Conflict Denies Over 180 Million People Access To Drinking Water – UNICEF.
As the World Water Week gets underway, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has warned that globally more than 180 million people in countries affected by conflict, violence and instability do not have access to basic drinking water.
In a statement made available to our correspondent, the UNICEF’s Global Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, (WASH), Sanjay Wijesekera, said that “children’s access to safe water and sanitation, especially in conflicts and emergencies, is a right, not a privilege.
“In countries beset by violence, displacement, conflict and instability, children’s most basic means of survival is water and must be a priority.” Wijesekera said according to a recent UNICEF and World Health Organisation (WHO), analysis of the estimated 484 million people living in fragile situations in 2015, 183 million lacked basic drinking water services adding that people living in fragile situations are four times more likely to lack basic drinking water than populations in non-fragile situations.
He said in conflict affected areas in Northeast Nigeria, 75 per cent of water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, leaving 3.6 million people without even basic water services.
According to him, “in Yemen, a country reeling from the impact of over two years of conflict, water supply networks that serve the country’s largest cities are at imminent risk of collapse due to war inflicted damage and disrepair, adding that around 15 million people in the country have been cut off from regular access to water and sanitation.
“Also in Yemen, children make up more than 53 per cent of the over half a million cases of suspected cholera and acute watery diarrhoea reported so far while Somalia is suffering from the largest outbreak of cholera in the last five years, with nearly 77,000 cases of suspected cholera/acute watery diarrhoea.” He explained that in South Sudan, where fighting has raged for over three years, almost half the water points across the country have been damaged or completely destroyed, pointing out that the cholera outbreak in the country is the most severe the South Sudan has ever experienced, with more than 19,000 cases since June 2016.
In famine threatened Northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, nearly 30 million people, including 14.6 million children, are in urgent need of safe water, adding that more than five million children are estimated to be malnourished this year, with 1.4 million, severely so.

The Burden of Clean Water Worldwide Still Borne by Women.
Clean, drinkable water is crucial for human existence, but according to the Women Thrive Alliance, roughly 663 million people worldwide still lack easy access to safe water.
Globally, women and girls are the primary water collectors for their families: In African countries, women are five times more likely than men to collect drinking water for the household, particularly in rural areas; a 2012 study by UNICEF in 25 sub-Saharan African countries estimates that women there spend 16 million hours collecting water every day.
The WHO’s recommendation is for 20-50 liters of water per person per day for drinking, cooking and hygiene.
“Just imagine — those 200 million hours add up to 8.3 million days, or more than 22,800 years,” Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF’s Global Head of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, said in a 2016 blog post.
“It’s as if a woman started with her empty bucket in the Stone Age and didn’t arrive home with water until 2016.” And as Bethany Caruso noted recently in The Conversation, “The United Nations forecasts that if current water use patterns do not change, world demand will exceed supply by 40 percent by 2030.
In such a scenario, it is hard to imagine that women’s and girls’ experiences will improve without intentional efforts.” Ensuring the availability and sustainable management of clean water and sanitation for all is one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
Here are just a few: In 2014, Keurig Green Mountain launched an effort to address the long-term, interconnected challenges of the global water crisis, starting with an $11 million commitment to support leading NGOs working to promote water security around the world.
Also in 2014, the Acqua for Life campaign — a partnership between Giorgio Armani and Green Cross International that has provided sustainable drinking water systems to water-scarce communities in West Africa and Latin America since its launch in 2011 — expanded its work to Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast and Senegal.
In early 2015, Belgian beer maker Stella Artois launched its first global social impact campaign, “Buy a Lady a Drink,” specifically aimed at helping to put a stop to women’s water-collecting journeys; the brewer donated $1.2 million to Water.org and invited consumers to join the cause by purchasing limited-edition Stella Artois chalices, with each purchase helping Water.org provide five years of clean water to one person in the developing world.

