Want to know the key to beat superbugs? Handwashing

A new report in May has highlighted the growing threat of drug-resistant "superbugs". The projections of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) - prepared for the British government by economist Jim O'Neill - are disturbing: antibiotic-resistant bacteria already kill nearly a million people each year.

Worse, by 2050, this may rise to 10 million, potentially costing the world US$100 trillion (S$136 trillion) in lost productivity.

Society must focus on prevention and become much more prudent with the use of existing antibiotics in order to slow the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria. In South-east Asia, this means reducing usage by consumers, as well as by farmers who use antibiotics in agriculture. Prevention requires better sanitation and hygiene.

Across the region, access to sanitation remains problematic. The World Health Organisation estimates some 935 million people in South Asia and 176 million in South-east Asia lack sanitation. These areas will feel the impact of drug-resistant bacteria more acutely as infections become increasingly difficult to treat.

In South-east Asia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, cholera and pneumonia, among others, have already shown resistance to current drug treatments. The result is prolonged periods of sickness, more expensive treatments and greater risks to communities. 

Governments must prioritise the provision of water and sanitation systems to counter the spread of disease. In addition, the immediate and cost-effective way to reduce risk is handwashing with soap.

Handwashing does not solve the problem of drug-resistant bacteria. But it does slow the emergence of new resistance and saves people from getting sick with potentially untreatable illnesses. According to Unicef, the United Nations' children's agency, handwashing with soap after defecation and before handling food can reduce diarrhoea by up to 59 per cent, and respiratory illness by one quarter.

Handwashing can help eliminate millions of courses of antibiotics that are currently ineffectively and often inappropriately prescribed. Proper hygiene behaviour also helps prevent the spread of contagious diseases such as Sars, H5N1 influenza and Ebola, long considered impending threats among dense populations.

However, handwashing with soap is more commonly said than it is done. Notoriously difficult to monitor, rates of handwashing with soap vary dramatically, though rarely surpass 40 per cent to 50 per cent at key times and can be much lower, according to international studies. Even among medical professionals, there is an overall median compliance rate of only 40 per cent, according to the AMR global report.

Knowledge and practice are not equivalent. Establishing regular hygiene behaviour requires water, soap and a convenient basin together at the proper time and place - an "enabling environment".

For those living in affluent cities, this challenge may not be obvious. Yet, piped water and modern sinks are expensive and often unavailable in rural areas. Traditional water storage methods create awkward logistics for handwashing.

Makeshift solutions often involving recycled plastic bottles or milk cartons attached to a tree or post can be free, but have proven unsuccessful in changing behaviour. Because they are free, such devices are not valued and easily discarded. As one development expert said: "People don't want to use something that looks like rubbish hanging in their yard." Undeniably, the goal is regular usage.

World Design Impact Prize 2015-2016 Finalists

In response, a small company in Vietnam has launched an innovative and attractive low-cost consumer product that promotes behaviour change, born from the Global Scaling Up of Handwashing campaign, a project under the water and sanitation programme that is part of the World Bank Group's Water Global Practice.

Our think-tank, the Global Institute For Tomorrow (Gift), supported this process. Currently wholly-owned by the WaterSHED non-governmental organisation, the social-business is now seeking to scale up production and distribution throughout the region.

Designed through a human-centred design process, it was a finalist for the World Design Impact Prize, which encourages industrial design driven projects that benefit society. Imagine a "portable sink" complete with soap tray, wastewater pipe and modern design, placed in the kitchen or outside the latrine, with optional mirror, dental kit and make-up - an aspirational, modern lifestyle product, yet still affordable at about US$12.

This contrasts with products in other regions that retail for US$200 or public hand sanitiser devices which require regular servicing.

The number of rural residents in Asean who could stand to benefit from a low-cost product that changes handwashing behaviour could amount to well over half of the region's 625 million population.

Countries with the greatest need for such a handwashing device, based on the percentage of the population with what is termed "improved sanitation", according to World Bank figures, are: Cambodia, 42 per cent (which means 58 per cent do not have access); Indonesia, 61 per cent; Laos, 71 per cent; the Philippines, 74 per cent; Vietnam, 78 per cent; and Myanmar, 80 per cent.

