According to a joint press release from the three partners, this "Initiative One Million" was launched in the western city of Tete, with Public Works Minister Felicio Zacarias signing the documents for the government.
The programme will be implemented in 18 districts - six in each of Tete, Manica and Sofala provinces. It is costed at 42 million US dollars. 28 million dollars will come from Holland, seven million from UNICEF, while the Mozambican government and the beneficiaries of the programme pay the rest.
The release says the central provinces were chosen for this initiative because of their poor access to clean water, because diarrhoeal diseases and malaria are major causes of mortality and sickness among children, because of high rates of HIV prevalence, and because they are particularly vulnerable to emergencies.
The programme aims to build, by December 2012, 2,000 new water sources (i.e. wells or boreholes) in rural Manica, Sofala and Tete which will give a million people "sustainable access to clean water". A further 400 water sources will be rehabilitated, providing the same access for a further 200,000 people.
With the construction of 200,000 new latrines, it is hoped that a million people will have adequate access to sanitation.
400 primary schools (with a total of 140,000 children) will also gain access to drinking water and decent sanitation.
The release stresses that the initiative will "strengthen the knowledge and capacities of communities and of schoolchildren to adopt safe hygiene practices, paying special attention to households affected by HIV/AIDS".
The programme also plans to build the capacities of district and provincial level government institutions "so that they may effectively play their roles and take their responsibilities with particular stress on planning, management, coordination and supervision of integrated water, sanitation and hygiene programmes".
Government institutions are also urged to form partnerships with private business "to create sustainable networks to supply hand pumps and spare parts to the users of the water sources".
The "Initiative One Million", the release, says will contribute towards attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Mozambique. The MDG water target is that, taking the year 1990 as the baseline, by 2015 the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water be cut by half.
SOURCE: AIM
