Water at the core of community resilience in the face of El-Nino-induced drought | Spiked.co.zw

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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Zimbabwe has said access to safe water and improved sanitation and hygiene services are key to ensuring children’s rights to health, nutrition, education, and protection. As Zimbabwe faces the El Nino-induced drought, the UN agency is calling on the Government and partners to prioritise investment in water, sanitation, and hygiene to build resilience at the community level.

Addressing journalists at a press conference in Harare today, Etona Ekole, the UNICEF Zimbabwe Representative said access to safe water remains a challenge for communities in Zimbabwe. Only 81 percent of rural people have access to improved water sources (data 2024 – ZIMLAC). About half of the households have access to safe water less than 500 meters from home.

Zimbabwe is currently experiencing strong and intense El Nino-induced drought, leading to water scarcity and further jeopardising access to safe water for many Zimbabwean people. Because of the drought, nearly four percent of the boreholes in the rural areas in Zimbabwe have dried up, particularly in Matabeleland South and Masvingo Provinces. The situation is worsening. Broken boreholes rose to more than 6,000 by August 2024. Access to safe water is also worrying in urban settings, including in Harare and Bulawayo, where water production is insufficient to cover the needs.

“Water scarcity increases the risk of waterborne diseases and malnutrition among children. It can also lead to school dropouts and child labor and increases the risk of child exploitation and abuse as children are mobilised to fetch water from far away distances, in insecure circumstances as water is sometimes collected late in the evening or early morning.

“The El Nino-induced drought reminds us of the critical nature of ensuring sustained access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) to prevent and respond to climate change shocks like droughts. Our response cannot be limited to providing food assistance. By ensuring sustainable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene, we contribute to ensuring the protection of children’s rights, including the right to health, nutrition, education, and protection. By providing access to safe water in communities, we build their resilience to cope with climate change-related shocks like the El Nino-induced drought and prevent child malnutrition, morbidity, and mortality. With water, we contribute to a sustainable future at the community level,” Ekole said.

Tariro Mavi, the UNICEF Zimbabwe WASH Specialist said water is important in nutrition, quality education, and healthcare services.

“The importance of water is central to delivering all those issues. Again, water is very important for building communities’ resilience. When we talk about resilience in communities, we cannot move without talking about water. It brings about the sustainability for communities that we all live in. When we come down to Zimbabwe, we are realizing that 81% of Zimbabweans have access to safe water. That is either the piped water that we receive, the handpumps that we see in different communities, meaning that there are still some communities that do not have access to that kind of service level.

“When it comes to basic sanitation services, which is access to properly disposing our human waste, only half of the households in Zimbabwe do have access to that while we also see open defecation is continuing. We have 25% of Zimbabwe that is defecating, which means one in every four of us here is often defecating. When we look at the consequences on water, I think we all understand the impacts,” Mavi said.

Lack of access to water increases the risk of child illness and death. Zimbabwe recently had a cholera outbreak, and most of the people who were affected were children. Issues of access to sanitation and hygiene are very much impacted when there is no water.

“Again, water is very crucial for people’s livelihoods and economic development. When we look at people’s livelihoods, most of us in here have been writing on the issues of animals dying, particularly in the Matebeleland South Province, due to lack of water, which affects people’s wealth and ability to actually pay for school fees, pay for health services.

“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,” Mavi added.

Zimbabwe has seen abuse cases also rising when there is water scarcity, because children are forced to walk for longer distance to actually access water.

Lak of water leads to breakout of water borne diseasesa.

“When we look at our data coming in from the Ministry of Health, we’re also seeing an increase in terms of diarrhoea cases being reported across the country. 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’re Zimbabweans, you know, we like to have our vegetables, we like to have our soup, but when there’s no water, such basic management issues are really affecting our health. You know, food assets that we get become scarce. Again, like we indicated, the rights of children are also being affected as children are looked at as a source of labour or even as a source of wealth when we do get drought,” Mavi said.

Right now, 4% of the boreholes within Zimbabwe are currently drying up due to the drought.By August 2024, over 6,000 of the 6,028 boreholes had broken down, which speaks to about 11% of the boreholes in rural communities were not functioning.

To respond to the water scarcity households are facing, UNICEF – as co-sector lead on water, sanitation and hygiene with the Government – works with its partners to enhance safe water supply to communities, health facilities, and schools facing water insecurity through the

rehabilitation of existing water systems and construction of new water systems, including climate-resilient multi-purpose solar-powered piped water systems that enable safe drinking, domestic, livestock, and garden water.
increasing water storage capacity at the community and institutional level.
promoting safe hygiene and sanitation practices and water conservation through established community health and hygiene mechanisms and mass media.

To deal with the El Ninon induced drought, UNICEF appealed for 34 million USD for the rehabilitation of water points and to ensure people in need are provided with access to safe water. While funding contributions have been limited until now, UNICEF, the Government and partners in the water, sanitation and hygiene sectors were able to

set up a dashboard to track and monitor water systems in rural areas.
provide more than 55,000 people in need access to safe water through rehabilitating 67 boreholes and developing 15 solar piped water systems.
provide nearly 55,000 people with access to critical water supplies, including water treatment chemicals, soap and water containers.
installed 50 health clubs in schools and communities to promote appropriate behaviour in times of reduced access to safe water.

UNICEF calls on the Government, donor community, and partners to prioritise interventions aimed at providing sustainable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities for children and their families in communities. 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.