However, even where there is improved sanitation, there may not be running water, and in many rural areas there is no piped water into the household, so it is inconvenient to wash one's hands with soap.

Handwashing is the most important preventative measure that can be implemented today. Other more costly and time-consuming investments in infrastructure and new pharmaceutical cures are also necessary. Singapore and other centres of innovation should incentivise the development of new drugs. 

Concurrently, Asean should set targets to reduce overall antibiotics usage. Doctors, meanwhile, must be more conservative with prescriptions and also seek to facilitate handwashing behaviour among patients. Everyone will have a role to play in this critical race against drug resistance - and it starts with prevention.

SOURCE STRAITSTIMES

Water projects’ implementation in Tanzania thrills AfDB

AFRICAN Development Bank (AfDB) has expressed satisfaction on Tanzania’s implementation of water and sanitation projects, promising to continue working closely with the government towards the target of availing water and sanitation services to more citizens.

AfDB Director of Water and Sanitation Department Mohamed El Azizi said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the bank has financed a number of water and sanitation projects in Tanzania and in Africa in general.

Mr El Azizi was speaking at sixth Africa Water Week, which started on July 18 through July 22, under the theme of achieving Sustainable Development Goals on Water Security and Sanitation.

The continent’s development financier has since 2001 approved nine water and sanitation operations in Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar at a total cost of about 700 million US dollars (over 1.5trn/-).

The director advised the government and development partners to increase funding for water and sanitation projects to address the problem of access to reliable water and sanitation services facing a number of African countries.

The bank indicated that for Africa to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals there must be political commitment, prioritisation of water and sanitation issues, as well as more budget allocation to the water and sanitation sector.

Mr El Azizi challenged the government and development partners to set sufficient budgets for water interventions.

“At the African Development Bank we are already supporting large scale water and sanitation projects like the Arusha Sustainable Urban Water and Sanitation Project which will cost over 200 million US dollars,” he said.

The AfDB recently agreed to focus on five priority actions and goals which will help to transform the African continent. The five priority goals, which AfDB calls the “High 5s for Africa” are: Light Up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialise Africa; Integrate Africa and Improve the Quality of Life for Africans which will directly contribute to the development of the water infrastructure and the water security.

According to the director, water and sanitation will remain one of the key development challenges facing communities and nations of Africa since it will have direct impacts on the economic growth and on the attainment of most other Sustainable Development Goals, the international targets that replaced the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.

Africa is one of the developing regions which have not met the drinking water and sanitation targets. More than 50 per cent of Africa’s population currently does not have access to safe and reliable water and sanitation services.

Also an estimated one million Africans die every year from lack of adequate sanitation, hygiene or from water borne diseases.

SOURCE DAILY NEWS 

Why the government has to confront a long standing challenge of providing clean and safe water to the majority of Tanzanians

I travelled to over seven regions of this country recently and one of the most imposing successes as you move hundreds of kilometers, is the modern roads connecting scores of regions. It’s admirable. But the story is different with regard to access to clean water.

A pastoralist collects drinking water from a contaminated water source in the northern part of Tanzania

Despite progress made, provision of water supply remains one of the biggest problems especially in the rural areas. Yet, Universal access to clean water and sanitation is one of 17 Global Goals that make up the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

As President John Magufuli’s new government moves to embark on reforms in the sector, analysts urge it to make it central since it’s a critical role that water and sanitation plays in human development.

One of the global faces of this subject, Professor Anna Tibaijuka, a Member of Parliament for Muleba South, says that since goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals is to “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”, the government should make it central in the new budget whose implementation started in July.

“This is an important recognition of the critical role that water and sanitation plays in human development, and hence, its function in the elimination of poverty in our countries. The effort reached this far to forge global partnership to address the means of implementation to achieve the SDGs is fundamental in social and economic progress not only for Tanzania but to all countries which are still lagging behind to fully achieve the SDGs,” she notes.

Prof Tibaijuka, who is the former chairperson of Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), says that in the SDGs, the countries are called on to improve not only drinking water and sanitation but comprehensively to deal with other challenges too, such as, water quality, reduce amount of untreated wastewater, reduce water scarcity, implement integrated water resources management and trans-boundary cooperation, and protect water related ecosystems.

