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According to the White Peper on Basic Household Sanitation, nearly one million households in South Africa still have no access to sanitation, while a further two million have inadequate sanitation. The government has set itself the ambotious target of halving the water and sanitation backlog by 2010. If a country's water suplly and sanitation is not sufficient or is of poor quality, diseases such as cholera will be common.
Good sanitation is essential for safe and healthy childhoods. There are a number of negative consequences for children and youth who are not able to access proper toilets. It is very difficult to maintain good hygiene without water and toilets, and children are exposed to worms and bacteria infection which compromise nutrition. Using public toilets and open bush can be dangerous because of crime and lack of adequate sanitation undermines human dignity. The use of buckets and open veldt(fields)is also likely to have consequenses for water quality in the area, and can lead to the spread of disease.
Sanitation has become a yardstick of socio-cultural development of a nation and it is an important health index. Since health and sanitation has an important bearing on the productivity, sanitation also has a correlation with economic progress of a country. Congregation of poor slums without safe water supply and sanitation facilities and increasing resource constraints may have all led to rapid deterioration in quality of life and community health.
There are still people in South Africa who either have no organized system of sanitation or have access only to a noxious and unhygienic facility. In this country people are dying from cholera and the often occurring co-diseases associated with contaminated water supply, sanitation and hygiene. Most of this people are from low-socio economic groups and are not aware of the health and environmental benefits of sanitation.
This conference will focus on providing a forum for the discussion of the present and future problems, recent experiences and advances in this significant field of water management and environmental sanitation. This conference will seek to review the status of sanitation and water in South Africa especially the rural areas, review best practice and key entry points and devise actions and approaches that can best provide large scale sustainable solutions with a view to achieving water, sanitation and hygiene targets.
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