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DAR ES SALAAM, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Fifty four percent of rural Tanzanians do not have access to improved water sources despite massive investments by the government in water projects, said a new report released Tuesday by Twaweza, an independent east African initiative.
The report said over 2 billion U.S. dollars have been spent since 2007 to fund phase I and II of the Water Sector Development Program (WSDP), but the percentage of rural population accessing improved water sources had fallen from 55 percent in 2014 to 46 percent in 2016.
Nellin Njovu, Twaweza project coordinator, said findings in the report titled Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, raised great concerns on utilization of funds donated by development partners and the government to fund water projects.
"In particular, the findings that access to clean and safe water in rural areas has neither increased nor declined in any substantial way in the past ten years is alarming," said Njovu.
However, the Minister for Water and Irrigation, Gerson Lwenge, wondered whether the methodology used was correct saying the government believed that 72 percent of rural citizens accessed clean and safe water sources as compared to 86 percent of their urban counterparts.
The study conducted in October 2016 based on data collected from 1,808 respondents across mainland Tanzania from Sautiza Wananchi, a nationally representative mobile phone survey.
"Rural residents use unimproved water sources such as unprotected wells (26 percent) and surface water (20 percent). Only 17 per cent households use public taps and that 16 percent use protected wells," said Njovu.
According to the report, rural population was challenged to walk a long distance in search of water sources and that the burden was left to the women.
Francis Mtitu from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) dealing with water, sanitation and hygiene, called for the need to increase investments in water, sanitation and hygiene projects.
Gertrude Kihunrwa from the British Department for International Development (DFID) said local government authorities should be provided with financial support to increase regular visits to rural areas and provide technical support to citizens' owned water projects. Enditem