Initiatives like the drinking ATM installed in India by the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation where clean drinking water is sold at near give away prices will go a long to increasing access to this invaluable liquid if replicated

Targets 6.1 and 6.2, the two targets related to drinking water and sanitation, set a higher benchmark than the MDGs did not, they emphasize on universal and equitable access.

She adds that the government of Tanzania on its side has participated in the formulation and implementation of these development frameworks. There are a number of interventions in water and sanitation programs that have been envisaged for some time now, with all aimed at improvement of water and sanitation status in the country.

She recognizes the Water Sector Development Program, an effort to comprehensively improve status of people with access to safe, clean and equitable provision of water services in urban and rural; and improving access to improved sanitation.

“This is a flagship project for the Government and the WASH Sector to ensure that more communities are reached with improved water and sanitation services in Tanzania,” she adds.

The Global Sanitation Fund, the world’s only multi-donor financing facility dedicated to sanitation, supports the development of national sanitation and hygiene improvement programmes, which are community-based, government-enabled and commercially operated.

Tanzania is among the beneficiary countries and the program is going hand in hand with and supports the country’s National Sanitation Campaign by facilitating communities improve their sanitation and adopt sustainable hygiene practices.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Community Development Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDGEC) Dr Mpoki Ulisubisya, says that Tanzania as a country and member of UN is signatory in the adoption of this agenda of taking stock and re-strategizing for effective delivery of sanitation and hygiene work, since it aligns very much with countries efforts to attain set targets for meeting the SDGs.

He cited that the key role of improved sanitation and safe water supply in the poverty alleviation and economic development efforts at large.

“Our commitment to achieve equitable access to sanitation and safe water is anchored to our recognition that, access to those public services is a pre-requisite for all Tanzanians to lead a life of human dignity; a cause that extends beyond metrics and results to touch on the daily lives of our people,” he says.

Tanzania as a country and member of UN is signatory in the adoption of this Agenda.

In the SDGs, the countries are called on to improve not only drinking water and sanitation but comprehensively to deal with other challenges too, such as, water quality, reduce amount of untreated wastewater, reduce water scarcity, implement integrated water resources management and trans-boundary cooperation, and protect water related ecosystems.

Tanzania has formulated The Water Sector Development Program with the aim of comprehensively improving the status of people with access to safe, clean and equitable provision of water services in urban and rural; and improving access to improved sanitation. The Program took off on July, 2007.

The National Sanitation Campaign was launched in June 2012 to facilitate the sensitization and provision sanitation and hygiene services in Tanzania. The GSF supported program USAFI WA MAZINGIRA TANZANIA (UMATA) is the key support to provision of lessons for improvement the National Sanitation Campaign. Its implementation has taken the direction that allows government systems to capture results and lessons.

In order to encourage good management and prevent excessive profiteering of only specific group of operators, standard contracts will be developed.

The Ministry of Water and Irrigation in collaboration with the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government will supervise the recruitment of registrars at Local Government Authority by 2016. The later will be responsible for registration of Community Owned Water Supply Organizations (COWSOs).

The Ministry of Health needs to develop a guideline that stipulates focus areas on promoting sanitation and hygiene which all the stakeholders will be engaged. This measure will ensure the common goal on sanitation and hygiene is attainable and that through this approach the country commits itself to increase access to improved sanitation to 53 per cent and reduce ODF from 12 per cent to 6 per cent by 2016.

A mechanism to be established by the Ministries of Water, Health and Education to accelerate the mobilization of resources both human and financial which are required for the implementation of sanitation and hygiene interventions. Inadequate resources have been identified as among the barriers to improved service delivery on sanitation and hygiene services in the country.

The Ministry of Health, Ministry of Water, Local Government Authorities in collaboration with the network of CSOs will work together to strengthen the private sector participation in the delivery of sanitation and hygiene service by building capacities to the same and creating enabling environment to access technical support and open up the business opportunities on the sector.

The private sector involvement in sanitation and hygiene is expected to be of great importance in strengthening the supply chain on sanitation and hygiene services. Tanzania has set targets to achieve 100 per cent ODF by 2019. This is an ambitious goal.

