The community-led sanitation revolution in Nigeria

By Shantha Bloemen, UNICEF

BENUE STATE, Nigeria, 5 August 2013 – Women and men, just in from the fields with hoes still in their hands, and barefoot children sit in the shade under a tree. Betty Torkwase Ikyaator asks them to make her a picture of their village in a layer of sand on the ground. With pebbles and coloured paper, they place their homes, the church, the rivers, the roads and other landmarks. They don’t mark a clinic, market or primary school because they don’t have those things here in Mbanumbekem village in rural Nigeria.

 

 

The sessions that teams like Betty Torkwase Ikyaator's run use
shame, humour and enlightenment to trigger clarity among
individuals on how sanitation links to well-being and to encourage
them to decide to act collectively in making a change© UNICEF

Ms. Torkwase Ikyaator asks about their toilets. A debate erupts over just how many the community of 45 households has among them. They settle on eight. Then, a member of the eight-member water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) team from the local government authority (LGA) brings out a plate of food and asks the group if it looks tasty. Everyone agrees that the food, indeed, looks delicious.

 

The Assistant Hygiene Promotion Officer from the LGA team offers a community member a sample. Then he places the plate next to a pitcher of water and a small pile of, well, human excrement that was collected from nearby. It does not take long for the flies to start swarming, moving from the pile to the plate and back again.

 

He generously offers all the villagers a chance to sample the food. They giggle, but refuse. He offers them water from the pitcher. They giggle and refuse again. The point is made.

 

A commitment to toilets

 

Another member of the team asks some children to walk her through the village. She asks them to show her where they use the toilet. They lead her to a leafy area, near mud brick homes and a communal toilet that appears seldom used. The children point to the open area, which is enveloped by a strong stench. The children laugh, while chickens and goats amble among them, mixing their excreta with the human deposits.

 

Back with their parents, the children report where they have gone. The community leader reinforces the concern that something must be done about where all the villagers defecate. A lively discussion follows among the villagers, heavily punctuated with several solutions.

 

A committee is formed. Its volunteers agree that, over the next month, they will work to ensure that each household builds its own toilet. A record is made of each villager’s commitment to construct and use a toilet.

 

A trigger for change

 

This situation, in UNICEF vernacular, is a ‘triggering’ moment. Ms. Torkwase Ikyaator is a water, sanitation and hygiene consultant for UNICEF Nigeria. Based in Tarka LGA of Benue State, she is one of many such people fanning out across the country to help communities realize that where they defecate is a matter of life and death.

 

Through a mix of shame, humour and enlightenment, two-hour sessions like the one Betty and her team have conducted are designed to trigger clarity among individuals on how sanitation links to their well-being and to encourage them to decide for themselves to act collectively in making a change.

 

Community-led total sanitation, as this process is known, is a globally recognized concept in use across Africa to resolve the poor sanitation and hygiene practices that contribute to the illness and death of millions of children.

 

There were 15 communities reported to be open defecation free in 2008. Community-led total sanitation has come a long way since, having transformed the lives of over three million people in what are now more than 4,500 communities reported open defecation free.

 

A way of life

 

Ms. Torkwase Ikyaator and her team have triggered more than half of the 250 communities on their to-do list. She seems happy with the commitments and promises made in Mbanumbekem. She and the team from the LGA will be back to check on progress. The process is not preoccupied with the technical aspects of the toilet, but rather seeks to ensure that every family understands its value. Improvements can always be made at a later stage, as the use of the toilet and its value become better appreciated.

 

The team travel to Mbanzua community for a return visit. This community remains committed to staying open defecation free, which Ms. Torkwase Ikyaator is heartened to hear. To be certified, they need to keep their status for at least six months. “We keep on coming back to the community,” she says. “Checking in on them, giving them encouragement and supporting the process. But once they realize the benefit, especially in keeping their children healthy, it becomes part of their way of life.” Jacob Akem, a father of three, shows off his toilet, built with mud bricks and a simple plastic water container for hand-washing. He says he and his family now spend less of their income on visits to the clinic, and his children are much healthier.

 

Ms. Torkwase Ikyaator believes the simple and participatory process of community-led total sanitation is having a huge impact on the incidence of diarrhoea, one of the primary killers of children. But with more than 45 million Nigerians still defecating in the open, according to the 2011 Multiple Indicator Survey, she knows there is still much triggering to be done.

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Community-based treatment for malnutrition earns praise in northern Nigeria

By Roar Bakke Sorenson, UNICEF

 

More than a half million children in northern Nigeria have been treated for malnutrition with peanut paste provided by UNICEF. Now villagers refer to the old Hausa kings of West Africa when speaking of the well-being of children, calling them the ‘Children of the King’.

 

KIYAWE, Nigeria, 23 July 2013 – Nigeria’s rates of childhood stunting and wasting are among the highest in the world, particularly in the north, where the country reaches into the Sahel region. In many cases these conditions can be life threatening if not treated properly.

 

In 2009, in collaboration with the Nigerian Government, UNICEF started a pilot project based on research recommending treatment of malnourished children in their home communities, rather than in far-off hospitals or health clinics, a treatment that often comes with an enormous cost for the family.

