Feasibility studies are currently being carried out by our experts.
Water issues are nothing new. Water is the third component of primary health care set out at the 1978 Alma-Ata conference, which concluded that an adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation are the main starting point.
The DR Congo, a vast country at the heart of Africa, has some of the lowest water supply and sanitation rates in the world, and these have fallen over the past 20 years. According to the latest figures, only 26% of the population has access to safe drinking water and to adequate sanitation. Low drinking-water coverage has created a public-health situation in which diarrhoea causes 12% of deaths in Congo. The diarrhoea morbidity rate among children under five (over two weeks) has reached 20%, and epidemic diseases linked to water and sanitation, including cholera, continue to take a heavy toll (Problématique de manque d’eau potable dans la ville de Bukavu, Yves CIRHUZA KASOLE, ISDR Bukavu, thesis, 2009).
Without a safe drinking-water supply, people’s health, a key factor in economic development, suffers, as does food security. It is also one of the causes of the high mortality rate.
Many partners have stepped in and continue to respond. However, some important areas in great need still have no response, such as Nyiragongo Territory (North Kivu), the Irambira and Bushumba groupings in Kabare territory (South Kivu), and Katana – Kavumu, …
To address this, our hydraulic engineers and rural development experts have carried out response studies in these localities.