(…) Until that day their home was just downhill from a deep pond of sewage, pumped into a depression in the dunes and held there by earth walls because the water authorities in the Gaza Strip had nowhere else to put it.
‘Wall of human waste’
On 27 March 2007, the walls gave way. Aziza heard someone shouting, telling her to run away. She got out of the hut, then went back in because she had forgotten her head covering. The wall of raw human waste slammed into them. It knocked her down and tore the baby from her arms.
(…)
There is a £40m ($80m) plan, funded by international donors, for a proper sewage treatment system for north Gaza, but it is well behind schedule.
Read more: Jeremy Bowen, BBC, 22 Apr 2008S
Categories: Palestine · Sanitation
Tagged: S0803-MENA
This proposed World Bank-supported programme aims to improve access to water supply and sanitation services, increase returns to water use in agriculture, and strengthen sector institutions for sustainable water resources management and environmental protection. This will be achieved through a sector-wide approach (SWAP) aligned behind the National Water Sector Strategy and Investment Program (NWSSIP, 2005). NWSSIP is the approved national strategy and investment program for the water sector in Yemen and is regarded as one of the most advanced in the Arab world.
Yemen is facing major challenges: groundwater resources are rapidly dwindling, rural areas and the economy are under threat, while urban and rural water coverage have only kept pace with population growth and not with continued community expansion.
In its entirety, the programme is estimated to cost in the range of US$300 million (US$60 million/year) to be financed by IDA (US$90 million) and parallel/joint co-financing from Germany (US$163 million), DFID (US$35 million), and the Netherlands government (US$38 million).
The proposed program will have five components:
- Urban Water and Sanitation
- Rural Water Supply and Sanitation
- Irrigation Improvements
- Water Resources Management
- Capacity Building
The estimated date of Board approval by the World Bank is 18 December 2008.
World Bank Project web site
Categories: Capacity development · Rural WASH · Urban WASH · Water resources management · Yemen
Tagged: S0803-MENA, Sector-wide approaches, SWAPs
