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Ethiopia, UNICEF join hands to improve water facility

Xinhua, March 10, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ethiopia and the UN Child Fund (UNICEF) are jointly undertaking projects to ensure improved water, sanitation and hygiene services in the East African country.

Having launched its ONEWASH national program in 2013, Ethiopia has been undertaking various activities to ensure innovative ways of delivering water and sanitation services to its people.

Ethiopia's national wash program, which brings different sector partners including health and education, is coordinated by an office at the Ministry of Water, Irrigation, and Electricity, which leads and provides guidance to the decentralized structures at different levels.

With the program, UNICEF is collaborating with Ethiopia in the implementation of the urban water, sanitation and hygiene projects in eight towns of the country in four regional states, namely, Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, and Somali regional states.

Ethiopia will be hosting a high-level meeting on water and sanitation scheduled to take place from March 15 to 16 in its capital Addis Ababa where more than 50 ministers from around the world will be gathered to deliberate on ways of achieving universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030.

The ministers, who will be attending the high-level meeting in Addis Ababa, are expected to visit the project which includes technology that brings fresh water from the ground in difficult terrain; municipalities dealing with sanitation in expanding condominiums; school WASH program; and innovative landfill solid waste disposal solutions that close the cycle among others.

With regard to water supply system, officials of the Tigray Regional Water Resource Development Bureau and UNICEF told reporters that the main groundwater source field where three boreholes are drilled provides good yield of water to satisfy the current and future demand of Wukro town and its surrounding peri-urban settlements.

The water supply system will benefit the current population of 51,000 residents in the town and its surrounding and even more people in the future, according to the officials.

With its WASH program, UNICEF also targets 98 primary and secondary schools for its school WASH and menstrual hygiene management (MHM) pilot project, whereby activities are carried out to deal with MHM and correct sanitation and hygiene practices at schools.

UNICEF says its pilot project aims at contributing to reduction of school absenteeism and dropout and qualitative improvement in the perceived safety, dignity and empowerment of girls. Endit