By Kuda Pembere
With the El-Nino induced drought severely affecting water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in Zimbabwe, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)’s is appealing for US$34 million to mitigate the impact of this climate change phenomenon.
This appeal comes at a time where with increased funding much could be done to improve WASH for improved access to safe water and improved sanitation and hygiene services which are key to ensuring children’s rights to health, nutrition, education, and protection.
Addressing the media, UNICEF representative to Zimbabwe Etona Ekole said the El-Nino triggered drought has negatively affected access to save water in the country.
“As Zimbabwe experiences a difficult drought induced by El Nino, which has led to water scarcity, we are reminded once again that providing access to safe water is a crucial human right and must be prioritised in all our interventions as we respond to the drought,” she said calling on the
Government, donor community and partners to prioritise interventions to provide sustainable access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities for children and their families in communities.
She added, “Increased funding will enable the implementation of innovative approaches that build community resilience to effectively mitigate the consequences of climate-related shocks, preserve development gains and protect the well-being of children.”
UNICEF WASH Specialist Tariro Mavi said prioritization of WASH would buffer communities from the climate shocks.
“We are also requesting for increased funding to enable the implementation of innovative approaches within the WASH sector so that we can also build the community resilience.
“I think we have seen the data that Zimbabwe is going to continue to be prone to climate-related impacts and our temperatures probably by 2030 are going to increase, meaning the impacts or the effects of these droughts will only increase with time.
“So, we need to prioritize water security if we’re going to ensure our communities are very much resilient to the impacts of the drought,” she said.
She said when WASH services are hampered this leads to malnutrition challenges and high child marriages.
“So the issue of water really cannot be undermined. When we look at education, in previous years we’ve seen that we’ve had high school dropouts when there’s no water, and again, girl children are forced into early marriages as families try to look for coping mechanisms to mitigate the issues that come about due to drought.
“We’ve also seen abuse cases also rising when we do have water scarcity, because children are forced to walk for longer distance to actually access water.
“Additionally, I think like I indicated earlier, the issue of breakout of waterborne diseases increases. When we look at our data coming in from Ministry of Health, we’re also seeing an increase in terms of diarrheal cases being reported across the country,” Mavi said. “Again, the issue of the El Nino-induced drought is really impacting our nutrition issues in the country. Issues around diet diversity is really affected when there’s no water. I think we all know we as Zimbabweans, you know, we like to have our vegetables, we like to have our soup, but when there’s no water, such basic food assets that we get become scarce.”
While appealing for more funding to achieve the desired goal of leaving no-one behind, despite the limited funding UNICEF through the Central Emergency Response Fund have managed to reach over 55 000 people with WASH services.
“We have also been receiving funds from Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), which is an internal UN mechanism to generate funds for the response and we have reached over 55,000 people with access to safe water.
“We have also provided critical hygiene kits which comprise of soap, household water treatment chemicals, which has also reached over 55,000 people. We are also working with what we call health clubs, which are found within schools and in the communities to promote good hygiene practices and also push forward the issues of water conservation.
“And we are also working to ensure we continue to support the government to rehabilitate boreholes that are down and also installing solar pipe water systems so that we can reach more people with less resources.,” Mavi said.
