By Vincent Gunde

The Dowa District Council’s Water Development Office has expressed its appreciation to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) partners in the district for doing a commendable job to make sure that communities in the district are accessing improved water availability.

The Dowa District Council has developed the District Systems Investment Plan (DSIP) as a targeted framework to operationalize key WASH priorities outline in the District Development Plan (DDP) to enhance planning, implementation and monitoring WASH interventions.

The DSIP responds directly to the District Development Plan’s objective of improving public health and human development through better service delivery as it is linked to enabler 5 of the Malawi 2063 Human Capital Development focusing on WASH services.

Presenting the WASH District Coordinating Team (DCT) progress Report, District Water Development Officer for Dowa Fanny Muula, said 69 percent of the population in the district is using safe and sustainable water supply in communities and institutions.

Muula said behind every percentage point is a family who now drinks safe water, a school girl who no longer misses class due to poor sanitation, and a community empowered to sustain their gains saying WASH partners are complimenting government efforts towards improvement of WASH services.

She said WASH partners such as Self Help Africa, Orant Charities, Beyond Water, World Vision, Red Cross, Pump Aid, and others, have drilled and rehabilitated boreholes, providing piped water systems and reticulated solar power as well as constructing latrines to the communities in the district.

The Water Officer said WASH partners are reaching out to wherever there is need for boreholes and rehabilitations, constructing latrines in schools, distribution of sanitation materials, and training masons and sales agents across the five Traditional Authority areas of the district, among others.

“Each WASH partner has registered remarkable achievement per the area of Traditional Authority in water supply progress and sanitation,” said Muula.

However, Muula said WASH partners are meeting some challenges in the course of implementing their interventions such as geological formations in T/A Chiwere and Mkukula are contributing to an increase in dry wells and that there have been delays in project completion by some drilling contractors particularly those involved in government-funded initiatives.

Muula called on WASH partners in the district on the need to follow up on post ODF activities observing that the absence of such interventions after ODF Declaration leads communities to revert to previous Open Defecation Free (ODF) practices.