Can city relocation end cholera outbreaks?

February 21, 2018

VIOLET MENGO

Lusaka

 
CHOLERA, a highly contagious waterborne disease with the ability to cause death within 24 hours, has in the past few months ravaged the city of Lusaka. This notorious epidemic that knows no class broke out in October last year and has so far claimed about 80 lives while 3,635 people have been treated.

Some of the areas that were affected by cholera include Chipata, Kanyama, Chawama, Matero, Chilenje and Chelston.

However, on the bright side, the disease has inculcated good habits in people such as the cautious disposal of garbage, washing of hands after using the toilet and drinking treated or boiled water.

But, without adequate clean drinking water, better sanitation and hygiene practices, it is difficult to maintain high standards of cleanliness and win the fight against cholera.

It is believed that lack of access to clean drinking water and better sanitation are among the factors that ignited the outbreak of cholera in the capital city. However, Government has worked hard to curb the disease, but what remains is to find a lasting solution to recurrent cholera outbreaks.

Meanwhile, after a long dry spell in Lusaka, the heavens have finally decided to open up, and alas, causing floods in some townships of Lusaka.

And as the heavy rain pounds the rooftops of Kanyama township, Elledy Musumala closes the window of her tiny house and sighs.
“The rains are here and there is cholera too,” Mrs Musumala notes. She then explains how the outbreak of cholera in the unplanned settlement has negatively affected the lives of many people due to water shortages and the inadequacies of water infrastructure.

EIZ president George Sitali addresses members at the Indaba

Ms Musumala, who has lived her entire life in Kanyama, is now worried because the cholera epidemic has become a perennial problem.

Water supply and sanitation has been a huge challenge in most unplanned townships of Lusaka, prompting residents to draw water from unprotected shallow wells which are unsafe.

The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number six calls on countries to ensure access to water and sanitation for all. Improving these services to bring about economic gains is key in building resilience due to increased climate variability.

Engineering Institution of Zambia (EIZ) president George Sitali believes that the solutions to combating cholera include brainstorming and sharing of ideas that have the potential to produce feasible models.

Recently, EIZ held an indaba dubbed ‘Sustainable development in the water and sanitation sector” to put in place permanent measures to avoid future disease outbreaks.

Mr Sitali said the indaba theme had clear links to the Seventh National Development Plan under the growth outcome number three which emphasises improved access to water supply and sanitation.

EIZ’s mandate is to advise Government on matters relating to the engineering profession, to investigate and monitor national emergencies of public concern by, or likely to be caused by, an engineering product or service and recommend appropriate preventive and rehabilitative measures.

“Cholera response requires structural responses,” one of the engineers, Ennie Muchelemba, noted in her presentation entitled: “Rural water supply-faecal contamination of groundwater: Does disinfection using chlorine make the water safe?’’

Ms Muchelemba stated that safe drinking water should be free from pathogenic organisms and low in concentration of compounds that are acutely toxic.

This year, Government has allocated K564.5 million for water and sanitation in the national budget.
According to the National Water and Sanitation Council (NWASCO), access to water supply in urban areas stands at 86 percent, while in rural areas it is at 48 percent. This means that over six million people are without sanitation facilities.

Daniel Nkhuwa, a geology lecturer in the School of Mines at the University of Zambia, suggested that the capital city should shift from Lusaka to another place where proper city planning will be possible.

Professor Nkhuwa said over the years, Lusaka’s perspective has been lost, hence the need for an urgent re-think on how future developments of the city should be implemented.

He said there is need for a complete uproot of the capital city to some new location whose geology could allow for on-site sanitation system.

“The choices made many years ago have impacted on current waterborne diseases. The onsite sanitation should not have been permitted because the geology on the ground (of Lusaka) does not allow it,” he said.

Professor Nkhuwa’s presentation was entitled: ‘Is sustainable urban water development and prevention of waterborne diseases attainable in Lusaka under its current sanitation practices?’

While a lot still needs to be done to correct the current situation, especially in Lusaka, efforts on the ground are slowly yielding fruit. The US$355 million Millennium Challenge Account (MCC) project which aims at improving water, sanitation and drainage infrastructure has been almost completed.

The project is meant to help reduce the incidences of water-related diseases, give households more time for income generation, make businesses more productive and prevent residential floods.

It is for this reason that Ministry of Water Development, Sanitation and Environmental Protection principal engineer for rural water supply and sanitation, Abel Manangi, called on engineers to influence change in the prevention of waterborne diseases through timely advice.

“We hope the team of engineers working with Government will consider re-planning or re-development of cities and slums where disease outbreaks are frequent,” Mr Manangi noted.

Adding more insight on the topic, WaterAID technical manager Adamson Sakala advised engineers to be emphatic and proactive for their decisions to be taken seriously and implemented.

