines the 53-member body’s discussion thus far on its thematic issues — agriculture, rural development, land, drought, desertification, and Africa –- and highlights what delegations cited as obstacles and constraints to sustainable development, as well as lessons learned and best practices to overcome those challenges. He stressed that the summary was not a consensus document, but merely a reflection of the discussions under way.

During two half-day interactive panels, many speakers underscored the need for more integrated and better funded water-management policies to extend basic water services and meet the Millennium Development Goals on safe drinking water, which seemed within reach, and sanitation, which did not. In their estimation, current efforts to improve sanitation were in the toilet. One expert said there seemed to be a “blind spot” about the integral role of sanitation in reducing poverty and achieving all the other Millennium Goals. While major immunization programmes had led to significant success in meeting the Millennium targets on child mortality, an immunized child could still die from diarrhoea due to poor sanitation conditions and unsafe hygiene practices.

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Efforts afoot to observe IYS 2008, implement Sanitation Policy, ISLAMABAD, May 10 (APP):

Ministry of Environment in collaboration with partners like UNICEF and WSP-SA is devising a strategy to observe 2008 as International Year of Sanitation. Number of activities are going on side by side effective implementation of National Sanitation Policy devised in 2006 as well as provincial strategies to enhance sanitation cover in the country  (…)

Read all Associated Press of Pakistan

NEW YORK, USA, 8 May 2008 – Water and sanitation experts joined financing professionals at UNICEF House in New York yesterday to identify sustainable methods of providing clean water and safe sanitation to those who lack these basic rights.

At the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance meeting – organized by UNICEF, Ashoka and the German Technical Cooperation Agency – keynote speakers characterized sustainability as important to all aspects of sanitation improvement, including financial, environmental and political sustainability.

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By Elizabeth Kiem, NEW YORK, USA, 8 May 2008

Water and sanitation experts joined financing professionals at UNICEF House in New York yesterday to identify sustainable methods of providing clean water and safe sanitation to those who lack these basic rights.   At the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance meeting – organized by UNICEF, Ashoka and the German Technical Cooperation Agency – keynote speakers characterized sustainability as important to all aspects of sanitation improvement, including financial, environmental and political sustainability. (…)

Read all UNICEF Press Release

Coupling Sustainable Sanitation and Groundwater Protection

Symposium to the International Year of Sanitation (IYS), 14-17 October 2008

WHO and UNEP are co-sponsoring this International Symposium, organized by the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), 14-17 October 2008 in  Hannover. The objective is to provide a forum for interaction between practitioners and decision makers, with the goal of finding practical solutions to sustainable sanitation. Reducing health risks associated with inadequate sanitation is a key cross-cutting theme.

More information and registration: Symposium to the International Year of Sanitation 14-17 October 2008

Streams of Knowledge (STREAMS) together with its member, the NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation, a leading WATSAN apex organization based in Bangladesh will be the leading organizers of three-day event, which will include two days of workshops and a one-day visit to a Community-Led Total Sanitation Project.

Themes:

1. Addressing environmental vulnerability through Integrated Water Resources Management
2. Policy, Practice and Advocacy for Sustainable Sanitation
3. Wastewater Management for Productive Use
4. Community Participation in Sanitation Solutions
5. Business Unusual: Sanitation Entrepreneurship
6. Safety Nets for Ensuring Water Quality

Abstract deadline: 5 July 2008

For more information go to the STREAMS web site

By Sandra Bisin

TAKHTBAI, Pakistan, 5 May 2008 – In the remote town of Takhtbai in the North West Frontier Province, people took to the streets recently in a march to raise awareness during Pakistan’s biannual Child Health and Sanitation Week.

In the course of the week, events to reduce child deaths and disease by promoting better health, sanitation and hygiene practices were launched in six districts across the country.  (…)

Read all UNICEF Press Release

RUHAAMA county in Ntungamo district celebrated this year’s International Women’s Day in style by introducing a domestic health and sanitation competition among its 40,000 homesteads.

MP and wife of the President Janet Museveni organised the competition. The judges looked out for a clean house, kitchen with a katandaaro (cutlery rack), clean toilet or latrine, mosquito nets, well made beds for the parents and children.

Other yardsticks were a well-maintained walkway or driveway to the home, boiled drinking water, a granary and a minimum source of income.

Read More - New Vision

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 said funding of sanitation services are generally capital intensive and therefore the responsibility must not be left to government or the Municipal and Metropolitan District Assemblies (MMDAs) alone.

This was contain in an address read on his behalf, Alhaji Mahama noted that the Ministry of Local Government Rural Development and Environment (MLGRDE) which has the over sight responsibility has initiated a number of programmes which seek to reverse the downward trend in the sanitation situation in the country.

Read More - Modern Ghana

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’.

Read all ModernGhana.com