SOURCE TANZANIA REPORTS

Advanced technology cut-down water conflicts in Pangani Basin

PANGANI Basin Water Board officials collect water samples to test for salinity levels

THE introduction of high tech equipment for monitoring and modeling water resources in Pangani Basin has helped to reduce conflicts related to water allocation and improved the management of the resource.

This was revealed in Dar es Salaam yesterday by a local Consultant with Pangani Basin, Mr Hosea Sanga, at the ongoing exhibitions to mark the 6th Africa Water Week which commenced on Monday.

He said that through the use of smart stick, Pangani Basin has managed to get reliable data on water which are crucial for planning and management of water, but also reduced conflicts related to water allocation.

Mr Sanga further said that the data are also useful in helping the communities to resolve water allocation conflicts during river committee and water user association meetings.

“The Ministry of water and Irrigation in Pangani Basin needs data in order to make decisions because it is responsible for allocating water to farmers, but also the data is crucial in decision making and planning,” Mr Sanga noted.

He added that the technology has helped farmers to have modern way of knowing what level of water they have to allocate to their respective farms. Expounding, he said the use of the high tech equipment is being promoted through the Innovation in Monitoring, Modeling and Managing Water project being implemented in Pangani Basin. 

Thanks to technology, farmers are able to know the amount of water needed 

He said the project is being implemented through the Ministry of Water and Irrigation in collaboration with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

“Currently, the project has designed and developed a smart stick for measuring water levels in the furrows ... the smart stick is used by communities for managing allocation of water at the farm level. 

Mr Sanga noted that before the introduction of the smart stick, farmers were using normal stick with some markers during allocation of water but the new technology has helped to know what level of water they have and can allocate to their respective farms.

Acting Basin Water Officer for Pangani Basin Water Board, Mr Philipo Patrick, said that the basin is facing water scarcity due to unprecedented pressure from population growth and highly irregular rains. He said more than 50 per cent of the area is semi-arid or arid receiving less than 600mm per year.

Mr Patrick said sometime the water allocation is done on rationing to ensure that it satisfy the demand. Patrick said that Pangani basin has a number of water disputes due to water scarcity, thus the allocation of the precious liquid normally based on the Water Allocation Policy which provide priority to water for domestic and environment use.

Chairman for Upper Kikuletwa Water User Association Tito KitomarI said that with a range of stakeholders, the Imomo Initiative has been working in the Thermi River for helping communities to make better water decision through greater transparency about allocation activities and on water availability in different parts of the catchment.

He said that currently reported water disputes have dropped from 30 per year to one or none.

SOURCE DAILY NEWS 

Africa Water Week starts in Dar es Salaam

The Africa Water Week (aww) is convened by the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) in conjunction with the African Union Commission and organized with other development partners.

It represents a political commitment at the highest level with over 1000 participants from governments, regional institutions, international partners, the private sector, the scientific community, civil society, and the media from all over the world, and in particular Africa, meeting to discuss and collectively seek solutions to Africa’s water resources, and sanitation challenges.

It is now held biennially in keeping with the decision of the AMCOW to institutionalize AWW in order to build momentum on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to water security and sanitation by 2030, and the 2025 Africa Water Vision as well as crystallizing the way to actualizing Africa’s Agenda 2063.

The first under the SDG era, it has as its theme “Achieving the SDGs on Water Security and Sanitation”. The choice of the theme is driven by the recognition of the importance of laying the building blocks for Africa to achieve the SDG 6 as well as other inter-linking SDGs connected with water resources management and improved sanitation service delivery.

The conference that starts from July 18 to July 22, 2016 will have a number of high level speakers including a keynote address from President John Magufuli, the Vice President, Ms Samia Suluhu, the AUC Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, AMCOW President and Senegalese Minister for Hygiene and Sanitation, the former Prime Minister of Korea and UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Disaster Risk Reduction and Water, Han Seung-soo among others.  

It also represents the quest in the continent to place emphasis on matching commitments and plans with concrete actions with impact on the ground. It highlights Africa’s undaunted focus to achieving the Agenda 2063, the continent’s global strategy to optimize use of Africa’s resources for the overall benefit of all.

