For example, Malawi government boasts that about 80 in every 100 people in Malawi’s over 13 million population are accessing safe clean water hence already beaten the 74 percent safe water Millenium Development Goal (MDG) target by 2015.

“Malawi is on course to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal on water and sanitation by 2015,” said Bingu wa Mutharika.

He disclosed that in the 2010/2011 fiscal year, his government constructed 560 new boreholes benefiting close to 140,000 new users; rehabilitated 220 boreholes accessed by 55,000 people; rehabilitated 912 water taps catering for 109,000 people; and completed rehabilitation of Chilobwe, Kalitsiro and Lizulu rural water schemes and Nkhamanga gravity-fed piped water supply schemes.

“With respect to urban water supply, close to 9,000 new connections were made in 2010/2011 financial year and over 7,000 stuck meters were replaced throughout the country. We also finalized construction of water works in Mzuzu and Likoma within the 2010/2011 financial year,” said Mutharika.

He added that some of the programmes which his Government has lined up for the 2011/2012 financial year include: improving urban and rural water supply and sanitation.

Despite Malawi Government’s own praises for making strides in water sector however, some members of Malawi’s society have often disputed that the country’s statistics on Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) access do not match with the reality on the ground.

The Council for Non Governmental Organization in Malawi (Congoma) a mother body of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the country for instance, also raised the concerns about the inaccuracy of Malawi Government WASH statistics on November 26 in the just ended year when Malawi was commemorating World Toilet Day officially observed on November 19 globally.

“We are, for instance, concerned over different sanitation statistics given by the Malawi government and the United Nations. The development could negatively affect funding for pro-poor activities, especially in water, sanitation and hygiene,” said Congoma Program Officer Simekinala Kaluzi.

Kaluzi gave an example of a discrepancy between United Nations Development Program (UNDP) statistics for 2010, which indicate that only 57 percent of Malawians are accessing good sanitation facilities while the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) Reports for 2009 and 2010, indicate that 93 percent of Malawians have access to sanitary facilities such as safe water points and toilets.

“Surely we stand to lose a lot, in terms of donor inflows, if we continue to cheat ourselves that all is well. The sanitary situation here in Malawi is pathetic, but government would love to have the international community believe that all is well,” he said.

During the same event, its organizers, the New Restoration Plan-Malawi also said there is an urgent need for Malawi Government to scrutinize its WASH statistics to reflect what is actually happening on the ground.

“We are in a crisis because 2.9 million people have no access to safe water in the country,” said New Restoration Plan-Malawi Country Director George Chaima adding that the situation is most evident in Malawian primary and secondary schools, where it creates a disadvantage for girls.

“Most girls abandon school because of poor hygienic conditions, conditions that complicate menstrual hygiene. The government should place sanitation and good hygiene at the top of our human rights list,” he said.

Malawi Government spokesperson Patricia Kaliati however, said: “The current administration has already placed issues of water sanitation and hygiene among its development priorities within priorities. This is why Malawi under the wise leadership of His Excellency State President Professor Bingu wa Mutharika has registered an increase in the number of water points, as evidenced by the proliferation of water users associations.”

Agriculture Irrigation and Water Development Minister Peter Mwanza however, acknowledged that despite making some achievements in the water sector Malawi Government still has more to do to increase the number of people to access safe water.

He even pleaded for patience from Malawi’s 193 Members of Parliament (MPs) who took him to task for government’s failure to fulfill its promise it had made that it would sink five boreholes in each MP’s constituency which is yet to be fulfilled.

In recognition of low WASH access facilities in Malawi the International NGO World Vision’s Southern Africa office launched an $88 million USD Southern Africa WASH project in the district of Lilongwe to help prevent water-borne diseases in children.

World Vision Southern Africa Vice President Bruce Wilson said poor sanitation facilities as well as poor knowledge of hygiene are among the causes of high mortality rates among children.

“Children drink poor quality water, and hence contract a number of water-borne diseases, which later lead to a number of deaths,” said Wilson.

According to World Vision officials, over 400,000 people will benefit from the project through improvement of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.

Malawi is regarded as water stressed country with its population ever swelling and the demand for water keeps growing.

The United States (US) Government’s development agency (USAID) Water and Sanitation profile for the tiny southern African country says only 65 per 100 in the country’s population are accessing improved water and sanitation.

The agency reveals that the stressed population in Malawi is currently at 1,700 m3 per capita of water however, due to the rise in population, it will stand at 1,000 m3 per capita by 2015.

In fact appreciating the same low WASH access in Malawi one area where the British tax payers’ money was going through the Department for International Development (DfID) is water and sanitation projects, to the extent that dating from 2001 London has built 4,800 toilets in Malawi.

When one takes a drive to Malawi’s urban and rural areas it is easy to meet vulnerable groups including women and girls desperately struggling just to access good WASH facilities.

14-year-old Stellah Mangwazu in Dowa, about 40 Km from Malawi’s capital Lilongwe in central region of the country for example had a dream to become Malawi’s first ever female pathologist after school. But she dropped out of school before even making it to secondary school.

