Water, environment and sanitation

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) comprise UNICEF’s key activities in the water sector in Somalia.

These closely-linked projects both address the problems of waterborne diseases like cholera. They help to build sustainable water supply and distribution systems in urban and rural areas, while ensuring access for the most vulnerable and poor members of communities. In community schools, specific social mobilization campaigns are carried out through hygiene education. Students learn improved handwashing techniques and how to safely store household water. 

2009 saw a continued deterioration of the water and sanitation situation across Somalia rendering communities’ social structures and coping mechanisms non-functional. The continued displacement to urban centers and camps adds increasing pressure on an already overextended WASH infrastructure. Rains over the last five years have been lower than normal and their patterns unpredictable, adding climate change to the list of challenges facing Somalia.

Despite this gloomy picture the intensive efforts of UNICEF and WASH cluster partners resulted in some significant improvements in certain areas.  More than 1.1 million people have benefited from the construction and rehabilitation of 1,300 water sources, while 520 Water Management Committees have been formed to help sustain these systems. More than 1,130,000 people were assisted with Operation & Maintenance /chlorination of their water supplies and 64% of the 1.4 million drought-affected people were assisted with emergency water trucking activities. Over 1.7 million people were exposed to hygiene education campaigns, while a further 434,000 people benefited from the construction of 9,000 latrines to increase access to safe sanitation. In the face of a 31% increase in the number of IDPs along the Afgoye corridor, the cluster managed to increase sanitation coverage from just 19% at the beginning of the year to 41%, and also increased the supply of piped water from 300,000 to 500,000 persons. These combined efforts and activities have helped contribute to a 22% reduction in acute watery diarrhoea cases nationwide in 2009 compared with 2008, and a 48% reduction compared with 2007. Acute water diarrhoea continues to be endemic, with over 53,000 reported cases in 2009. The chronic burden of diarrhea in Somalia is reflected in the poor nutritional status of the population.

The UNICEF Water Sanitation and Hygiene  programme aims at enhancing the capacity of institutions and communities to manage systems effectively and efficiently, sustaining existing services and expanding services to the unserved, promoting correct hygiene education to communities through schools and maternal and child health centres and satisfying UNICEF's Core Commitment for Children in responding to water, sanitation and hygiene needs in emergency situations.

In order to do so, the 2009/2010 programme aims to achieve results under the following closely linked components

• Governance of Water and Sanitation: The establishment of PPPs will be continued for urban settings and expanded to rural areas. Communities will be involved in and drive all elements related to improved services including developing plans for service expansion and sustained O&M interventions. Systems and capacities in water quality monitoring, data/information acquisition and use and geophysical surveying will also be built within institutional authorities.
• Service delivery: Support will focus on sustaining the functionality of existing systems, repair of out of order systems and expansion of new services to un- and under-served areas. Life-saving supplies will be pre-positioned in strategic locations to effectively respond to sudden population movements and diarrhoea outbreaks.
• Behavioural change: Interventions will continue to focus on schools and MCHs as strategic community entry points, alongside WASH facilities service delivery intervention.  New avenues will be explored to market the use of household latrines and expand sanitation coverage. Stronger emphasis will be placed on ensuring WASH interventions underpin and are closely linked with Nutrition, Health and Education interventions, such as through CDRD participatory approaches and Child Health Days.
• Emergency Preparedness and Response: The technical and infrastructural capacity of  WASH authorities and partners (non governmental, private sector and community based, to better plan for and address sudden on-set emergencies to mitigate the effects on vulnerable populations will be developed. UNICEF will also sustain a standing capacity to respond to sudden humanitarian crisis by providing and supporting life-saving WASH interventions and facilities to children, women and the vulnerable population at large.

In all Water Sanitation and Hygiene activities, UNICEF will work closely with local communities, water authorities and water boards, local self-help groups, the private sector, community-based organisations and NGOs, under the overall umbrella of the Somali Support Secretariat’s, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Sector Committee, comprised of UN agencies, NGOs and donor groups and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) cluster.