The new report “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation. Update 2014” from UNICEF and the World Health Organization “highlights a narrowing disparity in access to cleaner water and better sanitation between rural and urban areas.” Although some global progress was made “sharp geographic, socio-cultural, and economic inequalities in access to improved drinking water and sanitation facilities still persist around the world.” (Unicef, 2014)

The following tables present some of the findings relevant to the program countries of The Hunger Project.

• 82% of the one billion people practising open defecation in the world live in 10 countries. Among these countries are India with 597 million people practising open defection, Ethiopia with 34 million, and Mozambique with 10 million.

• Countries which could reduce open defection are Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, and Peru. They belong to the 10 countries that have achieved the highest reduction of open defecation:

	% of the population practising open defecation, 1990	% of the population practising open defecation, 2012	Percentage point reduction in practice of open defecation, 1990–2012
Ethiopia	92	37	55
Bangladesh	34	3	31
Peru	33	6	27
Benin	80	54	26

• The following table shows the open defecation practices in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia according to level of education, and underlines significant disparities:

	No Education, Preschool	Primary Education	Secondary Education	Higher Education
Burkina Faso	76%	48%	14%	–
Ethiopia	54%	34%	15%	9%

• The report’s findings on saniation and drinking water for all project countries with regard to the MDG targets read as follows (for a detailed breakdown see Annex 3):

Use of Sanitation Facilities

	Progress towards MDG target	Proportion of the 2012 population that gained access since 2000 (%)
Bangladesh	not on track	19
Benin	not on track	8
Bolivia	not on track	16
Burkina Faso	not on track	10
Ethiopia	not on track	18
Ghana	met target	35
India	not on track	14
Malawi	not on track	3
Mexico	met target	21
Mozambique	not on track	11
Peru	on track	18
Senegal	not on track	21
Uganda	not on track	14

Use of Drinking Water Sources

	Progress towards MDG target	Proportion of the 2012 population that gained access since 2000 (%)
Bangladesh	met target	20
Benin	on track	30
Bolivia	met target	24
Burkina Faso	met target	40
Ethiopia	on track	31
Ghana	met target	35
India	met target	25
Malawi	met target	31
Mexico	met traget	19
Mozambique	not on track	19
Peru	on track	17
Senegal	progress insufficient	26
Uganda	met target	37

To read the full report and see the findings click here.

The World Water Day (WWD) 2014 will be celebrated on 22 March 2014 around the world. The main celebration of World Water Day will be organized by United Nations University (UNU) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on behalf of UN-Water. The celebration will  take place at the UNU Heaquarters in Tokyo, Japan from 20-21 March 2014.

The main theme of the 2014 WWD will be water and energy, and the key messages of this year’s WWD are the  following:

1. Water requires energy and energy requires water

2. Supplies are limited and demand is increasing

3. Saving energy is saving water. Saving water is saving energy

4. The “bottom billion” urgently needs access to both water and sanitation services, and electricity

5. Improving water and energy efficiency is imperative as co-ordinated, coherent and concerted policies

The UN-Water, UNIDO and UNU have released  a World Water Day 2014 Advocacy Guide. The main aim of the Advocacy Guide are the following:

– To help communicate the purpose of WWD 2014 and to introduce key information relevant to the theme of WWD2014: water and energy.

– To encourage advocacy and stakeholder action towards improving combined and co-ordinated water and energy management and governance.

– To promote information sharing about WWD 2014 activities, efforts and events, and also to encourage longer-term sharing of success stories and other valuable water and energy knowledge.

To download and read a PDF version of the World Water Day 2014 Advocacy Guide, click here.

Trigger, a 2012 Annual Report publication on the Pan-African Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programmes, states that community empowerment and collective behavioral change including safe sanitation and hygiene with hand washing is an effective and sustainable way to creating open defecation free (ODF) community. According to the report, in community mobilization, self empowerment and collective behavioral change  instead of hardware and shifting the focus from toilet construction for individual households to the creation of ODF villages. (CLTS, 2012).

To read more about CLTS and its programmes around the world, click here.

CLTS, was introduced to Africa by Plan International in 2007 as an effective approach to achieving its child survival and millennium development goals (MDGs). So far, implementation of the ten CLTS programmes in African countries helped reduce infant and child morbidity and mortality, and the program has inspired other national, regional, continental  and multi-country sanitation initiatives. (CLTS, 20120). The followings are African countries in which the project was launched: Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Niger and Tanzania.

To read and download the CLTS programmes and its progress in Africa, click here.

Source: Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG) published Freshwater Conservation and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Integration Guidelines : A Framework for Implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa in December 2013 to guide the integration of Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and  Freshwater Conservation programs. The integration guidelines document highlights the benefits, the approaches, the principles and the rationale for the integration of the WASH and freshwater conservation sector in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the report, “water, poverty and environment are deeply connected” ; therefore, the integration of WASH projects and fresh water conservation leads to greater human well-being outcomes and improved conservation. The Theory of Change (ToC)  was utilized to show  “how the integration of WASH and freshwater conservation approach can promote human health, education, and economic growth, protect the environment and contribute to the sustainable development” ( ABCG, 2013). Statistical figures and data pertaining to WASH-related diseases and related economic loss due to wasted time, resource, energy and productivity were also included in the document.

Some important statistical figures to know from the ABCG guidelines on WASH and Water Conservation:

• WASH-related diseases constitute 9.1% of the total disease burden in terms of disability-adjusted life years or DALYs (Pruss et al. 2002).

• An estimated 800 million people around the world treat their water by boiling it on indoor stoves, leading to respiratory illnesses and fuel consumption (ABCG, 2013).

• The World Health Organization estimates economic benefits of achieving the drinking water and sanitation target of the Millennium Development Goals amount to a total savings of 20 billion working days a year (ABCG, 2013).

• According to the 2006 Human Development Report, women spend 40 billion hours a year in water collection in sub-Saharan Africa alone (Carr and Hart2010).

• Approximately 443 million school days are lost annually because pupils and teachers are not able to attend due to WASH-related diseases (Walter 2013).

• Each year approximately 800,000 children under five die from malnutrition induced by unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and insufficient hygiene (Prüss-Üstün 2008).

ABCG Guidelines also provide core principles for the freshwater conservation and the WASH project implementation and translating the core principles into action. A thorough explanation of the integration processes and guidelines were also given in the translating core principles in to action chapters. Guidelines for setting common vision, gathering information, identifying stakeholders and designing projects, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation were elaborated that could help foster the synergy between the WASH and the water conservation programs.

To download the full document ABCG, click here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/191123515/Freshwater-Conservation-and-WASH-Integration-Guidelines-A-Framework-for-Implementation-in-sub-Saharan-Africa