WASH News South Asia
News feed maintained by information specialists from IRC and partners.
India - Contest to award photo coverage of sanitation
20 Mar 08
To commemorate the “International Year of Sanitation - 2008,” the Water and Environmental Sanitation Network India (WES-Net India) and its constituent member organizations, UNICEF, WaterAid; Plan India, invite photojournalists working in newspapers and magazines across India to take part in a photo contest on themes related to sanitation. Entries must be received by April [...]
Pakistan - 200 AJK villages to be made open defecation-free by year end
20 Mar 08
SLAMABAD, Mar 13 (APP): About 200 villages in earthquake-hit Muzaffarabad will be made open defecation-free by the end of current year under a pilot project launched by the UNICEF and its partners in the mid 2007.In the quake-ravaged areas of Azad Kashmir, 14 villages have already been granted open defecation-free status by the UNICEF and [...]
Pakistan: Children and women lead the way to ‘total sanitation’ in earthquake zone
20 Mar 08
The School-Led Total Sanitation project was piloted by UNICEF in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in mid-2007. Drawing from experience gathered by UNICEF and its partners, the programme initiates change by developing useful health and hygiene skills in school to encourage life-long positive habits.“With this approach, we use teachers and children as entry points into the communities,” explains [...]
India: Rich will have to pay more for water
16 Mar 08
New Delhi, March 13:The rich will have to pay more for the use of water as the Government indicated that it has plans to impose varying rates for different sections of consumers. Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy told Rajya Sabha that the Government was not thinking of increasing the price of water for poorer sections, [...]
Bangladesh: Clean Living - TVE’s Earth Report examines Community Led Total Sanitation
15 Mar 08
In the International Year of Sanitation, Earth Report travels to Bangladesh to discover changing attitudes to hygiene. No more ‘open defecation’: instead of top-down solutions, the new Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach has eradicated open defecation in more than 300 villages. Earth Report investigates. The programme features CLTS guru Kamal Kar. Read the transcript [...]
Pakistan - Diarrhoeal diseases cost country
10 Mar 08
ISLAMABAD: The diarrhoeal diseases are costing Pakistan Rs 55 billion to Rs 84 billion annually, as 91 million population – 74 million in rural areas and 17 million in urban areas – lack access to improved sanitation in the country, said Caretaker Minister for Environment Syed Wajid Ali Bukhari on Tuesday.He was addressing the inaugural [...]
Pakistan: Mindset change key to changing rural toilet habits
10 Mar 08
MIR GHULAM SHAH, 3 March 2008 (IRIN) - Until just a year ago Jan Bibi and her five daughters aged 6-18 began their day by getting up before sunrise, walking a couple of hundred metres from their home to a filthy enclosed communal space, digging a small hole and relieving themselves. The alternative was to [...]
Nepal - Country plan for the International Year of Sanitation 2008
10 Mar 08
Over 80 percent of diseases (including diarrhoea, cholera, intestinal worms, trachoma, typhoid) among adults and children are caused by lack of basic sanitation, according to a new government report entitled Nepal Country Plan for International Year of Sanitation 2008. The report said poor hygiene and sanitation were causing losses of over US$150 million per year [...]
Sri Lanka: Half a million people could be affected by conflict in 2008
10 Mar 08
COLOMBO, 25 February 2008 (IRIN) - The UN and NGOs working in the conflict-ridden north and east are warning of a mounting humanitarian toll in 2008 due to the escalation in hostilities between Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).Agencies should be prepared to assist “up to 500,000 conflict-affected individuals [...]
Afghanistan: Poor sanitation, bad toilets cause deaths, misery
08 Mar 08
ASADABAD, 5 March 2008 (IRIN) - Saliha still mourns the death of her three-year-old daughter, Halima, who died due to severe diarrhoea at a hospital in Kunar Province, eastern Afghanistan, on 11 January.The child had drunk contaminated water which Saliha’s family collects from a nearby river and uses for all purposes, including drinking, cooking and [...]
