The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat, in collaboration with WaterAid and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), launched the SADC Hygiene Strategy (2021-2025) on 24 August 2022. This marks a huge milestone in the realisation of political commitments made previously by Ministers of Health. The launch was attended by SADC Member States, development partners and donors who reiterated the importance of the Strategy as a tool to address persistent poor hygiene practices which are a major contributor to the spread of serious diseases in the Region.
Speaking during the launch ceremony, Dr Gertrude Nsambi, Director of Hygiene in the Democratic Republic of Congo noted that hygiene in general has often been relegated to the backstage when it comes to national prioritisation of health programmes in Member States. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand hygiene has received unprecedented prominence as the first line of defence in national COVID-19 prevention strategies. This has helped to position hand hygiene as an important long-term public policy issue. There is scientific evidence that hand hygiene is a highly cost-effective investment and has multiplier health benefits for a real ‘no-regrets’ investment. The SADC Hygiene Strategy 2021-2025, seeks to, amongst other interventions, upscale capacity building for the Region’s hygiene sector and provide a framework for the financing of hygiene activities.
Director of Social and Human Development in the SADC Secretariat, Ms Duduzile Simelane, highlighted that the Region continues to report recurrent outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and hepatitis E. Amid these threatening diseases access to handwashing in the Region remains very low especially amongst rural populations. Furthermore, access to hand hygiene and practice remains inadequate with the requisite facilities to support behaviours change for hygiene lacking in many Member States. She reminded all present that access to water and sanitation services is key as these are enablers of good hygiene practices. Progress towards improved access to basic water supply has been very slow. She said that the UNICEF Report published in 2022 revealed that only 63% of the Region’s population was estimated to have access to basic water supply in 2022, which is 2% improvement from the 2012. Access to basic drinking water in health facilities is estimated at 67%, 24% of health facilities have limited access to water and up to 8% have no access to water at all.
Member States were urged to note that basic access to water, sanitation and hygiene practices have a contributory factor to the nutrition status especially of children under 5 years. Therefore, if these are not in place, it can lead to diarrhoea, poor absorption of nutrients and increase the chances of infants and young children being malnourished. Inability to practice hygiene during meal preparation and storage could result in diarrhoea and mortality especially in children.
WaterAid Regional Director for Southern Africa, Robert Kampala, described the adoption and launch of the Strategy as a highly significant milestone for the Region. “This official launch of the strategy reflects how seriously Member States take the issue of good hygiene. It’s now key that Member States back up this strategy with enough money, personnel and expertise. As a starting point, communities cannot be safe from infection if there is no proper hygiene and WaterAid continues to state that improved access to clean water, good sanitation and basic hygiene is absolutely key,” He said. Mr. Kampala emphasised the importance of development of national action plans that give prominence to hygiene with clear targets and financial commitments from domestic funding. He further assured the SADC Member States and the SADC Secretariat the support WaterAid will provide in rolling out the SADC Hygiene Strategy in the Member States.
Arnold Cole, WASH Specialist from UNICEF Eastern Southern Africa Region, indicated that UNICEF together with WHO during the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, initiated a drive for “Hand Hygiene for All (HH4A)”. This perfectly aligns to the pillars of the SADC Strategy ranging from political leadership, financing for hygiene, capacity building, demand and supply. UNICEF shared country level examples of hand hygiene initiatives together with the Governments of Lesotho which have advanced the hygiene agenda with ongoing development of a hygiene strategy as well as strengthened private sector engagement through the HH4A initiative in the United Republic of Tanzania under the Smart Hands Tanzania project. Mr. Cole underscored the importance of the regional hygiene strategy, noting that Africa will have to accelerate its current rate of progress on basic universal hygiene by 42 times in order to achieve universal coverage by 2030
Member Sates shared their experiences and agreed that in order for hygiene practices to be improved, there will be a requirement for strong implementation, monitoring, and evaluation systems in the Region. The presence of research institutions such as AUDA-NEPAD Southern African Network of Water Centres of Excellence (SANWATCE) represented by Dr Nico Elma provided assurance and commitment towards evidence generation and supporting community of practice on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.
SADC will engage and work with key partners, including civil society and development agencies in the field of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to ensure that sufficient resources are committed to enable effective implementation of the strategy.
Source: Southern African Development Community