Red alert on sanitation and safe drinking water

A HUMAN rights expert has raised a red flag about the large number of Namibians still lacking access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Catarina de Albuquerque concluded an eight-day visit to the country yesterday by briefly reviewing her findings on the “manner in which Namibia is realising the human rights to water and sanitation”.
She said Namibians lack awareness of water as a human right and Namibia is facing an alarming sanitation crisis.
Poor sanitation is to blame for the fact that 23 per cent of all deaths of children under five is due to diarrhoea – an illness linked to insanitary living conditions and a lack of clean water.
According to De Albuquerque, the human right to have access to clean water and sanitation services is embedded in Namibia’s constitution, “which means that these rights can be claimed in court”. Government, she said, has a “duty and obligation to take steps to make water available to everyone”.
Despite these rights, however, De Albuquerque said that “well over half of all child deaths in Namibia are related to lack of access to sanitation and safe water, as well as poor hygiene practices”.
While she praised Government’s efforts to improve sanitation and access to clean water during the past 21 years, she added that “it was clear from my visit that the inequitable access to water and sanitation reflects larger patterns of entrenched inequality in Namibia”.
Another weak spot in the supply of clean and safe water to many Namibians is “an overwhelming complaint … that water is too expensive”.
Although, she explained, the “human rights to water and sanitation do not require these to be free”, Namibians living in poverty “should not be forced to choose between water and medicine or food”.
Another problem she identified during her visit to the Epupa Constituency was that “water points are still extremely far away from households”.
She said she witnessed that people in the area were “drinking from a dirty traditional well, sharing it with their livestock, rather than walking the long distance to the water point”.
According to the community, the “distance between the village and the water source was mentioned … in order to explain why they did not wash their hands after defecation and before eating”.
De Albuquerque said that the “biggest challenge Namibia is facing is the low sanitation coverage”.
She says although the need for clean water supply and basic sanitation services was recognised as a priority at Independence, more emphasis has been placed on water supply than on sanitation services and awareness.
“It is time for sanitation to be accorded the same priority as water,” she said.
One of the solutions to the sanitation problem could be to focus on dry sanitation, which according to De Albuquerque “presents a more sustainable path forward for everyone – rich and poor”.
She said that the so-called Otji-toilet – a dry toilet invented and marketed by the Otjiwarongo Clay House project – is a “pioneering solution, which enables safe and dignified sanitation while saving scarce water resources”.
However, the implementation of dry sanitation solutions requires targeted awareness campaigns, otherwise “dry sanitation will never become the norm if they are continued to be perceived as second-class options”.
De Albuquerque is preparing a report that will be presented to the United Nations next year. After its official release, Government will begin interactive dialogue on the report’s contents.