UNV to tackle health and roads in Zanzibar

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) in Tanzania this week affirmed that for the next three years, their efforts on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian island chain of Zanzibar will focus on improving priority public services identified in the Zanzibar Poverty Reduction Plan, including health, road infrastructure and fiscal management. "The volunteer experts will make a special contribution to the health sector and to the island of Pemba" - which is affected by more severe poverty than the main Zanzibari island of Unguja - the organisation stated, in signing a document confirming its continued support on Tuesday. The Zanzibar Poverty Reduction Plan stresses development of water supply and sanitation systems capable of supplying rural and urban communities with safe water, and meeting hygiene and sanitation requirements, among other issues. [see http://server1.kabissa.org/archives/tanzania-online/msg00014.php] The population of Zanzibar is estimated at 820,000, with an annual growth rate of some 3 percent. The islands' problems include lack of basic infrastructural services, solid waste management, water and sanitation, and flooding, according to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat. The three-year, US $1.1 million UNV project formally agreed upon on Tuesday, and funded by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), will focus on strengthening the human resources base in the institutions with which it worked with a view to reducing poverty, according to a UNDP press release on Tuesday. [see http://www.tz.undp.org/] The UNVs would also help strengthen the capacity of targeted key institutions to deliver better services to the people of Zanzibar, it said. They would also conduct a situation analysis on the quality of services in key sectors, such as health, roads and fiscal management. Based on that assessment, they will present recommendations for improved policies, strategies, procedures and capacity building. "When possible, the volunteers will work closely with local counterparts, enabling them to take over the job when the UNVs leave," the statement added. The overall UNDP objective in Tanzania is "to accelerate poverty reduction by building national capacity to manage the national development process in a transparent and participatory manner... to ensure that the maximum effective impact is achieved, using the available national and international resources". In doing so, it has decided to concentrate support in three key areas: poverty reduction strategies (public expenditure management, aid coordination, poverty monitoring and analysis and pro-poor growth strategies); decentralised, democratic, participatory and transparent governance; and management of the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In that light, the UNDP recently made a commitment to grant support for the development of six water and sanitation projects on Unguja and Pemba, which aim to reach out to more than 45,000 people. A survey carried out by Save the Children (UK) in 1997 showed that only 21 percent of homes in Zanzibar had access to safe water, and 60 percent did not have a latrine. More than 70 percent of children were infected with worms, and an alarming 60 percent tested malaria positive. Despite interventions by local and international agencies since, public health and access to safe water and sanitation services still leave much to be desired in Zanzibar, according to aid workers.