“Every time I menstruated I had nowhere to wash myself because our primary school has no running water,” she said.

Mangwazu and other over 350 pupils at her school has only two pit-latrines to share, and no tap where they could wash even their hands after using the toilet.

Stellah explained that she and other girls at her school found such poor sanitation conditions more awkward especially during their monthly periods.

"Being a girl it’s very difficult to concentrate in class when you know there is no water to clean up with at break time. I used to prefer staying home every time my menses came. But I could not bear it any longer therefore called it quits with school," said Mangwazu.

She disclosed that many girls at her school also dropped out of school as soon they reached their puberty as they could not bear the inconvenience and embarrassment of having to do without water during their monthly periods.

Malawi Government’s own statistics reveal that 10.5 percent of girls drop out of school annually as compared to 8.4 percent of boys.

The figures also indicate that around 22 per 100 of primary school age girls do not attend school at all while 60 per 100 of those enrolled do not attend regularly.

Girls are not the only ones stuck in water problems in Malawi because women, the elderly including marginalized people such as with disabilities and suffering from HIV and AIDS also struggle to access safe water.

At 74, Abiti Jeneti in Chikolongo Village in Balaka, southern Malawi 200 Km away from Lilongwe would have been a beneficiary of the Malawi Government MGDS seeking to improve access to clean water within 500 metres for all people and sanitation in line with the MDGs in urban and rural areas in Malawi.

However, she has to everyday wake up around 4:00 a.m. to join girls and women from her village to draw water from Shire River via Liwonde National Park at risk of animal attacks because the boreholes that were sunk by Malawi Government near her house in her village got broken and were not repaired.

In Karonga in the northern region over 600 Km away from Lilongwe recently taps went dry for over a week forcing operations at its District Hospital to be brought to a halt as they could not be done without water.

“Since the taps went dry we had no choice but fetch water from other sources including rainfall, which we use sparingly,” said 46-year-old resident Agness Nyimbiri.

The matter even forced Minister responsible for Agriculture Irrigation and Water Development Peter Mwanza cutting his Christmas and New Year Holiday to visit residents to assure them that government and its partners will do everything to rectify the situation to enable them access safe potable water.

In slum of Mgona within Lilongwe City where Mutharika attended World Water Day commemoration in March last year, Liver Aironi who is visually impaired struggles each day to access good WASH facilities.

“To access safe water is difficult for me because I depend on someone to lead me to a water point,” said 23-year-old Aironi from Bvumbwe in Thyolo adding that accessing toilet facilities is also not easy.

“The toilets here have no facilities for people with special needs like me. A toilet for people like us is supposed to have some facilities to enable us easily get into it to relieve ourselves,” he said.

Aironi disclosed that to get to the toilet he relies on support of another person to guide him.

Mgona Water Users Association (MWUWA) Chairman Trouble Phiri admitted that although his Sanitation Committee with support from organizations such as WaterAid-Malawi and its partners many people are now accessing safe water at a fee from the area's 21 kiosks including accessing some good sanitary conditions there are some vulnerable groups deeply stuck in poverty who can not afford to pay for safe water let alone invest in good sanitary facilities.

“As a committee we are therefore, looking at ways to help these people access safe Water Sanitation Hygiene facilities. These people include people with disabilities, those suffering from HIV and AIDS, people who are visually impaired, widows and orphans just but mentioning a few,” said Phiri.

Mgona Sanitation Committee Chairperson Lucy Kaombe said her committee has acknowledged that some people especially marginalized groups are struggling to access good sanitation facilities.

“We are therefore appealing to them to come forward and we are ready to provide them with basic facilities for instance slabs for toilets to enable them build good toilets for use,” said Kaombe.

Despite that visually impaired persons like Aironi are facing difficulties to access good WASH facilities, Malawi’s National Water Policy aims at providing water supply and sanitation services that are equitably accessible to and used by individuals in urban, peri-urban and market centres for social-economic development at affordable cost.

The National Sanitation Policy on the other hand aims at ensuring that, in the implementation of sanitation and hygiene related activities, all women and girls regardless of marital status or HIV sero-status have equal access to appropriate, sound HIV and AIDS related information, education programmes and means of prevention and health services.

The policy also ensures that in the implementation of sanitation and hygiene related activities, communities and extended families caring for orphans be assisted and empowered with resources, services and skills to construct and maintain improved sanitation facilities.

The document however, mentions nothing on people with disabilities, including the visually impaired like Aironi.

With support from Scottish Government and the London based Environmental issues think tank wing, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) one of Malawi’s few Urban Development Specialists Mtafu A. Zeleza Manda also Director of Alma Consultancy, a private planning and environmental management practice in a research across the country exposed how Malawians struggle to access good WASH facilities.

“Most households in the nine settlements studied had very low incomes: 54 percent earned between K10, 000 and K35, 000 (US$71–248) per month. Thus, a large proportion of households earned less than US$1 per person per day. A further 28 percent of households earned below K10, 000 per month, so, for a family of five, this represents less than US$0.5 per person per day,” said Manda.

