Women, Water and Hygiene Are Key to Change in Africa
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20 September 2005
http://unicef.org/media/media_28260.html
Women, water and basic hygiene are the key to creating lasting
change in Africa, but national water and sanitation plans are
still leaving women out, leaders in development said today.
UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman joined other prominent
women, including Hilde Frafjord Johnson, Norway's Minister for
International Development, to call for more attention and funds
to help the millions of African women and girls suffering dis-
proportionately for lack of these basic services.
Unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene habits play
a major role in child mortality, said UNICEF Executive Director
Ann M. Veneman. Bringing basic services to Africa's women and
girls could transform their lives and boost child survival in
the region.
Veneman said she is joining Minister Johnson and Minister Maria
Mutagamba, Uganda's Minister of State for Water, in the Women
Leaders for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) initiative.
Launched last year by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collabora-
tive Council (WSSCC), Women Leaders in WASH helps governments to
link women with sanitation and hygiene programmes, and supports
the UNICEF drive to put safe water and basic sanitation into all
primary schools by 2015. The group is meeting at UNICEF today to
set out a plan of action for Africa.
Lack of safe water and sanitation remains one of the world's
most urgent health issues. Some 1.1 billion people worldwide
still lack safe water and 2.6 billion have no sanitation, ac-
cording to a UNICEF and World Health Organization 2005 report
Water for Life.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region likely to miss Millennium
Development Goal (MDG) targets on both safe water and basic
sanitation, unless the world acts quickly to turn this around.
MDG 7 calls on countries to reduce by half the number of people
living without these basic services. But despite good progress
in some countries, currently only 58 per cent of Africans live
within 30 minutes walk of an improved water source and only 36
percent have even a basic toilet.
The consequences are particularly severe for African women and
children, condemning millions to a life of illness, lost oppor-
tunities and virtual slavery.
In rural Africa, 19 per cent of women spend more than one hour
on each trip to fetch water, an exhausting and often dangerous
chore that robs them of the chance to work and learn. Women
without toilets are forced to defecate in the open, risking
their dignity and personal safety. Education suffers too: more
than half of all girls who drop out of primary school do so for
lack of separate toilets and easy access to safe water.
Unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene habits play
a major role in Africa's high child mortality rate. Diarrhoea is
the third-biggest child killer in Africa after pneumonia and ma-
laria, accounting for 701,000 child deaths out of 4.4 million on
the continent every year. It also leaves millions of children
with a legacy of chronic malnutrition, the underlying cause of
over half of all child mortality. The burden of caring for sick
relatives inevitably falls to women and girls, keeping them at
home and shutting them out of economic development.
Bringing relief to women and girls will result in better ser-
vices for all and benefit entire communities, said Minister
Johnson and Minister Mutagamba.
Women can be key agents of change if they are empowered and in-
volved, said Minister Johnson. Since they are the primary vic-
tims of unsafe water and poor sanitation, we must start with
them if we are to liberate Africa from cycles of illness, child
mortality and low productivity.
In Uganda, we saw how rapidly school attendance can rise and
illness fall when schools have safe water and separate toilets
for boys and girls, said Minister Mutagamba. There is no excuse
not to put these effective and sustainable interventions into
practice everywhere.
Veneman, Johnson and Mutagamba hailed the great progress made by
many poor countries as proof that water and sanitation goals are
achievable everywhere. They called on Millennium Summit leaders
to commit to a strong action plan for the next decade.
--
Leela McCullough, Ed.D.
Director of Information Services
SATELLIFE
30 California Street, Watertown, MA 02472, USA
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