Islamabad: Pakistan’s strong political will to address water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) issues is visible. All it requires is right infrastructure, better governance capacity and effective investment.The views were expressed by Chief Executive for WaterAid Tim Wainwright and Tim Clark, Chairman Board of Trustees WaterAid while talking to The News. WaterAid is a UK based INGO working globally in WASH sector and has several projects in the country including partnership with the government in the Clean Green School Programme (CGSP) and Clean Green Pakistan Index. Tim Wainwright and Tim Clark are visiting Pakistan to launch several initiatives with the government. Most prominent among those is the launch of Clean Green Pakistan Index, country's first ever barometer to measure green character and cleanliness of cities.Talking to The News, Tim Wainwright said that usually WASH loses out to more visible infrastructure like roads and power. He gave examples of countries where there are shinny highways passing small towns but women walk for kilometres to fetch water. “However we see the realisation at the political level in Pakistan,” he said. He expressed hope that social media would bring the real change as it is bringing communities together and putting right pressure on the governments.Talking about the barriers faced by WASH initiatives around the world, he said that there are two big shifts making it difficult to manage WASH governance including climate change and urbanisation. “Climate change is making everything more extreme and people without water and sanitation are at greater risk.” He said that extension of urban centres is usually unplanned and arteries are not put down for water and sanitation thus instead of improved facilities, such populations end up with poor access to WASH. “India, on the other hand, is more infrastructure focused,” he said while suggesting the government to make WASH a priority in the budget.
from The News International - National https://ift.tt/2Y0GZ4g
0 comments:
Post a Comment