“We need to target the causes of cholera. This implies building water systems in whole cities and villages in endemic areas,” Mr Sakala said.

The resolutions of the indaba will be presented to Government for possible action. Former EIZ president Bernard Chiwala will lead the team of experts in drafting the position paper.

Adolescent girls making impact

VIOLET MENGO

Lusaka

Charity

 

IN A country where formal employment for young people is not readily available, Charity Phiri, 27, of Ng’ombe in Lusaka, is making ends meet at the Foundation for the Realisation of Economic Empowerment (FREE).

The foundation serves as an example of what economic empowerment of young people is all about.
Located in the heart of Ng’ombe township, FREE is a project generating income for young people through copper jewellery-making.
It started in 2010 by Dawn Bridget Close, initially targeting older women who were taught to make copper jewellery, but now has a bias towards young people.

This is because young people are said to be enthusiastic, open- minded to new innovations and are usually more eager to learn than the older women.

The foundation has a team of 10 dedicated adolescent girls who have been trained and are able to make different copper jewellery, including earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

Charity, the eighth born in a family of 10, completed her Grade 12 from Olympia School in Lusaka in 2007.

When she could not be supported to pursue her dream career in law, she had no option but to join FREE in 2013.

This was in a bid to raise money that could help her to carry on her dream career to become a lawyer.
“I learnt about the foundation from my aunt who used to be a member. I am here with the sole purpose of raising money that will allow me to go to study law,” Charity says.

She believes by becoming a lawyer, she will get the opportunity to defend the vulnerable people who lack legal representation in courts of law.

Charity also desires to uplift the status of her family which is currently known as a poor one with no hope of becoming better.

She is able to make any sort of jewellery using copper after undergoing training in jewellery production.

The products that she and the other girls make are sold locally at the Saturday market at Arcades Shopping Mall and other international markets such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
However, despite her determination to raise money for college, Charity has not been able to save as expected. This is because her income is unpredictable.

“I receive my wage depending on the products that I make and are sold out, this makes saving quite difficult. I always look forward to better sales of jewellery so that I could save enough money for college,” she says.

The highest amount of money Charity has bagged home was K1,800 in 2016. Her target is to make K3,000 per month.

Despite the meagre income she earns from FREE, Charity has developed love for jewellery -making and hopes to own her jewellery shop in future. This could be probably after she achieves her dream of becoming a lawyer.

According to her, if she had an opportunity, she could have borrowed money from the bank so that she could start the business and eventually raise funds for her university education. She has not been able to do so because banks demand that she provides collateral security.

She attests that it is difficult for small entrepreneurs without any form of collateral to get a loan from bank, but she is optimistic that the future is bright for her as she will not give up dreaming.

She works at the foundation five days a week from 09:00 hours to 17:00 hours and rests on Saturdays and Sundays.

FREE-funded by the Finnish embassy, encourages the young people to be assertive and plan to establish their own enterprises in future.

The foundation receives US$700 from the Finnish embassy monthly.

The founder, Ms Close, says the foundation aims to reverse the marginalisation of adolescents by providing them with the opportunity to better their lives.

This is in a bid to break the cycle of dependency through empowering young women to earn income.
The funding from the Finnish embassy is used to buy copper pieces which the girls use to make different jewellery sold locally and in other countries like the DRC.

The funding also enables Ms Close to train more young women how to run small businesses and become self-reliant.

“I chose the jewellery business because the global market for the business is growing, offering opportunities for the ladies to exploit the market,” Ms Close says.

Her goal is to add value to copper as too often African countries like Zambia are stripped of their natural resources when they are exported in raw form.

“Our jewellery is made from recycled copper, hot water heaters and from electrical wire,” she said.
FREE is moving towards processing its own semi-precious gemstones which will add greater value and appeal to the jewellery.

The young women at the foundation are happy with the kind of training and empowerment they have received. They hope to use the skill and knowledge to run their own enterprises in future.

Jemima Chilekwa, 25, is a University of Zambia (UNZA) graduate who completed in 2017. She has joined the foundation to gain entrepreneurial skills with the hope of running her own business.

“I studied Library Science and Development Studies, and when I could not find a job, the foundation took me in and I like what I am doing here,” Jemima said.

She believes adolescent girls need to rise up to the challenge to become agents of change by thinking ‘outside the box and embracing new things’.

Jemima has also been trained in silver smelting and looks forward to utilising the skill in future.
“My goal is to become finally independent,” Jemima says.

Collin Kaluba, 21, works closely with Jemima in silver smelting and the girls are excited and are determined to face and exploit future opportunities.

Finnish Ambassador to Zambia Timo Olkkonen said the embassy will continue to support initiatives that aim to uplift the well-being of the vulnerable.

