The purpose of
the project is to improve the living conditions of people living in Mwanza Town
by reducing the volumes of wastes that gets into Lake Victoria which is the
source of drinking water for the people living in the Town.
The project will
specifically focus on improving on-site sanitation conditions in public
institutions (schools, health centers), Public places (markets centers) and
urban informal Low Income Settlement Areas. The informal settlement areas will
be targeted since they often times allocated on land which is of less value and
are more prone to poor water and sanitation conditions.
The
project is going to benefit the target groups directly in various ways depending
on the target specific interventions that have been designed for specific
groups. School going children will have access to improved adequate sanitation
and of more interest will be girls where gender sensitive sanitation facilities
will be constructed for their con. This will increase school enrolment and
retention more especially for girls.
The community
members living in informal settlement areas will benefit through the provision
of pit emptying services, public sanitation facilities that will constructed
and sub-system sanitation facilities. Some community groups will again be
assigned a responsibility to manage these public facilities including pit
emptying machines which will in-turn provide them with income to support their
families thereby reducing poverty.
Various projects
implemented in the town including the World Bank funded LVEMP which was only
piloted in two areas have highlighted on the need for Sanitation improvement in
the area. This has been supported by through surveys and other community
engagement forums. The effort by communities in the informal settlements of
Mwanza Town by constructing toilets with pits that are above the surface have
indicated the level of desperation that the communities have.
UN-Habitat,
through its Lake Victoria Region City Development Strategies (CDS) Programme
that was implemented in several towns including Mwanza in Tanzania again
identified sanitation, waste management and access to safe drinking water as
main priorities.
This project in
full recognizance of the topographical and land limitation challenges in the
informal settlements of Mwanza, has been designed to provide pit emptying
services and sanitation technologies that will easily support emptying services.
Due to shallow soils and limitations of land availability, households face
challenges as they are compelled to construct new toilet facilities when the
current one is full. A solution to this challenge under this project will be the
provision of pit emptying and sub-system sanitation services. This will help to
minimize the amount of money households spend on constructing new toilets as
pit emptying service will be much less costly as compared to construction of a
new facility. For school sanitation, the challenge is the unavailability of
adequate facilities which could cater for all the students and again the few
available facilities are not meeting the minimum standards.
The project will
construct improved gender segregated sanitation blocks in some selected schools
in the town. This is expected to increase enrolment and retention rates more
especially for girls who are highly affected by unavailability of adequate
sanitation facilities. This is deemed under the project as an appropriate
solution to this challenge as there is very limited investment in school
sanitation in Mwanza Towns.
This project
will be implemented with partners like The Ministry of Water, Mwanza Urban
Water and Sanitation Authority (MWAUWASA), Ministry of Finance, EIB, ADF,
Mwanza City Council and community groups will be fully involved in this
project.
UN-Habitat will be
responsible for the provision of both knowledge and advisory services to
enhance the sustainability of the project under the component of sanitation.
