UNICEF’s regional advisor meets key Afghan WASH Gov’t partners

Therese Dooley, UNICEF's Regional Adviser for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in South Asia, had a meeting with Afghan key WASH partners in the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD).

The gathering, which took place yesterday, was attended by senior WASH employees from MRRD, Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Ministry of Education (MoE) and UNICEF Afghanistan. 

The aim of the meeting, as it was stated by Therese Dooley, was to look into Afghanistan WASH programs, see its progress and make sure that the programs were in line with UNICEF’s goals and targets.

Explaining the WASH program by the national Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Irrigation Program (Ru-WatSIP) of MRRD, Dr Mohammad Javed, Head of Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion Unit, stated that Ru-WatSIP has been coordinating the Afghan Context Community-Led Total Sanitation (AC CLTS) approach in the rural areas of Afghanistan because this approach proved effective in Open Defecation (OD) practice and getting people to owning and using latrines compared to the former subsidy-driven approaches.  He mentioned that so far over 5,000 villages and 15 districts have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) in the country. In the upcoming year, Dr Mohammad Javed promised that 30 other districts would be made ODF as well as a National Sanitation Strategy would be developed.

Representatives of MoPH also explained its WASH program in the country. Presenting MoPH’s WASH program, Dr Azizullah Safi admitted that MoPH was leading the Hygiene Technical Working Group (HTWG) and providing public health-related guidelines and papers. He added that MoPH was implementing the CLTS approach in four provinces of the country, and that it had made as many as 582 villages as ODF since start of the program. In addition, MoPH was implementing WASH in health centers in five provinces.

Lastly, MoE presented its WASH program in the meeting.