TIZ tips Zambia on REDD+ funding management

VIOLET MENGO

Lusaka

THE first time one hears about REDD+, one gets bemused as to what the little-known United Nations instrument is all about. 

The acronym stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. 

It is a mechanism under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the objective of mitigating climate change through reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases through enhanced forest management.

REDD+ is a proposed mechanism aimed at slowing climate change which would involve a massive transfer of money from developed countries as part of their commitment to decrease the impact of their own carbon emissions.

It also provides benefits to the forests dwelling communities in developing countries by measuring countries’ contribution to stabilising the atmosphere and to pay for it.

REDD+ has generally been lauded as a beautiful idea in efforts towards decelerating climate change.

indiscriminate cutting down of trees for charcoal.

In Zambia, the Lower Zambezi REDD+ Project is the first pilot project, which encompasses approximately 40 000 hectares of primary Miombo forests.

The area strategically protects 60 kilometers of the national parks boundary by providing a buffer zone between the park and communal areas which have a growing human population and a thriving charcoal business along the Great East Road.

In the Nationally Determined Contribution which Zambia presented to Conference of Parties in Paris in 2015, the country has pledged to ensure sustainable forestry management as part of its effort to fight climate change.

These and many more initiatives are being addressed to ensure sustainability of trees.

This is against the background that despite the world having three trillion trees on earth, practices such as cutting down trees, draining swamps and burning bushes to make way for agriculture, produce between 10 and 20 percent of greenhouse gas emission.

In an era of climate change, destroying forests is one of the most harmful activities. Forests are well known for their ability to absorb carbon dioxide, but when they are burned, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Climate change is probably the most significant challenge facing the world today. It is estimated that the forest sector and other sectors that impact land use through deforestation, forest degradation and other changes in forests contribute approximately 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Considering the colossal amount of money in the REDD+  funding, Transparency International Zambia (TIZ)  has taken a proactive measure, urging Zambia to ensure that the funds, once made available, are put to good use. The organization is  not only creating awareness on the REDD+  initiative, but has come up with initiatives that could prevent any form of corruption that comes with big money.

 “Where there is money exchange, there is always some form of corruption that come through”,” TIZ president Lee Habasonda said.

As such TIZ launched an assessment report on corruption vulnerability for REDD+ in Zambia.

The report entitled “A corruption vulnerability assessment for REDD in Zambia highlights the link between REDD+ and corruption. 

The report has pointed out that a vast number of forests where REDD+ is being promoted and funded are located within developing countries, which may be vulnerable to corruption and weak governance.

It also points out that many REDD+ pilot projects are in remote rural areas which making it difficult to monitor.

“Forests carbon remains an intangible commodity to be traded so it can be manipulated and also large influxes of funds from international development community and technical complexity of terminologies used which creates and maintains a situation of information asymmetry,” Habasonda said.

“Forests are a vital part of the carbon cycle both storing and releasing this essential element in a dynamic process of growth, decay, disturbance and renewal. It is an important commodity to be traded and therefore be manipulated, especially when it involve huge amounts of money from the international community,” Mr Habasonda said.

He said technical complexity of terminologies used creates and maintains a situation of information irregularity that opens doors for manipulation.

The various manifestations of corruption in the forestry sectors of countries receiving REDD+ funds are challenges that pose an obstacle to achieving the economic, environmental and social objectives of REDD+.

Mr Habasonda said the challenges suggest significant threats to the success of REDD+ if effective anti- corruption safeguards are not built from the start.

According to him, the launch of the assessment report is the beginning of getting people appreciate and take measures to ensure that there are able to survive and work within the framework that is available. 

Mr Habasonda said the challenges suggest significant safeguards are not built in from the start.

grow the forests

The report aims at bringing out the potential or existing corruption risks in REDD+ and forestry sector in the country so that they might be proactively addressed.

At the end of the report, are recommendations aimed at strengthening systems and processes to protect REDD+ from corruption.

Some of the recommendations include a call to ensure the full and effective participation of stakeholders in decision making and strengthening of forestry management.

The report also recommends security of land tenure especially on customary land, fair allocation and disbursement of funds and enforcement of laws and regulations as well as access to justice. 

Climate change has assumed a level of critical importance and Mr Habasonda says it is important that communities in Zambia understand some initiatives taking place in the country such as the REDD+ to monitor related activities.

The involvement of all people remains key, especially the political leadership.

President Edgar Lungu participated actively in the conference of parties which was held in Morocco.

And he is concerned that climate change can reverse the gains that the country has made and has called for concerted effort from all stakeholders in the fight against climate change.

His action and timely advice has been welcomed by TIZ who say President Lungu has shown exemplary leadership in the fight against climate change and should be commended.