The main outcome of the 6th Africa Water Week will be a roadmap for developing a comprehensive plan of action for Africa aimed at immediate translation of the high-level commitments including N’gor Declaration on Water Security and Sanitation into implementation at country, sub-regional and continental levels.

This is expected to lead to development of appropriate policies, high quality actions matched with strong motivation to implement them, and increased investment at various levels. The programmes implemented from these plans will contribute to poverty alleviation, health improvements, social development and economic growth in Africa.

The Africa Water Vision 2025 recognizes the pivotal role that sustainable use and management of water can play in poverty alleviation, socioeconomic development and sustenance of ecosystems and biodiversity. The vision also calls for effective and sustainable strategies to address water resources problems due to climate variability and change.

Bangladesh stops open defecation in just over a decade

In Bangladesh, village water, sanitation and hygiene committees have an active core of women to contribute to community decisions

Answering nature’s call was once a nightmare for Rashida Begum, who had to creep around the jungle for a suitably private spot. Her home had no toilet, like thousands of others in her crowded cluster of farming villages outside the capital. In just over a decade, that’s all changed, in her neighborhood and many others.

Through a dogged campaign to build toilets and educate Bangladeshis about the dangers of open defecation, the densely populated South Asian nation has managed to reduce the number of people who defecate in the open to just 1 per cent of the 166 million population, according to the government — down from 42 percent in 2003.

“Once it was our habit to go to the fields or jungles. Now, it is shameful to us,” Begum said in Bormi, a cluster of poor farming villages just outside Dhaka, the capital. “Even our children do not defecate openly anymore. We do not need to ask them; they do it on their own.”

Bangladesh’s success in sanitation — something so far unattained by its wealthier neighbor to the west, India — came from a campaign supported by 25 per cent of the country’s overall development budget.

“The government has made a huge commitment,” said Akramul Islam, director of water, sanitation and hygiene for BRAC, an international development association. “The government decided that funds should go to the extreme poor who do not have latrines. So that basically gives a big push from the public sector for spending on sanitation.”

With attractive frameworks for Public Private Partnerships, the private sector can play a major role in improving the sanitation situation in many countries

The government’s engineers partnered with village councils and charities to spread the message on how toilets are key to better health. Rising incomes — moving from an average of $1,154 in 2012-13 to $1,314 in the past fiscal year, according to the World Bank — also helped to drive demand, Islam said.

Activists say small-scale surveys show the campaign has improved public health, though there are not yet any government statistics to prove it more broadly.

“We see clearly that there is a decline in waterborne diseases and diarrheal diseases, so there is a clear link there,” Islam said, while acknowledging that the improvement was something “we have to study.”

Begum said her children have had no stomach illnesses since she installed an in-house toilet.

Open defecation is considered a major public health menace, causing childhood diarrhea, parasitic worm infections and other scourges that contribute to childhood stunting, malnutrition and tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity every year. Diarrheal diseases kill 700,000 children every year in India alone — most of which could have been prevented with better sanitation.

India has spent about $3 billion since 1986 on campaigning and sanitation programs but has not come close to Bangladesh’s success. Two-thirds of India’s 1.25 billion people still use the great outdoors as their public latrine. About half of Nepal’s 30 million people and about 20 percent of Pakistan’s 182 million also do not have facilities at home.

Bangladesh’s sanitation victory didn’t come easy. Millions of dollars from the government and charities were spent, and campaign volunteers said they worked hard to change public attitudes and habits.

“We had to do fierce campaigning,” said Mohammed Badal Sarker, chairman of a local village council. “We provided schoolchildren with whistles to alert the villagers. It worked like magic.”

Children were encouraged to shout slogans like “Defecating in the open is the enemy of the people” and “No one will marry your daughter if you do not have a toilet at home.”

There is still cause for concern. Bangladesh’s overpopulated urban areas are proving to be more of a challenge, mostly because the opportunity for contaminating the water supply is much greater.

“People might be using a toilet or a latrine, but then where does the human waste go from there?” said John Sauer, senior technical adviser of the Washington-based Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Population Services International.

Waste water could be dumped on a field where children play or where food is grown, he said: “We must address where the human waste goes and how it is treated, disposed or reused.”

