Water, Hygiene and Sanitation
Safe water, toilets and good hygiene keep children alive and healthy.
- Available in:
- فارسي، فارسي
- English
The issue faced
The effects of Iran’s aging and the insufficiently maintained water infrastructure being pushed to breaking point are strongly felt in the lives of children and their communities, with scarcity affecting the availability and quality of water needed for various purposes. Exacerbated by the effects of climate change, this situation is disproportionately affecting the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, particularly children.
Access to safe water, basic sanitation, and good hygiene practices is critical for the health and well-being of each child, and UNICEF is working with the Government of Iran to ensure that every child in Iran has access to basic water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) services.
The actions taken
UNICEF is focusing on safeguarding WASH access to all children and vulnerable households in Iran, including Afghan refugees and host communities. UNICEF support to this end includes:
- Strengthening capacity within the national water sector and among WASH service providers.
- Enhancing emergency preparedness and response on WASH.
- Improving community resilience in water scarcity management and WASH.
- Providing technical support to prevent the spread of dengue fever and malaria in target provinces.
- Boosting capacity on hygiene promotion within the primary health care system and schools.
The partners engaged
UNICEF partners involved in implementation of the programme in this focus area include the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Energy and subordinate organizations (such as Water and Wastewater Management companies), the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, and the National Organization for Migration.
The impact sought
Through providing support for capacity-building, evidence-based planning, emergency preparedness, and infrastructure renewal, alongside promotion of hygiene practices behavioural change, UNICEF will help to boost the ability of the Iranian water sector to provide essential services, enhance community resilience, and institutionalize a more robust vector borne disease prevention system. This will lead to improved outcomes in the emergency and broader public health setting, positively impacting the well-being of children and local communities in the target provinces.
Monitoring and Accountability
In adherence to principles of accountability, UNICEF enriches its programme designs and adaptations through systematic assessment and monitoring of the child’s rights deprivations, operating environment, partnerships and progress towards planned results. The implementation of Harmonised Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT) ensures both financial and programmatic compliance through a combination of micro and macro assessments, spot checks, audits and programmatic visits. Leveraging sophisticated and integrated enterprise platforms and tools, UNICEF maintains a consistent monitoring of its programme implementation assessing quality and coverage, identifying risks and challenges, highlighting best practices and lessons learned, fostering stakeholder participation and engagement and conducting end user monitoring of supplies. Additionally, UNICEF remains committed to its costed evaluation plan which includes external evaluations of its projects, partnerships, and/or strategies primarily aiming to enhance relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability of its programmes.