“President Edgar Lungu has shown exemplary leadership in the fight against climate change to which both state and non-state should wakeup to the occasion and address climate change effectively,” he said.

Mr Habasonda called on Government to ensure that ministries provide funding to the relevant sections that are managing forestry and natural resources.

Integrated waste management to change face of cities

---Enhancing recycling as a business

VIOLET MENGO

 Lusaka

MANAGEMENT of solid waste in the country remains a big challenge as most of it that generated from some sectors of the economy is currently not well managed. 

According to Ministry of Local Government and Housing (MLGH) report of 2011, it is estimated that only about 10 percent of urban areas in Zambia are serviced with solid waste collection.

Indeed, littering, uncollected garbage and indiscriminate dumping of waste are other major concerns that show lack of proper waste management in the country. You can add to that the improper handling of hazardous wastes and low standard of operational disposal sites.

However, there is a global concern that, apart from problems associated with hygiene, waste contributes to global warming and climate change through huge amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG) it emits into the atmosphere.

Zambia’s waste generation potential has been growing against the static solid waste and waste water management infrastructures.

To address this challenge, Government in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has proposed the establishment of an integrated waste management system.

The system will involve treatment of solid waste in mechanical biological treatment (MBT) with anaerobic digesters for methane harvesting from solid waste and sludge digesters with membranes for methane capturing in wastewater, as a project activity between 2017 and 2030.

The methane collected will be used as fuel in gas engine to generate electricity.

Under what is called the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMAs), the project will also promote waste separation at source and enhance recycling as a business.

example of integrated waste management

The NAMA project is proposed to be undertaken in four most densely populated and industrialised cities; Lusaka, Kitwe, Ndola and Livingstone.

Approximately US$126, 045, 571 will be invested in the project, which is expected to be recovered through the sale of recycled materials and electricity. It will be financed through a NAMA financing facility based in Berlin, Germany.

Low Emission Capacity Building Programme project manager for Zambia Hartley Walimwipi told a panel discussion in Marrakech Morocco, during the twenty second session of Conference of Parties (COP22) that the NAMAs are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emission.

Mr Walimwipi said that the NAMA’s also target to contribute to minimising the global adverse environmental impacts while achieving economic development, improved service delivery and community heath by introducing and promoting the use of appropriate technologies, systems, operational frameworks and practices in waste management.

NAMA aims to increase the collection and disposal of municipal solid waste up to 18 percent in the four cities of Lusaka, Kitwe, Ndola and Livingstone.

“It also targets to promote the practice of solid waste segregation so that 90 percent of recyclable materials are recovered at source and the business of recycling is enhanced,” Mr Mwalimwipi said.

The project, expected to start in 2017, will by 2020 develop biogas recovery infrastructure for electricity generation at each of the mechanical waste water treatment plants in Lusaka, Kitwe and Ndola.

It will also improve solid water treatment, disposal and greenhouse gas emission reduction in the four selected cities through development of MBT and anaerobic digestion infrastructure for biogas capture to generate electricity.

Before implementation of the NAMAs, there will be public awareness on the need to improve waste. Capacity will also be built in the local authorities, commercial utilities and other private sector actors such as financial institutions.

It will also lead to the establishing of policies to build a supportive environment for the selected technologies.

Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources permanent secretary Trevor Kaunda says the NAMA will be implemented in line with the national policies particularly the Vision 2030 which has outlined very specific targets on waste management and the medium term revised Sixth National Development Plan which runs from 2011 to 2016.

The establishment of the NAMA involved a number of sectors including both private and public such as the Ministries of Local Government, Energy, Environment, Water, Commerce trade and Industry and Finance and National Planning.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) states that NAMAs are to be taken in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner. Therefore, once the implementation of the NAMA starts, measurable reporting and verification will be carried out by local institution that will be appointed.

Mr Kaunda says the implementation of NAMA activities have the potential to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from municipal solid waste of 0.86, 1.2 and 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2020, 2025 and 2030 respectively. 

On the other hand, the greenhouse gases mitigation potential for wastewater is 26.3, 30.5 and 38.8 thousand tonnes of CO2e by 2020, 2025 and 2030.

The execution of the NAMA is expected to help change people’s perception and indeed how waste will be managed in the country; it will help minimise or eliminate certain practices such as open burning of waste and dumping.

Unlike the case now, waste will be considered as a resource through the promotion of value chain.

In turn there will be increased participation of the private sector through the promotion of the recycling business.

The NAMA will contribute to renewable energy in the energy mix and create jobs.

Besides transforming the waste sector towards a less carbon intensive development path through avoiding greenhouse gas emissions from dumpsites, NAMA provides alternative and clean energy. It also showcases potential investment opportunities in the waste sector especially for the private sector and leads to improved livelihood and job creation.