Community water scheme builds health and peace

A project whose main aim was to resolve serious water problems has also managed to overcome clan rivalries and sustain peace in Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu. Fed up of having to fetch water from the polluted and cholera-infested Shabelle River some way distant, the community set up a water management company called Farjano ("spring of heaven") to manage a water system rehabilitated by UNICEF in 1997 with EU funding, according to a report by Child Newsline received by IRIN. The company, comprising 14 directors from a cross-section of Jowhar's clans, was now supplying clean water at a number of kiosks for 1,000 Somali shillings (US$ 0.10) per 200-litre drum - one-third of the price before the system was rehabilitated - and Jowhar has not had one case of cholera in the past year, the report added.

With only 31 percent of families having access to safe water in northwest Somalia and just 19 percent having access in the northeast, UNICEF has tried to replicate the Farjano model by having company directors conduct management workshops elsewhere in Middle Shabelle region and in Hiraan to the north.