Wijesekera: “in conflict-affected areas in northeast Nigeria, 75 per cent of water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, leaving 3.6 million people without even basic water services.
“In far too many cases, water and sanitation systems have been attacked, damaged or left in disrepair to the point of collapse.
“In famine-threatened north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, nearly 30 million people, including 14.6 million children, are in urgent need of safe water.
“More than five million children are estimated to be malnourished this year, with 1.4 million severely so.” He added that in South Sudan, where fighting has raged for over three years, almost half the water points across the country have been damaged or completely destroyed.
Wijesekera warned that children living in fragile situations were four times more likely to lack access to drinking water.
“Children’s access to safe water and sanitation, especially in conflicts and emergencies, is a right, not a privilege” Wijesekera said.
According to the UNICEF official, more than 180 million people in crisis-torn countries have no access to drinking water.
UNICEF said that in Yemen, a country reeling from the impact of over two years of conflict, water supply networks that serve the country’s largest cities are at imminent risk of collapse due to war-inflicted damage and disrepair.
UNICEF said Somalia was suffering from the largest outbreak of cholera in the last five years, with nearly 77,000 cases of suspected cholera/acute watery diarrhoea.
Similarly, in South Sudan, the cholera outbreak was the most severe the country has ever experienced, with more than 19,000 cases since June 2016, according to UNICEF.

With rising urban populations and ever scarcer water supplies, cities and companies are teaming up to invest billions of dollars in water management projects, a report said on Tuesday.
The key issues for cities include declining water quality, water shortages and flooding.
The Indian city of Chennai faced extreme floods in 2015 which killed hundreds and left survivors without access to clean water, while businesses were also severely disrupted.
The city is now investing in boosting its resilience to future water crises, with water conservation education, building a storm water management system and new infrastructure.
“We are seeing critical shifts in leadership from cities and companies in response to the very real threat of flooding, for example, to local economies,” said Morgan Gillespy, head of CDP’s Water Program.
Climate change is another underlying threat to all cities with an increase in extreme weather events from droughts to floods, with cities in North America more concerned than those in Europe, the report found.
Tropical Storm Harvey, pounding the U.S. Gulf Coast, has killed at least eight people, led to mass evacuations and paralyzed Houston, the fourth most-populous U.S. city.
Companies are also concerned about the effects of climate change on water supplies, with $14 billion of water impacts such as loss of production reported by companies last year, the report found.
UN predicts global water shortfall The United Nations predicts a 40 percent shortfall in global water supply by 2030, while global demand is set to increase by 55 percent due to growing domestic use, manufacturing and electricity generation.
“Many of them, regardless of size, from Mexico City, Mexico to Berkeley, California, are addressing both long-term water supply issues as well as chronic urban flooding.” Video Of The Day: Lawyer Orengo ordered to retract reports he had introduced regarding IEBC servers analysis

Jackpot and Lotto are Muscovy ducks on the money as unusual pets.
They came to us after their owner passed away and there was no one to care for them.
They are also very curious and intelligent and need enough space to move around freely.
Access to water facilities is essential for their water-related behaviour.
Ducks kept in a clean environment and well fed are usually very robust animals.
They rarely suffer from intestinal worms or mites (especially if they swim regularly) but usually need to be wormed every six months with a poultry wormer.
Jackpot and Lotto can be fed a good quality layer or breeder food suitable for adult ducks.
Ensure the food and water bowls are close to each other.
Avoid feeding bread, popcorn, chocolate, onion, garlic, avocado or citrus fruit Although bread is commonly given to ducks, excessive amounts are not good for them.
They are housed at the RSPCA shelter at 10 Karungi Crescent.

In south-central Thailand, villagers near the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate, home to petrochemical plants, oil refineries and coal-fired power stations, worry that their water is heavily polluted.
Sometimes, the data was unavailable publicly or presented in a language communities could not understand.
When information was released, it was often poor, technical and did not meet local people’s demands, said the report issued on Wednesday.
“Access to information is really the foundation for any kind of meaningful public participation or accountability in environmental decision-making,” Elizabeth Moses, the report’s co-author, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In Thailand and Mongolia, people who request information are asked to come to the environment ministry to pick it up, even though some live hours away and do not have the money or time to travel, added the WRI specialist in water governance.
“For the world’s poorest people, access to clean water means fewer outbreaks of deadly diseases, less time spent away from the classroom by children collecting water, and greater economic opportunities for women,” said the WRI report.
While all three countries the WRI report focuses on have comprehensive laws to disclose information, many do not indicate how information is to be made available or comprehensible to affected communities, the report said.
The Indonesian and Thai environment ministries did not respond to Thomson Reuters Foundation requests for comment.
The ministry will soon seek parliamentary approval for amendments to tighten up implementation of a 2012 law on fees for water pollution, he added.
The WRI report urged the three governments to set up national systems to collect and publish environmental information.

