Malawi: Gov’t struggle to provide safe water

Safe water provision is one of Malawi Government's priorities; however, it is struggling to provide this essential commodity.
Women fetching dirty water
According to a report by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development 20 percent of Malawi’s 13 million people live in urban areas with the urban population expected to double between 2010 and 2030 and safe water provision will be a great challenge.

The research report also indicated that less than one-tenth of Malawi’s urban population live in homes connected to sewers.

In a survey of 1,178 households conducted in May and June last year, it found that water and sanitation remained “woefully inadequate” in the nine settlements across Malawi’s three biggest cities – Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.

The report published also said that only one in four of the households polled had their own individual water connections.

Half of them relied on water kiosks – with some families in Malawi ranked 162 out of 179 on U.N. human development index buying just one bucket of water a week.

Not only were the kiosks open for an average six hours a day, but interruptions to supply were common, the report said.

To compensate, many families were taking water from potentially contaminated sources such as shallow wells and rivers posing a health risk with cholera and diarrhoea occurring frequently.

“Regular, safe, affordable supplies of water and good provision for toilets are such an obvious part of development, and so central to better health,” said Mtafu Manda, director of Alma Consultancy, a private planning and environmental management practice, who carried out the interviews.

“They are also central to livelihoods and for saving time, meaning no longer having to walk long distances or endure long queues to get water or use a communal toilet,” Manda said in a statement.

The poor state of clean, plentiful water supply and sanitation means Malawi is in danger of missing United Nations targets to raise living standards in impoverished countries.

Governments' commitment

Malawi’s Irrigation and Water Development Minister, Ritchie Biziwick Muheya said government is committed to ensuring that people in the country have access to potable water amidst a report by a research group that Malawi is failing UN targets on water and sanitation.

“My ministry with the help of the African Development Bank and Africa Catalytic Growth Fund will make sure people in rural and peri-urban areas have access to clean and safe water,” Muheya told journalists.

The U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty were agreed in 2000 and include a target to halve the population without long-term access to water and sanitation by 2015.

Muheya however, said through the National Water Development Programme, government would ensure that people across the country had access to clean and safe water to facilitate development in the country, as people would not be affected by water borne diseases.

“Although my ministry and the water boards are facing a lot of challenges in their quest to provide the nation safe water, government is still committed to prioritize provision of safe water to as many people as possible throughout the country,” he said.