WASH Poor in a Water-Rich Country : A Diagnostic of Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, and Poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is among the five poorest countries in the world, whether measured by poverty rate or number of poor. Political instability and rapid demographic growth—the second highest in Africa—have driven an increase in...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/651601498206668610/WASH-poor-in-a-water-rich-country-a-diagnostic-of-water-sanitation-hygiene-and-poverty-in-the-Democratic-Republic-of-Congo http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27320 |
| Summary: | The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
is among the five poorest countries in the world, whether
measured by poverty rate or number of poor. Political
instability and rapid demographic growth—the second highest
in Africa—have driven an increase in the total number of
poor that puts extreme pressure on the country’s derelict
infrastructure. Access to improved water, sanitation, and
hygiene (WASH) services is low, with particularly dramatic
shortfalls among the poorest and rural dwellers, but a
pervasive lack of truly safe services even among wealthier
and urban households. Water contamination is common even
among households with access to piped water in major urban
areas, and nearly universal in the rural areas surveyed by
this diagnostic. This contamination is making WASH a key
contributing factor to a silent emergency that is placing
DRC’s poor and rapidly growing population at risk of
permanent disconnect: widespread malnutrition. Malnutrition
is especially common among DRC’s children (43 percent in
2014) and has been shown to have irreversible negative
effects on physical and cognitive development. This
diagnostic analyses these trends and links them to
institutional weaknesses in the WASH sector, in particular
institutional fragmentation, weak capacity, and a bias
toward specific institutions and services. Opportunities for
improvement are analyzed and condensed into six clear
messages that provide guidance on the way forward for the
WASH sector in the DRC. |
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