By Tina George, Minna
The Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF) has disclosed plans to provide grants to low-income countries for community-based solutions for sanitation and hygiene.
This is coming after the Ugandan Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng lamented that people still live with inadequate sanitation and hygiene services in their houses, in their schools and even in their health care facilities across the world, including Uganda.
The Minister who urged African leaders to support sanitation and hygiene funding stressed on the need for government’s prioritization of sanitation and hygiene.
“In my country, Uganda, an estimated 75 per cent of the overall disease burden derives from inadequate sanitation and hygiene. Each year, 23,000 Ugandans die from diarrhoea, of which 19,700 are children below the age of five.
“Some 90 per cent of these deaths are directly attributable to inadequate water, poor sanitation and unhygienic practices. In other words, they would be entirely preventable through basic water, sanitation and hygiene interventions”, the Minister said.
A statement issued by the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund, the Chair of WSSCC, Hind Khatib-Othman, stated that the catalytic funding is primarily for Africa and Asia countries.
“This catalytic funding, primarily for countries in Africa and Asia, will be in addition to domestic financing and will leverage SDG inter-linkages through a partnership approach.”
The statement further stated that the SHF is working to achieve the sanitation and hygiene-related targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6.2 pointing out that by achieving this target, it would better prepare nations to respond to outbreaks or pandemics of infectious disease.
