WASH Campaign South Africa

As part of this campaign, the South African Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry pledged money above and beyond basic water supply and sanitation in the cholera-prone rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal province for the provision of an emergency water services infrastructure.

Working closely with the Department of Health, which has conducted an intensive health and hygiene education programme for the affected communities in the Uthukela district, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) is also assisting with water sampling and distribution of disinfectants. It has partnered with the WSSCC to draw more attention to the problem and to encourage other communities and countries to learn from its experience. Strategies include a locally manufactured water pump that operates while children are at play, a "Working for Water" booklet, a WASH T-shirt, and other campaign materials. A "cholera roadshow" aimed at educating children and adults about safe water, sanitation, and hygiene practices in order to cut down the incidence of disease was also implemented.

Health, Children, Emergency.

Despite modern medical advances, some 1.1 billion people worldwide have no access to a safe water supply; 2.4 billion people have no access to adequate sanitation facilities. The consequences of this problem disproportionately impact girls and women, who are often denied access to men's latrines and thus forced to wait until dark to defecate, exposing them to harassment and sexual assault. Diarrhoea resulting from poor sanitation and hygiene is responsible for the death of more than two million impoverished children each year. Ladysmith, South Africa, alone has had 8,268 cases of cholera since November 2001, according to government estimates.

South Africa is one of 60 countries that signed the Bonn Ministerial Declaration during the International Conference on Freshwater (December, 2001) attended by over 2000 participants from more than 100 countries. The Ministerial and Bonn Conference Declarations both assigned high priority to water and sanitation as vital keys to sustainable development. They pressed for a sanitation goal to be added to the international development targets mentioned in the UN Millennium Declaration of 2000. This will be one of the issues addressed at the forthcoming African Sanitation Conference being organised by the WSSCC and the South African Government in Durban (July 29-August 1, 2002) just prior to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August/September, 2002. Programme organisers are also submitting a proposal for a global partnership on the WASH Initiative as a Type II outcome of the Johannesburg Summit.