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Zimbabwe water infrastructure status to be surveyed

12th February 2013

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has moved to have the status of the existing water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure within 33 rural districts in Zimbabwe reviewed.

The organisation, which closed off expressions of interest (EOI) in early February, aimed to appoint an institutional consultancy services company by March or April to undertake a baseline survey of the infrastructure.

Unicef Zimbabwe chief of communications Victor Chinyama told Engineering News Online that the survey would form the basis of a $57-million large-scale water, sanitation and hygiene (Wash) project in selected rural areas in Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, Midlands, Masvingo and Mashonaland West.

“The objective is to reduce the proportion of people without access to safe water and sanitation in the 33 districts by 25%,” he said.

However, the extent of water and sanitation infrastructure deterioration over the past few years was relatively unknown and Unicef aimed to assess the sector to ensure any corrective action was sustainable.

The current status of water and sanitation services and coverage in Zimbabwe was unclear; however, the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare estimated that 46% of Zimbabweans had access to safe drinking water and only 30% to basic sanitation facilities.

Last year, the Department for International Development (DFID) indicated that 98% of those currently without a safe and reliable drinking water source resided in rural areas.

Chinyama added that the maintenance and repair of water and sanitation facilities had ceased over the past ten years, resulting in a sharp deterioration of the facilities.

“Many community water point committees, who manage water points at a local level, have stagnated and pump minders are no longer employed. A 2004 inventory of water and sanitation services estimated that 75% of the 47 000 hand pumps in the country were not functional,” he explained.

Further, subsidies for the sanitation sector had “dried up”, hampering the construction of new facilities.

“With ageing superstructures, full latrine pits, [and the] unavailability and unaffordability of cement, about 48% of people in rural communities have resorted to open defecation,” Chinyama said.

The Wash project, which was launched in June last year and would run until June 2016, would provide year-round equitable and sustainable access to safe water supply and sanitation for 2.3-million people.

Together with the government of Zimbabwe, and funded by the DFID and the Swiss Development Cooperation, Unicef planned to drill 1 500 new boreholes, as well as rehabilitate 7 300 nonfunctioning boreholes and 33 piped water schemes in each of the districts.

The Wash programme would also result in the construction of 15 000 latrines at 1 150 primary and 350 secondary schools in rural areas, as well as a further 500 000 latrines for the most vulnerable 10 000 communities in the provinces.

About 10 000 water points and 33 rural piped schemes would be sustainably managed through public–private partnerships.

The project would also work to promote the adoption of key sanitation and hygiene practices, such as the regular washing of hands, safe water handling and the proper use of sanitation facilities, by four-million people, including 620 000 school children.

Unicef also hoped to establish private supply chains for water supply commodities in the 33 districts, develop back-up systems for operations and maintenance, update the national inventory for rural water and sanitation infrastructure and strengthen rural water and sanitation institutions.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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