Liberia: WASH R&E Network Holds Crisis Talk in Gbarpolu
….As Citizens Challenge President Sirleaf to Sign WASH Compact – By: Augustine N. Myers – Citizens of Gbarpolu County in Western Liberia have challenged the Liberian Leader, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to sign the Liberia WASH Compact Document that was developed at the Multi Donor Conference on water, sanitation and hygiene in Monrovia last year.
Bopolu District Commissioner, Olu Nagba making welcome remarks
The WASH Compact is a product of the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership aimed at ensuring that the Liberian population access safe drinking water and improved sanitation as human rights.
WASH R&E Co-Chairman, Darlington Poka giving an importance of the Program
The Gbarpolu Citizens believe that the signing of the WASH Compact by President Sirleaf is the first step towards addressing coordination, governance and financing challenges facing the WASH Sector of Liberia.
The Citizens’ call was contained in a petition to Government at a one day Crisis Talk on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Bopolu City on December 29, 2011, organized by the WASH Reporters & Editors Network of Liberia.
Some of the participants at the Bopolu WASH Crisis Talk
The program held in collaboration with the CSOs WASH Working Group, brought together over 100 participants to discuss the WASH Compact and the need to ensure that all have access to safe drinking water and better sanitation.
The citizens in their petition said, 60% of Liberians cannot access a sustainable safe water supply, while over 80% of Liberians do not have hygienic dignified place to go to the toilet.
The Gbarpolu citizens quoting WASH Reports said, 49% of the population of Liberia practice open defecation, while a total of 37% death rate of children under five years old is caused by either pneumonia or diarrhea.
The citizens also said, the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Sector of Liberia is faced with fragmentation, inadequate funding, policy limitation and data challenge, thereby undermining the progress of the Sector.
The Gbarpolu citizens comprising over one hundred including youth, women, students, local leaders elders, people with disabilities, slum dwellers and professionals from across the County signed the 3-page document as part of efforts in joining their colleagues from Margibi County Grass Root Convention convened in Kakata city on November 15-16, 2011, and the World Toilet Day celebrated on November 19, 2011 campaigners, including other WASH Crisis Talks around the Country.
Youthful Lucia Massaquai read the petition on behalf of the over 100 participants
The Gbarpolu citizens at the same time called on the Liberian Government through President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to create the enabling environment through policy, standards and improvement of services especially to vulnerable population (women, children, disabilities, hard to reach areas) to fulfil the right to water and sanitation as declared by the UN General Assembly in 2010 and promote Water and sanitation for All (SWA) partnership signed by the government of Liberia.
The citizens also called for clear budget lines to be identified and funding increment in the national budget to meet the eThekwini Declaration, UN Least Developed Countries Program of Action for the decade 2011-2020 WASH Aspect and AfricaSan Action Plan.
They also called for the promotion of private sector participation and investment in the WASH sector through corporate social responsibility and direct investment by providing incentives and security of investment to Liberian and foreign businesses involved in the water and sanitation sector.
A blind WASH Poverty Victim, Mama Korpo testified
The Gbarpolu citizens at the same time called on the President to ensure that unlike the first Poverty Reduction Strategy(PRS) from 2008-2011, the second PRS from 2012-2017 must show strong visibility through increased programs and funding appropriations to the Water and sanitation sector.
Additionally, the citizens said they support the effort of government and partners to address governance challenges facing the WASH sector through the creation of a Water and Sanitation Commission.
According to the Gbarpolu citizens, the signing of the Liberia WASH Compact by President Sirleaf is the first step towards addressing coordination, governance and financing challenges facing the Liberian WASH Sector.
The four WASH Poverty Victims that testified at the Crisis Talk
They also want President Sirleaf who is WASH Goodwill Ambassador for Africa to sign the Executive Order which is the 2nd step of demonstrating political will to establish the water and sanitation Commission as envisaged in the Liberia Compact and other WASH policies.
