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Malawi Water, water, water! |
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
Four years ago, when diarrhoea became rampant
in Thyolo District, southern
Malawi,
the government and Non-Governmental Organisations
decided to find
a lasting solution to the problem
It was thought that providing good drinking water to people in the villages, would be the best measure to curb the waterborne infection that has now joined the ranks of Malaria and HIV/AIDS as a leading killer disease in the country.
But after drilling boreholes in the various communities, diarrhoea and other related diseases continued to pose a major threat. «It is well known that providing good drinking water doesn’t always result in improving people’s health», says Joseph Kazombo, a health and sanitation expert in the Ministry of Water Development. He insists that health and hygiene education must also play their part.
DWS III Project
With this as background, the government initiated the District Water Supply Phase 111 (DWS III) project, which is jointly financed by a loan from the African Development Bank (ADB) and the Malawi Government. Improving health and sanitation is one of the project’s main aims.
The US $17.2 million DWS III project is an integral part of the country’s National Water Services Development Master Plan (1994-2010), which was prepared in 1994 under the water services sector study. It will be implemented in thirteen centres which come under Malawi’s three regional water boards. The Southern and Northern Region Water boards will have six centres each; the Central Region Water Board will have one.
The project aims to provide an adequate water supply to meet people’s demands. It will also improve the reliability and efficiency of existing water supply schemes and in the process, increase the area covered by the existing schemes.
A project document prepared by a member of the implementation team, estimates that the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2003, will eventually provide clean water to about 210,000 people living around the thirteen project centres. «In urban areas, there will be individual metered connections for those who can afford them, and public standpipes for those who cannot», states the document.
For the rural population, the document says the goal is to provide an average of 27 litres of drinking water per person per day and nobody should have to walk more than 500 metres to get water.
Sanitation
There is also the question of providing adequate sanitation. Kazombo says that most people in the three regional board areas, live in traditional and high density housing areas with no internal plumbing system, and they therefore get their water from communal water points. He says these people, including students in various educational institutions, mostly rely on unprotected pit latrines for their human waste disposal.
Kazombo is also head of the health and sanitation component for the Southern Region Water Board, and he says communities will be encouraged to construct modern pit latrines, using sanitation platforms and sanitation slabs combined with adequate ventilation pipes. Kazombo says other hygienic practices to be promoted will include the washing of hands after using pit latrines; washing hands before preparing or eating food; washing vegetables and fruit before eating them, frequent baths (at least once a day); and using a two-cup system for drinking water.
«Environmental sanitation facilities such as bath shelters, dish racks and refuse pits will also be provided for households. Beneficiaries will contribute construction material and provide labour for the construction of pit latrines,» says Kazombo.
Local communities must be involved
Unfortunately, experience has shown that many donor-funded projects usually collapse, once the donor has pulled out. Fear is also rife that the DWS III project which depends on ordinary men and women at grassroots level, may collapse when the ADB, whose funding accounts for 84% of the total project budget, pulls out in December 2003.
Elizabeth Gondwe is the Project Accountant and a member of the project implementation unit. She says that communities living around the project centres, will be will be trained in financial management, to enable them to understand how to raise and manage funds for the water points and sanitation facilities. This will ensure the programme’s sustainability.
She says: «Every Water Point Committee (WPC) is supposed to establish a maintenance fund, which will be used to purchase both fast-wearing and non-fast wearing spare parts. Each water point committee should discuss with the village headman and other local leaders about establishing a maintenance fund. It is easy to win people’s support when local leaders who have influence over others, support the idea. The committees should keep a record of the number of consumers who come to the water point, as these will be contributing towards the funds».
But Gondwe is a realist. She is mindful that over 60% of Malawi’s 10 million people are still living below acceptable poverty levels, and because of this, good management of the maintenance fund cannot be easily guaranteed.
Martin Chidzalema is General Manager for the Southern Region Water Board (SRWB). He says that because many organisations are now providing free water to people by drilling boreholes, it will not be easy to convince them to still use the Board’s water, and pay for it. He states: «We now have many competitors in our sector, and we have to provide a quality service to our customers if we are to survive as a business entity. Without customers, the SRWB will go out of business».
It is clear there is no one solution to help people suffering from diarrhoea-infectious diseases. One thing is certain. Clean water, sanitation and hygiene, all have a part to play, and Malawi’s health authorities cannot afford to ignore the problem.
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