An Introduction to Water and Sanitation in Africa

Welcome to my first blog post on Water and Sanitation in Africa!

I thought that I would start by sharing a short video, produced by WaterAid in 2010, that I initially watched as a naive 12/13 year old. I remember one of my main thoughts about it being 'how can diarrhoea kill you?'. In the UK, we are privileged enough to see diarrhoea as an inconvenience and often make jokes out of it. Others are not as lucky.

Diarrhoea is caused largely by lack of access to safe water and poor sanitation. It was documented by the World Health Organisation (WHO, 2017) that, each year, diarrhoea kills more than 500,000 children. This number is far too high for an illness that can be treated with a sachet of Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) and a glass of water.

In this blog I will aim to explore a range of issues surrounding the quality and abundance of water and sanitation facilities in Africa - including their causes, impacts, and possible solutions. Please do follow the evolution of this blog as I try to create an understanding, for myself and you readers, of the relationship between water and sanitation and the way that they affect the continent of Africa.