The Gbarpolu people further challenged the incumbent Leader to include in her pending inaugural address scheduled for January 16, 2012 a policy statement on WASH, as she takes the oath of Office for a 2nd 6-year term as President of the Republic of Liberia.
Some of the Bopolu WASH Crisis Talk Participants pose for a photo, after the Program
In a related development, citizens of Gbarpolu County in Western Liberia are equally challenging members of the 53rd National Legislature (incumbent and new Lawmakers) to prioritize Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).
They called for actions to be taken aimed at supporting and leading the Setting-up of a legislative WASH Committee involving legislators from the both houses and Civil Society as envisaged by the Liberia CSOs WASH Working Group as a first step towards demonstrating commitment to improving the WASH sector.
They also called on the Legislators to review and enact laws to support Integrated Water Resource Management and the Water Supply and Sanitation Policies, and ensure that local governments make sure County and Social Development Funds apportion for water, sanitation and hygiene and county Development Agenda show strong visibility and commitment to WASH.
The WASH Crisis Talk is a unique advocacy strategy that gives voice and access of slum community dwellers and WASH poverty victims to public officials and the media to share how the lack of access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation is contributing to their poverty condition, depreciating your community health and impacting education.
It creates the space for community dwellers, like those in Bopolu and other Communities across Gbarpolu County to propose solutions and demand concrete actions to stop the water and sanitation crisis facing their communities in particular, Liberia in general and the world at large.
Meanwhile, residents of Bopolu City in Gbarpolu County are said to be facing serious water “crisis”, with some parts of the sprawling city without safe drinking water sources.
During the recent WASH “Crisis Talk”—a town hall meeting convened on Thursday, December 29, 2011 in the City, residents said there are only 16 functioning hand pumps out of 19 for thousands of residents, and that they struggle daily to fetch water for drinking and other domestic use while others go without water when these limited water sources dried up.
The Commissioner of Bopolu District, Olu Nagba said there are communities that do not have hand pumps and residents are constrained to walk 15-25 minutes to fetch water from nearby areas with hand pumps.
He made specific reference to an area known as “Promise Land”, a large and populated community which does not have a single hand pump or a public latrine.
Commissioner Nagba further noted that the lack of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is even worse for residents of towns and villages around Bopolu City, and called on the Government of Liberia and Charity Organizations to promptly intervene before the situation deteriorates into a full scale humanitarian crisis.
The Commissioner said women and children are heavily burdened by the problems because of their traditional role to fetch water for household.
Participants of the one day WASH Crisis Talk explained that the lack of safe water is particularly tense during the dry season when the water table is low, thus causing the few available hand pumps in the area to always run out of water.
The participants including women, youth, and the elderly and local officials said Bopolu City and adjacent areas lack adequate sanitation facilities, including toilets. For example, Commissioner Nagba said there are only six public toilets in the city despite its huge population, and that most people use nearby bushes for open defecation.
Meanwhile, a visually impaired woman Mama Korpo says disabled people in Bopolu City are discriminated against and denied access to public facilities including hand pumps and latrines.
The middle aged woman who is also the leader of the Disabled Community in Gbarpolu explaining as one of the WASH poverty victims told the gathering that she also constantly receives complaints from members of her Organization concerning how some community residents denied them (disabled people) from fetching water from hand pumps and using public toilets in the City.
She said those who deny disabled people from accessing public facilities, do so under the pretense that these facilities should be properly maintained, or that a disabled person had not observed the timetable regarding the use of such public facilities. Madam Korpo said as a result of the ill treatment carried out against disabled people in Bopolu City, most of them are constrained to use bushes to attend to nature.
Outraged about the ill treatment, Madam Korpo called for an immediate halt to the discrimination and denial of disabled people in using public assets, stressing that disabled people too have rights to use public facilities like other members of society. She further noted that public facilities should be constructed in a way that accommodate and give easy access to people with disabilities.
