SIERRA LEONE: Sierra Leone to receive U.K. aid for water and sanitation improvement

Record ID: 455397

  • Title: SIERRA LEONE: Sierra Leone to receive U.K. aid for water and sanitation improvement
  • Date: 26th February 2008
  • Summary: MORE OF PEOPLE WASHING AND FETCHING AND WASHING IN WATER
  • Embargoed: 12th March 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sierra Leone
  • Country: Sierra Leone
  • Topics: International Relations,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVAERNW4WAESWJDXX99QISK2V8YX
  • Story Text: Sierra Leone has been granted aid from the U.K. to help alleviate water and sanitation problems in the country. Sierra Leone's economy and infrastructure were decimated by an 11-year civil war.
    Sierra Leone will receive 32 million British pounds in aid from the U.K. (63 million U.S. dollars) through its Department for International Development (DFID). International Development Minister, Douglas Alexander, announced the programme to help with sanitation and hygiene education.
    Alexander also toured one of Freetown's slums.

    "I have just met some people who represent the very best of human nature, people struggling in the most terrible circumstances. A community of twelve thousand people with a single tap that is only on for part of the night, every evening. Young women and children washing themselves from a water source that none of them can identify. And at the same time, there's the sheer horror of some of the conditions these people are living with. I have seen quite extraordinary and inspirational women who are working together to provide better facilities, better health care, better water and sanitation for the people of this community," said Alexander.
    Less than half the population has access to safe water and sanitation and about 20,000 children under the age of five die every year from dirty water and hygiene-related illness, DFID reports.
    The funding will help in the building of wells, hand pumps and in the revamping of existing water supply systems. It will also assist women and children by teaching better hygiene practices and providing safe drinking water.
    Chairperson of the Mabella Development Association, Hawa Turay said the aid package would go a long way in the improvement of health services in the slum.

    "We asked them to help us. We don't have health facilities, we don't have toilets, we don't have good water supply. So that is why we took them around to go and see what we are requesting. So, they have seen this and they promised to help us," said Turay.
    DFID says the funding will increase Sierra Leone's current expenditure on water and sanitation by seven times. The aim is to help Sierra Leone meet the Millennium Development Goal objective of halving the number of people around the world living without safe water or basic sanitation by 2015.
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