Cholera has been a topical issue lately on the African continent, and sadly, it has resulted in lost lives. According to UNICEF, since the beginning of the year, over 200,000 cases of cholera, including over 3,000 deaths in eastern and southern Africa have been reported. The prevalence of cholera cases and related deaths on the continent has reached alarming levels. In Zambia, the government have suspended the opening of schools due to the prevailing cholera outbreak. Thousands of schoolchildren are therefore left disadvantaged. The outbreak continues to wreak havoc in Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa and other countries as hundreds of people lose their lives on a daily basis. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that over a billion people are currently at risk.
Sephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, recently quoted that “the outbreak has placed an immense strain on health care systems and exposed vulnerabilities in sanitation and hygiene infrastructure”. Certainly, this is the case, and if the situation is not addressed, Africa will risk regressing its gains on infrastructure development.
Such statistics do not make for pleasant reading. The onset of the recent rains in southern Africa have exacerbated the situation where flooding has occurred in low-lying areas resulting in fresh water sources becoming contaminated from surface water runoff mixing with solid waste and sewage. Cholera is one of the commonly known water-borne diseases and is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera. It remains a threat to public health and in turn a threat to the progress and development of the African economy. Step in engineers, technocrats and other creative minds to address this challenge! This article offers two solutions:
Multi-stakeholder engagement is key to the control of such devastating water-borne pandemics and the reduction or total elimination of related deaths. African governments must come together, brainstorm and allow for enabling environments where experts can work and deliver solutions to address this pandemic. The long-term solution for cholera control and eradication lies in engineering solutions and economic development to ensure continent-wide access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. It lies in the combined efforts of African governments to mobilize and create an implementing vehicle through multi-stakeholder engagement. Various players and stakeholders on the continent working in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) industry must come together and these include among others; water utilities, suppliers, engineers, technicians, town planners, civic society organizations with common interests, developers and investors. This therefore, is an urgent call, for such stakeholders to get together and proffer sustainable engineering solutions that tackle improved access to clean water and basic sanitation. One way of doing this is to leverage on the objectives and function of the African Ministers Council for Water (AMCOW), which is the African Union’s delivery mechanism on water and sanitation affairs. AMCOW’s main objective is to promote regional cooperation, security, social and economic development through the effective management of the continent’s water resources and provision of water supply services.
This call therefore, is for AMCOW to seek to identify, evaluate and mobilize critical players and stakeholders in WASH business from member states and operationalize their functions to deliver improved access to clean water supply and basic sanitation for all on the continent. In order for this initiative to work, an enabling environment must be present where the review of regional agreements, regional existing policies, master plans and institutions will lend its support to the functions of the regional multi-stakeholder engagements. Stakeholder engagement simply means that people and communities are part of the problem, solutions and process of developing and implementing improved service delivery. It means supporting member states, supporting AMCOW objectives and reinforcing its initiatives. We must achieve the “Africa We Want” through progressive dialogue, engagement and implementation.
Secondly, the adoption and implementation of sanitation technologies is now critical and a must-do. Engineers should lead the way in offering and implementing suitable and sustainable sanitation technologies throughout the sanitation service value chain. From source, containment, delivery to treatment and eventual recycling and reuse, water and sanitation management must now be looked at differently as opposed to the outdated, conventional ways of design and planning. Today, a host of modern sanitation technologies are readily available on the African market and these range from the simple ventilated improved pit latrines with hand-washing facilities especially for the remote and rural communities, to the more modern flushing-systems with integrated packaged treatment and recycling network. The impact of implementation of sanitation technologies will help greatly in the control of cholera and the significant reduction of water-borne related deaths. Global factors such as climate change have forced innovators and engineers to develop solutions that are climate-resilient and such technologies must be implemented where appropriate with careful thought, planning and deliverance.
The integration of multi-stakeholder engagement and appropriate water and sanitation technologies in Africa will be invaluable to reducing the global pandemic of cholera and other water-borne diseases. African member states who assign to the mandate of AMCOW, must accelerate their respective water and sanitation policies and strategies to enable a conducive environment for the implementation of appropriate sanitation technologies.
Let us eradicate the cholera pandemic through progressive and innovative minds and allow our continent to flourish and develop in the way we wish to see. Together this can be done, and together this can be achievable. The time is now!
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Eng. Tamsanqa Mpala is an experienced, qualified Zimbabwean civil and water engineer practicing in the engineering consultancy sector. He is an infrastructure-enthusiast passionate about engineering development on the African continent. He is the Immediate Past President of the Zimbabwe Institution of Engineers and managing partner of Hydro Utilities Consulting Engineers, a private engineering practice delivering solutions for civil, water and structural engineering design and project management.
Email: tamsanqa.mpala@gmail.com