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| Rehabilitated hand-pump at Sitanunku village,WCR/Pic/MSJoof/NOV2011 |
The grant is meant to improve access to clean drinking water
and better sanitation for an estimated 40,000 people in rural areas of the
country and cut hygiene-related deaths in those areas, particularly among
children.
The African Development Fund, the AfDB’s concessional or
‘soft loan’ arm, is providing USD 5 million and the remaining USD 2 million
dollars will be provided by the AfDB’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation
Initiative Trust Fund. The funds will be used to build and rehabilitate
drinking water supply and sanitation facilities in rural areas of the Gambia.
Backbreaking
It came at a time when majority of Gambia’s rural
communities undergo backbreaking efforts to access, if available, “safe
drinking water”, with women bearing the brunt of it, while sanitary standards
remain a record low as shown by recent statistics.
Rural dwellers trek more than two kilometers using oxcarts
to transport water to their villages, but not until when they have queued for two
hours only to fill one 20litre container.
Three years after the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)
declared 2008 as the “International Year of Sanitation, the national coverage
for improved sanitation in The Gambia remains at 67 percent as of 2011,
dropping as low as 31 percent in some regions.
The 1998 UNGA declaration was made in recognition of the
impact of sanitation on public health, poverty reduction, economic and social
development and the environment.
Top priority
“Providing access to water supply and sanitation is one of
the Bank’s top priorities” said Sering Jallow, AfDB Director, Water and
Sanitation department and the African Water Facility. “The Bank is glad to
partner with the Government of the Gambia to increase access to adequate
services in rural areas, educate and empower populations and significantly
improve their living conditions.”
AfDB said the Gambia Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project
will build capacity and provide safe drinking water, and also help solve the
problems of unhygienic handling of drinking water and poor personal hygiene and
sanitation practices in rural areas. This is expected to reduce
hygiene-related-deaths, which account for 20 percent of mortality of children
under five.
Budget-stress
“Clean water supply and sanitation is crucial in the
realization of our country’s development goals and poverty reduction
strategies,” said Mambury Njie, the Gambia’s minister of finance and economic
affairs.
He added that: “This project will help reduce the stress on
the country’s national budget, thus redirecting some of the health care
budgetary allocations into other development activities; the government of the
Gambia has made it a priority to provide clean water supply and sanitation for
its people, especially in rural areas.”
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| New pit-latrine at Dimbaya Village,WCR/Pic/MSJoof/NOV2011 |
Thousands of Cassamance refugees are living in rural-Gambia, especially in the West Coast Region (WCR), sharing with their hosts the limited resources and as well the poor infrastructure. As a result, water points and sanitary facilities are overstretched.
Increasing poverty
Rural communities made up of mainly farmers are faced with increasing poverty and declining agricultural production – revealing an urgent need for the Government and civil-society organisations to step-up efforts in providing access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities.
Rural communities made up of mainly farmers are faced with increasing poverty and declining agricultural production – revealing an urgent need for the Government and civil-society organisations to step-up efforts in providing access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities.
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