Rural water access still challenging

FATMA ABDU

ACCORDING to Twaweza survey, access of water in rural areas over the last ten years has not changed.

Releasing the survey report in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Sauti ya Wananchi Project Officer, Nillin Njovu said that 54 per cent of people have access to an improved water source, with rural areas standing at 46 per cent and 74 per cent for urban areas.

“It appears there have not been large changes in the level of access to water, particularly in rural areas, over the past ten years. Although there are multiple datasets to compare, only two – which are strongly related -- show a consistent improvement in recent years, the report said.

She said that the data from ‘Sauti za Wananchi’ shows access to water in rural areas stood at 55 per cent in 2014 and 55 per cent in 2016.

The National Bureau of Statistics shows access varying between 40 per cent and 50 per cent over the last ten years with nine out of ten surveys showing data within this range while figures for Big Result Now report a rapid increase in access from 40 per cent in 2013 to 67 per cent in 2015.

The brief is based on data from ‘Sauti za Wananchi’, Africa’s first national highfrequency mobile phone survey. The findings are based on data collected from 1,808 respondents across Mainland Tanzania (Zanzibar is not covered in these results) in October 2016.

The findings also show that urban and rural areas face different yet similar challenges in accessing water.

‘Sauti za Wananchi’ also established whether citizens participated in public cleaning activities as directed by President John Magufuli on Independence Day 2015. She pointed out that irregular supply in rural areas is 28 per cent and in Urban areas 37 per cent, while an insufficient number of water points stands at 35 per cent in rural areas and 26 per cent in urban areas.

These are among the most common problems in both rural and urban areas.

The top three challenges in rural areas are distance to water point (39 per cent), insufficient number of water points (35 per cent) and dirty water (32 per cent), while the top three challenges in urban areas are irregular water supply (37 per cent), water cost (27 per cent), and insufficient number of water points (26 per cent).

On the other hand, hand washing with soap is an important element of hygiene practice. When asked to name an activity after which they washed their hands in the last 24 hours, 8 out of 10 people (81 per cent) did so after using the toilet, and 4 out of 10 citizens (36 per cent) did so before eating.