SOURCE DAILY RECORD

Tanzania National Sanitation Campaign II to expand WASH to secondary schools

FORMER WSSCC Chair, Prof Anna Tibaijuka during the opening of the National Consultation meeting recently in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

MASEMBE TAMBWE

AS Tanzania starts phase two of the 28bn/- National Sanitation Campaign (NSC) 2016-2020 this month, efforts have been mounted to control Open Defecation (OD) and to ensure households upgrade their latrines both in rural and urban areas.

According to the World Health Organization Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2012 Update, between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of Tanzanians practicing OD increased from 8 per cent to 12 per cent; during this time the national population grew from 25.4 million to nearly 45 million people.

In urban Tanzania, the prevalence of OD has remained at 2 per cent (1990–2010) while the practice has increased from 10 per cent to 16 per cent in rural areas. As a result, an estimated 5.3 million rural inhabitants practiced OD in 2010. Given that Tanzania is estimated to be the fifth largest recipient of international aid in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, the current trends in OD are unexpected.

By 2030, the Sustainable Development Goal Target 6.2 plans to achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all, and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.

Speaking at a forum on the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) Strategy Development National Consultations in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children head of Water and Environmental Sanitation, Mr Stephen Kiberiti said that focus will be rendered on laws, standards and regulations.

“This will be done through strong behaviour change promotion. Further, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in institutions are also taken on board,” he said.

Highlighting some of the achievements of the first phase of the NSC, Mr Kiberiti said that by March 2016, 1,389,210 households had acquired improved toilets of the 1,520,000 target and that 860,613 primary school improved toilets with hand washing facilities out of the 1,520,000 target.

In the second phase of the campaign, plans are to have latrines in 700 secondary schools rehabilitated including provision of hand-washing facilities and formation of sanitation clubs by 2025, WASH in 1,000 health facilities rehabilitated and management of healthcare waste strengthened in 600 health facilities by 2025.

Other goals are 25 per cent of households to practice water treatment and safe storage by 2025 and eight WASH facilities constructed in highway bus stops by 2025. The WASH facilities will be built at the following centers; Mikumi, Makambako, Wami-Sokoine, Manyoni, Kahama, Same, Laela and Nangulukuru.

“Under phase II the school-WASH we will expand to cover both primary and secondary schools. It is intended to rehabilitate WASH facilities in all Local Government Authorties in a span of five years and at least each LGA is expected to achieve five schools in a year and 25 in the whole circle of five years. In this case, a total of 3,500 primary schools will benefit,” he cited.

The NSC II will work to promote the provision of WASH facilities in bus stops located along the highways. As per the Public Health Regulations, it requires a provision of designated WASH facilities accessible to all for convenience.

Similarly all the urban transport hubs will benefit from this intervention. Apart from hygiene education to passengers and travelers, other pertinent activities under this sub-component will include to mobilize the private sector and other non-governmental organization to provide the services through the Build, Own and Operate approach.

Environmental Health Officer, Amour Seleman said in a presentation that experience in the first phase had shown that there was a lack of platform to discuss issues related to WASH hence no sharing of lessons among all stakeholders with the LGA and thus a need to identity those working on WASH as well as establish a coordination platform between LGAs and identified stakeholders.

“Whilst there have been many achievements, there were challenges including lack of knowledge, dissemination and promotion of successful approaches, weak coordination among LGA and a need to select with a LGA a clear responsible department to deal with day to day issues related to sanitation and hygiene within local governments,” he said.

The WSSCC National Coordinator, Ms Wilhelmina Malima said that the country-specific strategic engagement plan aimed to guide WSSCC’s actions in Tanzania.

Ms Malima said that the strategic engagement plan is to ensure that WSSCC’s contributions add value to the national sanitation and hygiene sector, fulfill locally identified needs, support achievement of national goals and targets, and build on existing structures, institutions and networks.

The national consultations are a platform for dialogue and a listening exercise to better understand the challenges and priorities in the WSSCC countries and aims to explore the challenges that affect the WASH sector and the WSSCC’s work in Tanzania as well as to explore, together with the members and key stakeholders, the strategic choices and priorities that the WSSCC is facing and want to see included in the final strategy paper.