Think of Matero is Maiteneke area

 

A decent toilet is a prerequisite to national development.

 

A CALL of nature is one essential call that cannot be ignored despite one's status in society.

Rich or poor, short or tall, every human being needs a decent toilet because of the importance it attaches to the health of a person.
Moreover, water and sanitation are basic human rights that underpin health, education and livelihood.
But for the people of Matero's Maiteneke area in Lusaka, decent toilets have been a challenge for a longtime due to be blocked sewerage system.
Mwila Kalunga, a resident in this area feels disadvantaged and side-lined, "I do not think it will be right to rate us (residents of Maiteneke) as Zambian citizens because we have been neglected. We have had this problem for a very long time and we have informed the relevant authorities but to no avail."
"Sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene for all should absolutely be one of the key goals in Zambia, even as the country struggles to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the next two years. But with such still happening in the capital city, I do not think Zambia will meet the MDGs by 2015," she added.
The highly-touted MDGs include a reduction by 50 percent of the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and hunger; reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, elimination of gender inequality; achievement of universal primary education; reduction of child mortality; improvement of maternal health; sustainability of the environment; and a global partnership for development.
But water and sanitation was not one of the eight primary goals and remained only as a subtext under "environmental sustainability": a call for a reduction by 50 percent of those who do not have access to drinking water and adequate sanitation.
However, in a joint statement issued recently, the government of Finland, the UN children's agency UNICEF, UN Women, WaterAid and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, called for an end to water and sanitation inequalities in the UN's post-2015 development agenda.
The MDGs have brought much-needed attention to neglected issues, such as open defecation, maternal and child mortality, and the need for sustainable access to water.
"The international community has learned from this process and must now aim higher, we believe that the world must achieve and build on the MDGs, but must also craft even more ambitious goals.
The goals must create incentives for change - a change that will reach every single person," the statement said.
The joint statement also said the future development agenda must aim at tackling the most persistent of all challenges: inequalities in access to essential services to realise people's rights. "We must have a world that is committed to ending the unnecessary suffering of billions of people who continue to live without sanitation or safe drinking water."
"The post-2015 agenda must not move forward without clear objectives towards the elimination of discrimination and inequalities in access to water, sanitation and hygiene," the statement added.
Every year, there should be a lingering question in the minds of activists, local authority and other stakeholders who speak highly of water and sanitation for all by 2015 on how best can water and sanitation be given high priority on the country's economic agenda especially in high residential area like Matero's Maiteneke area.
Lack of safe sanitation can be called a 'silent crisis' in Matero's Maiteneke area because authorities like the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) is aware of the challenge that the residents have been facing for more than two years now.
LWSC public relations officer Topsy Sikalinda says: "We are aware of the problem in Matero's Maiteneke area and at the moment, there is nothing we can do because of the way the structures were built which makes it difficult to unblock the system."
According to Mr Sikalinda the only way out to the challenge is building new toilets with a provision of unblocking once the toilets are blocked and have been filled to capacity.
With such response, the hope of unblocking the toilets in this area seems a dream never to be achieved.
Currently, over 800 million people globally have no access to safe drinking water and over 2.5 billion people are living without adequate sanitation.
While most developing nations like Zambia have made limited progress in providing clean water, the targets for sanitation have remained virtually unreachable.
Gabriel Phiri a resident of Matero's Maiteneke area says there is a serious omission of sanitation issues in every annual budget following the failure to address sanitation problems in the country.
"Allowing this sanitation problem in Lusaka, Zambia's capital to reach this stage shows continued omission of sanitation in many development agendas in this country.
Budgets have come and gone but no attention has been given to address water and sanitation problems in most Zambia's high residential areas," Mr Phiri says.
Because thousands of people do not have access to sanitation, this issue is not going to go away overnight," Mr Phiri added.
According to Mr Phiri, problems associated with lack of access water and sanitation impact on virtually all aspects of human development because the two are basic human rights that underpin health, education and livelihoods.
Mr Phiri feels that as the MDG targets expire in less than three years, Zambia needs to double its efforts in addressing water and sanitation in Lusaka's high residential areas.
"If present trends continue, the Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people living without adequate sanitation services will not be met by 2015 as targeted but could be met a century behind schedule," Mr Phiri says.
Mr Phiri says a budget that is biased towards sanitation and water provides a way forward that allows development to occur because lasting services are a permanent solution to the sanitation and water crisis.
According to Water and Sanitation Urban Poor (WSUP), Lusaka has a population of approximately 1.2 million with a growth rate of 3.6 percent and 90 percent of the peri-urban inhabitants rely on ordinary pit latrines, which they also use as bathing shelters.
WSUP is a non-profit partnership between the private sector, NGOs and research institutions focused on solving the global problem of inadequate water and sanitation in low-income urban communities.
Sanitation continues to remain one of the key health issues in Zambia and in order to address extreme poverty and diseases countrywide, there is need to focus on achieving access to sanitation.
Scientifically, human waste is full of dangerous bacteria that can cause diseases like cholera, typhoid, and many others.
When waste is not properly managed, it can come into contact with skin, water, insects and other things that ultimately transfer the bacteria back into the human body and cause illness. The most common illness associated with poor sanitation is diarrhoea.
In Zambia, diarrhoea is little more than a nuisance, but for hundreds of children in Lusaka and other towns in Zambia, it is a death sentence, all because of poor sanitation.