The researcher also disclosed that the study also found that 37 percent of households had six or more members while 18 percent had five members.

“Residential plots are congested, with close to two-thirds having between 2 and 10 households sharing toilets and bathrooms that were often inadequate and poorly maintained,” he said.

On water access according to Manda within the nine settlements studied, provision for water was dominated by water kiosks.

“Of households surveyed, 53 percent purchased water from kiosks while 26 percent had individual water connections and 13 percent bought water from another house plot,” he said adding that water consumption levels varied considerably.

“Some families bought just one pail of water a week from kiosks, getting the rest of their water from other (unprotected) sources such as shallow wells and rivers for washing clothes and bathing. Kiosk attendants reported that, on some days, water sales were so low as to represent no more than one pail per household served by the kiosk,” said Manda.

He further said that for most households, the limited use of water purchased from kiosks was related to the cost, not the access saying the recommended cost for water sold at kiosks was at the time of study K1 to K1.50 for a 20-litre pail, but it was often sold at K2 to help kiosk attendants balance the books (the attendants have to pay for any water that is unaccounted for).

“Some kiosks charge considerably more than this (up to K5 or even K10 per pail). The urban poor in Malawi are paying prices equivalent to a far higher proportion of their income on water than is the norm in high-income nations,” said Manda.




On sanitation the Malawian Urban Development expert said only 10 percent of Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre’s total population, and 8 percent of the capital, Lilongwe, live in homes connected to sewers while the country’s third city, Mzuzu, there are no sewers.

“Most of the people in all three cities rely on pit latrines. For instance, in Lilongwe, 70 percent of the population uses pit latrines, with 20 percent using toilets linked to septic tanks. Within the study areas, 94 percent of the population used pit latrines, with 4 percent using toilets with septic tanks,” said Manda.

He explained that most households used shared toilets, while 1.4 percent lacked any form of toilet while only 27 percent of households had toilets that were not shared.

“Of those households sharing toilets, 15 percent shared with one other household, 13 percent with two other households and 3 percent with more than 15 households,” said Manda adding that most toilets cost less than K10, 000 to construct.

“But emptying them was expensive (K9, 000 to K11, 000) and it is common for pit latrines to be abandoned and another pit dug. In older houses, several pit holes can be seen in the backyards. Most housing plots in all nine settlements studied have more than one household living there, and many have more than two households,” he said.

Manda added that one of the main ways in which housing in informal settlements has expanded in Malawi has been through increasing the number of people and households living on each plot.

National Coordinator for Water and Environmental Sanitation Network (WESN) in Malawi Ngabaghila Chatata said that access to safe WASH is a human right as it underpins human development thus enabling people to overcome poverty.

“However, many Malawians just like other people in poor developing countries on the globe are struggling to enjoy such a right due to poverty, marginalisation, and social exclusion inextricably linked,” said Chatata.

She explained that there is need for policy makers to understand how people are excluded from WASH services and how this relates to power dynamics and control of resources within the family, the community and at institutional levels if the situation is to be changed for the benefit of masses.

“MDGs call on governments including Malawi on the globe to halve the proportion without access to WASH by 2015. Most governments have made efforts towards reaching the numbers, however not much attention has been put to look into “who makes such numbers,” said Chatata adding that for instance, some vulnerable groups are struggling to access safe WASH in Malawi and the world over yet their plight go unnoticed by policy makers.

“As a result the vulnerable groups have turned out to have no access to ‘WASH’ even in countries where access is reported to be high. Among these groups are women, the aged, people with disability, children and the chronically ill, equity and inclusion is a core principle, essential in the attainment of rights and in ensuring that we address issues of marginalisation and exclusion in WASH,” she said.

“Even People Living With HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) and chronic illness also fall in vulnerable groups. These are often stigmatised and discriminated however, studies have shown that provision of safe water to people living with HIV and AIDS can reduce the risk of diarrhoea by 30 percent,” said Chatata.

She added: “Studies even reveal that the effectiveness of life prolonging drugs for people suffering from HIV and AIDS, Antiretroviral (ARVs) is dependent on access to 1.5 litters of safe water per day. Care givers also need more water to fulfil their task.”

The WESN National Coordinator further said WASH issues have a significant effect on women because of their biological and reproductive roles.

“For example lack of privacy and safe menstrual hygiene facilities can expose women and girls to infection, loss of dignity and prevent their access to education,” she said adding, “Women may also be exposed to violence or sexual exploitation if they have to travel long distance to access water or lack private sanitation facilities.”

Chatata also expounded that WASH is key to attainment of child rights as provided by the UN Convention on Child Rights Article 24 such as right to education, health and nutrition.

“WASH has also an impact on child health for example diarrhoeas, worm infection, skin diseases, trachoma, typhoid and Hepatitis as this impact negatively on children's access to education,” she said adding that girls are also burdened by WASH tasks.

“As a result, they miss out of education. The elderly in the communities also live in poverty hence struggle to access good water sanitation and hygiene facilities and this also negatively impact on their health,” said Chatata.