Sanitation Updates

The Yamuna is the largest tributary of the revered Ganges, but its polluted waters pose an increasing health hazard to the Indian capital. Now campaigners are calling for urgent action to clean it up.

The Yamuna, which passes through Delhi, represents both a terrible irony and one of India’s great unsung scandals. The largest tributary of the revered Ganges, the Yamuna is one of the country’s most sacred rivers, and yet perhaps also its dirtiest. Hundreds of millions of pounds of public and private money has been spent on projects to clean the river and yet where it passes Delhi it is dark, stinking and lifeless - as dead as a handful of ashes.

“It’s a terrible irony. In the Hindu religion we are supposed to venerate rivers. The Yamuna is one of the most worshipped,” said Vimlendu Jha, who heads a campaign group called We For Yamuna. “And yet every day 950 million gallons of sewage is pumped into the river. The faecal coliform [bacteria from human waste] count is 100,000 times what is considered safe for bathing… No politician wants to do anything. It has gone from bad to worse.”

Read more: Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, 01 May 2008

Tackling the poo-taboo in the Pacific

What does the word “sanitation” mean to you? Going to the toilet, washing your hands, flushing the germs away out of sight and often out of mind? Or perhaps more practically, dealing with solid and liquid human waste on small islands, and even at the extreme end—the cause of diseases and even death!

Poor or inadequate sanitation can be the cause of a variety of diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery and forms of meningitis. One gram of faeces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1000 parasite cysts, and a hundred worm eggs. That’s what makes the safe disposal of faeces the most important of all public health priorities. Still today, the majority of illness in the world is caused by faecal matter entering the human body because of lack of safe sanitation and lack of hygiene. (…)

Addressing the issue of sanitation from more than one sector is vital for the long-term environmental sustainability and health and hygiene of our Pacific region. In the future, all water programmes need to be implemented with sound sanitation programmes.

Pacific Islands Countries will join forces with SOPAC and its partners to break through the poo-taboo and improve access to sanitation in the region. The issues of water, sanitation and hygiene should no longer be ignored in the Pacific’s development debates.

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On 5 March 2008 the Resource Centre Network Nepal (RCNN) launched the CLTS Toolkit booklet during the Symposium on ‘Sanitation Approaches and Technologies in Nepal’.

The booklet focuses on Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) practices and awareness raising to be used by facilitators in the communities.

Inspired by the success of the approach in Bangladesh, CLTS  was first initiated in December 2003 in Nepal in Karkidanda communities of Dhading district through the facilitation of the NGO, Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH).

Download the CLTS Toolkit (in Nepali) here.

Read more: RCNN Newsletter, 28 Mar 2008

Wednesday, 02 April 2008

Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro has said that Pakistan is well on its way to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially for reducing to half the proportion of people lacking basic sanitation services by 2015, and moving onwards to our vision-2030, for ensuring sanitation for all.

“The government is committed to tackling sanitation issues by strengthening institutional as well as human capacity through the implementation of National Sanitation Policy,” the Prime Minister said in his message on the eve of World Water Day.

He also mentioned to lunching projects on enhancing sanitation cover at the national, provincial and local levels to make localities open defecation free and provide better health facilities.

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Sanitation in public facilities urged

By Rachelle Nessia

Dumaguete City (3 April) — A high-ranking government official has called on local chief executives to make sure that sanitation is observed in public facilities in their localities.

Ramon Alikpala, executive director of the National Water Resources Board, said in a press conference yesterday that public places such as city and municipal halls should have safe, clean water and soaps inside the public comfort rooms.

“Washing the hands with soap and water is one way of protecting yourself from diseases,” said Alikpala, who was one of the guests during the two-day Visayas-Mindanao Sanitation Summit held April 2 to 3 at the Negros Oriental Convention Center.

The summit, attended by high level representatives from local government units in Visayas and Mindanao, is in line with the declaration of 2008 as International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations.

The regional summit aims to raise the awareness among LGUs for the necessity of a well-functioning and sustainable sanitation so that they will put prioritize sanitation in their agenda and place budget for sanitation activities in their localities.

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