Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) Awadh Kumar Mishra, who leads the Inter-ministerial Coordination committee, said that all the officials have accelerated their home work to put their agendas at the conference that is scheduled for October 22 to 24. [break]
The discussion on various themes such as school and hygiene, sanitation and health, knowledge management, urban sanitation, disabled friendly toilets and media advocacy from all the representatives of eight SAARC countries would be highlighted at the event, said Mishra.
On the last day of the conference, the ministers of all the participating countries would hold a final discussion on setting new declarations to be implemented in the next two years, he added.
The Ministry of Health, in 2011, estimated that more than 15,000 children below five years age die in Nepal every year due diarrhea that is directly connected with unsafe drinking water and unhygienic practices.
Though the government has set the target of increasing the toilet coverage to 100 percent by 2017, only nine districts have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). Bhaktapur is going to be the 10th ODF district on October 21, a day before the South Asian conference begins. Similarly, only 47.78 percent households receive safe drinking water from taps, whereas 35 percent households get water drawn using tube wells and hand pumps, the national census data reveals.
In the fourth SACOSAN held in Sri Lanka in 2011, Nepal had expressed the commitment to increase finance and equity. Similarly, the government had also committed to establish specific public sector budget allocations for sanitation and hygiene programs and progressively increase allocations to sanitation and hygiene.
The last declaration also included that the party countries would recognize the right to sanitation, introduce a time bound plan with an increment in fund allocation for equitable and inclusive sanitation programs.
Explaining the countries achievements in the last two years, Secretary of the MoUD Kishor Thapa said that the draft constitution of the dissolved CA had addressed the sanitation as a right of all citizens.
The Ministry of Finance also allocated Rs 3.99 billion for ensuring safe drinking water and sanitation this fiscal year, increasing the amount from last fiscal year, which also fulfills one of the aspirations of the fourth SACOSAN declaration, added Thapa.
Similarly, the government has also recently introduced the four years master plan on water and sanitation that aims to achieve the milestones increasing the peoples´ access to toilet to 80 percent by the fiscal year 2014/15 and gradually meet the universal toilet coverage by 2016/17.
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