Water and Sanitation in Africa

 Hi and welcome back to my blog on Water and Sanitation in Africa. In this post, I have come across some interesting literature regarding water quality in Lilongwe, Malawi that challenged mainstream, oversimplified ideas. The background: As of this year, an estimated 1,170,000 people live in Lilongwe with a growth rate of 4.38%( World Population Review )compared to a total 19,800,000 in Malawi ( World Population Review ).   According to  UNICEF , there is an inequality between urban and rural areas. Improved drinking water sources are said to be more common 'at 87%' in urban areas than rural '63%'. What does that even mean? 87% coverage? What does 87% coverage even look like?   More people living in rural areas have to spend more time collecting water than those in urban areas.   More importantly, however, are the reasons proposed: Neglected/Old Water points Poor access to sanitation services Increased Droughts and Floods Poor hygienic practice (i...

Why Water and Sanitation? Hi and welcome to the first post of my blog!  This post will be about why I've chosen this particular theme for my blog and some of the ideas that I've found very interesting in the  papers from the reading list so far. What is sanitation? According to the Cambridge dictionary , sanitation is 'the systems for taking dirty water and other waste products away from buildings in order to protect people's health'.  Sanitation is recognized as a human right by the UN General Assembly yet not everyone has access to adequate sanitation. Why the theme? Personal Experience Well, the majority of my childhood was spent living in Mauritius where we had to boil our tap water and let it cool before drinking. I remember in my time at secondary school here in the UK, I was made aware of the fact that the water from my tap here had been treated and was safe to drink without having to boil (and also that limescale was the result of hard water an...