YAOUNDE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The Middle East and North Africa region loses about $21 billion each year because of an inadequate supply of water and sanitation, the World Bank said on Tuesday, warning urgent action is needed to prevent ripple effects on stability and growth.
“As the current conflict and migration crisis unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa shows, failure to address water challenges can have severe impacts on people’s well-being and political stability,” the report said.
In Yemen, which is reeling from more than two years of conflict, water supply networks serving its largest cities are at risk of collapse due to war-inflicted damage and disrepair, and about 15 million people have been cut off from regular access to water and sanitation, the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF) said in a separate statement on Tuesday.
Overall, 183 million people lack access to basic drinking water in countries affected by conflict, violence and instability around the world, it added.
With the urban population in the Middle East and North Africa expected to double by 2050 to nearly 400 million, a combination of policy, technology and water management tools should be used to improve the water situation, the World Bank report said.
“Water productivity – in other words, how much return you get for every drop of water used – in the Middle East in general is the lowest on average in the world,” said Anders Jägerskog, a specialist in water resources management at the World Bank and one of the report’s authors.
Water governance – in particular, water tariffs and subsidies – must also be addressed, he said.
The region has the world’s lowest water tariffs and spends the highest proportion of GDP on public water subsidies.
Such policies lead to excessive use of already scarce water supplies and are not sustainable, said Jägerskog.
Another challenge is that more than half of the wastewater collected in the region is fed back into the environment untreated.

Last December I farewelled my family and friends as I left Australia to embark on a 12-month adventure.
Mwandi Village is on the Zambezi River which provides a beautiful view, spectacular sunsets and endless access to water for the locals.
I have been more interactive with the orphans and vulnerable children at the Mwandi Village.
On the Mission there is the Mwandi Mission Hospital, a small farm with cows, pigs and chickens, the Mwandi Basic School and the Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s Project (OVC).
I have implemented visuals and introduced the students to games and activities to support their learning.
What has proven to be the biggest challenge is the language barrier.
On one occasion this resulted in me being locked in the classroom from the outside.
After the morning antics I spent the rest of the day at OVC which has 270 children aged between two and 12 years of age on the feeding program.
This means the kitchen staff and volunteers prepare 270 meals each day, six days a week and for many it is the only meal for the day.
Tragedy is embedded in this community and starvation, witchcraft, sexual abuse, neglect, illnesses and preventable deaths play a big part.

Mr Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF’s Global Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, stated at the commencement of the World Water Week and reported that 3.6 million people lacked water in northeast.
“In conflict-affected areas in northeast Nigeria, 75 per cent of water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, leaving 3.6 million people without even basic water services,” Wijesekera said.
“In far too many cases, water and sanitation systems have been attacked, damaged or left in disrepair to the point of collapse.
“In famine-threatened north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, nearly 30 million people, including 14.6 million children, are in urgent need of safe water.
He added that in South Sudan, where fighting has raged for over three years, almost half the water points across the country have been damaged or completely destroyed.
“Children’s access to safe water and sanitation, especially in conflicts and emergencies, is a right, not a privilege” Wijesekera said.
According to the UNICEF official, more than 180 million people in crisis-torn countries have no access to drinking water.
UNICEF said that in Yemen, a country reeling from the impact of over two years of conflict, water supply networks that serve the country’s largest cities are at imminent risk of collapse due to war-inflicted damage and disrepair.
Similarly, in South Sudan, the cholera outbreak was the most severe the country has ever experienced, with more than 19,000 cases since June 2016, according to UNICEF.
(NAN)

Safety in the Aftermath of a Hurricane.
These infections could come from parasites, bacteria, or even viruses.
The most common mode of transmission is through contaminated water.
The most common mode of transmission is through contaminated water.
In fact, Cryptosporidium is a leading cause of waterborne disease in the United States among humans.
Leptospirosis, while infrequently seen, is a bacteria found in water and can be transmitted through the urine of infected animals.
Tetanus is a disease caused by a puncture wound infected with contaminated soil or water.
Vibrio is a wound infection that creates a sepsis in the body part exposed.
Mosquitoes are known vectors of diseases such as Zika and West Nile.
Protect yourself from mosquito bites with effective sprays, long clothing, and if possible limit exposure.