Shift of focus crucial to sanitation development, stakeholders told

Beitbridge Bureau Chief GOVERNMENT has called for a paradigm shift in hygiene, behaviour and development agendas among stakeholders to improve the country’s water and sanitation development. Health and Child Welfare Minister Henry Madzorera made the remarks in a speech read on his behalf by Matabeleland South provincial medical director, Dr Gordon Bango, at the launch of the Nation Water and Sanitation Week at Lutumba Business Centre last Friday. This year’s theme is “Zero tolerance to open defecation: Key to a cholera free environment”. Minister Madzorera said infrastructure development and expansion of sanitation services could be achieved if engineers, economists and social scientists plan together. “But without behaviour change, it might be very difficult if not impossible to drive the sector back to the position it was during the golden era of sanitation in Zimbabwe. “It is more worrying that a child born today has already lost the ideal situation vis-a-avis, water and sanitation hygiene. To him, lack of access to safe and dignified sanitation is more of a norm than an exception hence . . . used to open defecation. “There is, therefore, need to embark on a massive hygiene behaviour change programme to curtail cases of open defecation.” The country, Minister Madzorera said, was facing challenges in the improvement of sanitation. He said such commemorations presented the nation with a platform to look into how stakeholders could improve sanitation delivery. “While we look forward to the development and expansion of sanitation infrastructure, there is a concern that behaviour change will not have such an easy quick fix. It is the key to good health and leads to good sanitation practices,” he said. Dr Madzorera said the time had come for the change agents, policy makers and communities in general to tackle the challenges and adopt development models, which encourage a self-motivated desire to change behaviour. He also called for stakeholders to work together to maintain a healthy environment in a sustainable way. “At this juncture let me challenge the technocrats in our government, the national action committee on water and sanitation and our partners to seriously consider focusing much of the software component of sanitation aimed at behavioural change. “Participatory health and hygiene education and promotion approaches can be used as catalysts to this,” said Minister Madzorera. The Minister also challenged communities around Beitbridge district to take sanitation as an integral component of their overall development agenda. The decline in the water and sanitation services throughout the country, he said, had to a large extent contributed to the cholera outbreak that besieged the country since August 2008. Minister Madzorera said to date the death toll stands at over 4 000 throughout the country. In Beitbridge alone 5 126 cases of cholera were reported claiming more than 148 lives during the same period. published by The Herald 08 November 2010 www.herald.co.zw