NEWS in brief
Namibia:
Government Restores Water at Ashihaya
The feeding programme at Ashihaya Junior Primary
School that was suspended at the beginning of the year
following a water crisis was back on track early July 2015
after government installed a 10 000-litre water container at
the school.
Another 10 000-litre tank was installed at the village
through the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry
to cater for about 300 homesteads that in recent months
had to do with drinking murky water drawn from distant
ponds.
Recently, it was reported that the school feeding programme
at the school had been put on ice for five months following
an acute water crisis at the village resulting from the
drought.
Villagers had to drink saline water from one borehole
while the water ministry through its department of rural
water supply was only able to provide water to the villagers
every three months, or sometimes six months.
However, that did not completely alleviate the situation as
the masses still had to walk long distances in search of
water.
Around Africa
Sanitation Innovation Challenge (SanIC) was launched.
The programme, of which the South African Water
Research Commission (WRC) is the implementing agent,
aims to appraise sanitation technologies on the market.
Other sanitation programmes which are linked to the
government’s plan of achieving sustainable sanitation
coverage include the faecal sludge management capacitybuilding programme in Africa, known as the Sanitation
Research Fund of Africa (SRFA) Project, and the
SASTEP Programme, which is co-funded by the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the South African
Department of Science and Technology. For the latter, the
next generation, water-saving, off-grid sanitation solutions
from the BMGF’s Re-Invent the Toilet Challenge will be
demonstrated in resource limited areas in South Africa.
It is envisaged that novel treatment processes used in these
toilets will lead to entrepreneurship opportunities in lowincome areas from the beneficiation of waste streams.
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Paradigm s