 

A baby is tested for malnutrition at the health centre. Credit: UNICEF

 

Fatima Yashia is one of the mothers who brought her child, 22-month-old Osman, to the Katanga primary health care centre for treatment. Osman is one of more than 500,000 children who have been through the programme in northern Nigeria in the last five years. Eating ready-to-use therapeutic food over a period of eight weeks, children are able to recover quickly from malnutrition.

 

The Community Management of Acute Malnutrition programme treats children at a decentralized outpatient therapeutic site. There, the mother and child are weighed, and the children are measured and checked for medical complications. Those with severe acute malnutrition are given a therapeutic peanut paste and vitamins. Mothers receive enough supplies to take home for a week and are told to return every week for the next two months.

 

UNICEF supports 495 health centres in 11 states in northern Nigeria.

 

“Even before I came here, I praised what they were doing, and now when I’m receiving, I am still grateful,” Ms. Yashia says. “Many people from the towns and villages praise this programme, and villagers call those children ‘the children of the king’ because they all look so very healthy. And even I received this for my child today, and I am happy. I want to thank God and the Government for this initiative.”

 

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Sahel: Millions need long-term support

By the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)



The UN’s senior humanitarian representative in the Sahel region of West Africa has called on the international community to maintain its commitment to millions of people who face another year threatened by malnutrition, displacement, conflict and high food prices.



 

Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel and Assistant Secretary-General Robert Piper said that the region remained in crisis, even though the response to last year’s food crisis was “fast and substantial”.

“A lot of things went right in 2012 despite the scale of the challenges,” he said. “The temptation going into 2013 was to breathe a sigh of relief and take the foot off the humanitarian accelerator.

 “(But) we can’t take a year off just yet. The Sahel is still in crisis as a region.”

Over 10 million need food

A range of factors have left an estimated 10.3 million people in need of food assistance across the region. Many communities are still reeling from last year’s food crisis, which came less than two years after the previous one. Cereal prices remain high, exacerbated by floods in northern Nigeria (an area that produces 50 per cent of the Sahel’s cereals) as well as insecurity in Nigeria and Mali.

This insecurity and flooding have meant that pastoralists in Chad and Niger are cut off from Nigerian livestock markets, making it difficult for them to sell their cattle at the prices they need to make a living. Finally, continued Piper, many people need assistance because of the very deep nature of their vulnerability.

“We need to recognize that one reasonable agricultural season will not reverse the levels of acute vulnerability in the region,” he said. “Vulnerable households affected by cycles of ever-frequent crises don’t need much of a push to go under the emergency line.”

Funding thwarts efforts to tackle root causes of vulnerability

For 2013, UN agencies and their humanitarian partners have appealed for US$1.7 billion to help them support communities in the nine countries that make up the Sahel. To date, $473 million – about 28 per cent of what is needed – has been received.

“2013 is not the year to reduce our commitments to the Sahel,” said Piper. He noted that the type of funding received was limiting the ability of agencies to respond effectively to the crisis.

Forty-three per cent of the funding that has been received has been directed towards short-term food aid. While this has ensured that 1.2 million people across the region received food assistance in the first two months of 2013, it also meant that aid agencies were constrained in their ability to address the root causes of vulnerability.

“The resources that are being received are slanted to particular sectors,” Piper said. “They do not allow us to tackle the root causes of vulnerability in the Sahel.”

For example, agricultural projects that are designed to help communities build resilience against disasters and break the cycle of aid dependence have received only five per cent of the financial support they need. Only 108,000 of the estimated 5.9 million farmers in need received seeds ahead of the May 2013 planting season, meaning that many millions may face a third year of crisis in 2014.

“Last year’s response to the food crisis was extraordinarily good,” said Piper. “(But) we need to learn from this success. Our record for 2013 looks less promising but it’s not too late.”

The need for greater investment in addressing the root causes of vulnerability will be a major focus of the Fourth Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction that is being held in Geneva this week. This event will see governments, the UN and the wider humanitarian and development communities continue to explore the global framework for reducing disaster risk. It comes on the heels of a new report from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) that warned that direct losses from disasters have been underestimated by at least 50 per cent, and have cost the global economy in the range of $2.5 trillion since the start of this century alone.

 

 

The need for greater investment in addressing the root causes of vulnerability will be a major focus of the Fourth Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction that is being held in Geneva this week. This event will see governments, the UN and the wider humanitarian and development communities continue to explore the global framework for reducing disaster risk. It comes on the heels of a new report from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) that warned that direct losses from disasters have been underestimated by at least 50 per cent, and have cost the global economy in the range of $2.5 trillion since the start of this century alone.

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Celebrities lending their Voices to GROW

 By Abdulazeez Musa – Livelihood & Private Sector Coordinator, Oxfam GB Nigeria

 

The GROW campaign in Nigeria has been working with 3 popular Nigerian artist; Sound Sultan, Lami and 2face to raise awareness and mobilize support for small scale agriculture. They have so far held two press conferences led a twitter campaign and produced a song—Act 4 Africa as part of the campaign. The song is being used to further reinforce the message of the campaign to a larger audience and awaken a broader consciousness on the current food crisis especially in the Sahel. The song is being played on several radio stations across the country and has already started generating the appropriate level of interest intended.