Sanitation‚ drinking water a far cry
(Source: The Himalayan Times)
HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE
KATHMANDU: The government, it seems, will fail to achieve the target of providing sanitation and drinking water access to all by 2017, if what it has achieved so far is anything to go by.The government has been able to declare only 203, out of total 3,915 VDCs, open-defecation-free zones till date. In two years, Nepal must upgrade the access of sanitation facilities by 10 per cent to achieve its three-year interim plan. At present, nearly 50 per cent of the total population have sanitation facilities whereas the interim plan has set the target to increase it up to 65 per cent.The country is marking the 12th National Sanitation Week from tomorrow with a slogan ‘Sanitation for Health, Dignity and Development’.
The country must ensure 53 per cent toilet coverage by 2015 to achieve sanitation goal under the Millennium Development Goals. Thakur Prasad Pandit, senior civil engineer at the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage under the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, hoped that the government would meet the target as the people were becoming aware by the day about personal hygiene and sanitation.“People these days are more aware about sanitation and safe drinking water these days,” said Pandit. According to a report compiled by the government and I/NGOs, only 43 per cent of the total population has sanitation facilities and only 80 per cent of the population has access to drinking water.
The number of open defecators in the country is around 16 million, which is 56.96 per cent of the total population. Pandit added that they have prepared a master plan on sanitation and are going to propose it to the Cabinet soon.Though the government has not allocated enough budget for sanitation, the public-private joint venture will help meet the target, said Pandit.
National Demographic and Health Survey-2006 showed that inadequate access to water and sanitation is responsible for 10,500 child deaths. Around 88 per cent diseases are caused due to lack of pure drinking water and poor sanitation.
Silent sanitation crisis in South Asia
MUSTAFA TALPUR
Around 716 million people in South Asia, out of the 1.027 billion, practice open defecation and are exposed to severe safety and health risks as well as adding to environmental pollution.
Women and children bear the major burnt of this crisis. About 500,000 children die every year due to disease related to poor sanitation and hygiene, and many more fall seriously ill, compromising their future potential and overburdening the health services. In addition to death and disease burden, and its subsequent costs on the national economy, poor sanitation is polluting environment and compromising dignity-the very essence of human beings.
To address this challenge and find collective solution of these undignified conditions, countries in South Asia gathered in Bangladesh in 2003, under the umbrella of South Asian Conference on Sanitation. In the last eight years, hundreds of high government officials, relevant ministers, sector actors and civil society met three times in Dhaka, Islamabad and Delhi in 2003, 2006 and 2008 respectively to find a common solution. This year more than 400 people from across South Asia met in Colombo to review the sanitation situation and progress made against previous commitments.
Three previous conferences have made a range of political and financial commitments, including adopting “people centred, community-led, and gender-sensitive and demand driven approach, elimination of open defecation and other unhygienic practices.”
No doubt, this eight-year drive by SACOSAN to turn the trend and achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has achieved several successes including recognition of access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a basic right, raising sanitation profile at the regional level, formulation of national policies, strategies and plans, increase in sanitation coverage, broadening partnership. However, there are several critical areas committed above but have not been really translated into concrete actions. This indicates the failure of the governance system, its responsiveness to the people’s demand and a system accountable to the people.
With the current rate of progress, the sanitation MDGs will not be achieved until 2028—too little and too late. Following are the important governance challenges if addressed might expedite the progress and lift millions of South Asians from undignified conditions and put them on the path of development, poverty reduction and prosperity.
Despite political commitment for establishing performance monitoring system, indicators are yet to be decided against which information collected provides the guide for better decision-making. Improving sanitation information system to avoid any statistical discrepancies is also an essential element of strengthening monitoring and accountability. Due to the unavailability of clearly defined national performance monitoring mechanism, keeping track of the difference between building and use of services is quite difficult, so is the difficulty in sustaining the services without robust monitoring and clearly-defined operation and maintenance roles and responsibilities.
Prioritizing sanitation, including increasing the finances for sanitation and their better utilization, has gained recognition. There has been some increase in sector financing, but in comparison to other social sectors and magnitude of crisis, it is still inadequate.
Better coordination, broad-based alliance and partnership and clear institutional mechanisms are the other areas repeatedly promised. Better institutional arrangement, which is able to coordinate the function and build a broad-based alliance for sanitation movement, and programming is central to success. Despite the commitments and institutional importance, countries in the region are still struggling to determine the clear institutional home of sanitation.
In very first SACOSAN, people-centered approach was recognized as sanitation is not just building toilets but it is the use of facilities as well as behavioral change. Centrally designed and delivered programs run a risk of remaining non-functional and lack of ownership by the community, and thereby unsustainability. Giving real meaning to participation is still an area which requires urgent action for going beyond words to meaning. This calls for a revamping of the institutional mechanism that will allow for proactive community participation.
Total sanitation has been delayed in South Asia by a lack of focus on human-centred development, and particularly on people-centred sanitation programmes.
Improved governance is central to address the challenge. The South Asian people want to see a governance system where decisions are informed by evidence and institutions, and decision makers connect to the people, where information flows freely, the poor get response, and justice and equity are made values. If these governance principles are followed, it may offer a better future for the South Asian children.
(Source: The Himalayan Times)
“Knowledge and Practice on Preventive Measures of Diarrhea among dalit and non-dalit Mothers of Under five Children in Gorkha Municipality”- Kamala K.C
Abstract Diarrhea is a major public health problem in Nepal. In 2009, there was an epidemic of diarrheal diseases in different districts of mid and far western region of Nepal and most affected distrivts was jajarkot. In 2010, four persons have died and dozens fallen sick in an outbreak of diarrhea in Gumda and Kashigaun VDCs in the northern part of Gorkha district. The main objective of this study was to assessing the level of knowledge and practice on preventive measures of diarrhea among dalit and non-dalit mothers of under five children in Gorkha Municipality, Gorkha.A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted using primary data obtaining through interviewing semi-structured questionnaire and applying non-participatory observation.
The age of the mothers were varies from 19-50 years in non-dalit and 19-40 years in dalit, in which majority i.e. 52% non-dalit and 42% dalit mothers fall under the age between 20-25 years. Almost all i.e 94% non-dalit mothers were literate, among them 58% had completed secondary level education followed by intermediate level i.e. 19% and 86% dalit mother were literate , among them 35% had completed secondary level education followed by primary level education i.e 28%. Housewife was the major occupation of mothers of both groups i.e. 62% n non-dalit and 48% in dalit.
All most all of the respondent i.e 98% from non-dalit and 92% from dalit were said that they were know about the preventive measures of diarrhea but while calculating the level of knowledge on the basis of score given to the question related to the knowledge on preventive measures, only 22% non-dalit and 6% dalit mothers had adequate knowledge on preventive measures of diarrhea. Sixty percent of non-dalit mothers had proper practice on preventive measures but in dalit only 32% had proper practice. The previous incidence of diarrhea is higher in dalit i.e. 36% than in non-dalit i.e. 16%.Most of the dalit mothers had inadequate knowledge than non-dalit in preventive measures of diarrhea. The study found that there was no relationship between educational level and level of knowledge. In comparison to knowledge, level of practice was high in both groups but proper practice was higher in non-dalit than in dalit. Due to lack of proper practice previous incidence of diarrhea was higher in dalit than in non-dalit.
