TANZANIA: BRITAIN PLEDGES 150 MILLION POUNDS FOR WATER SUPPLY

Arusha — BRITAIN has pledged 150 million pounds (400bn/-) to support the rural water supply, sanitation and hygiene programmes in Tanzania for five years from 2014 to 2019.

Through its Department for International Development (DFID) and in conjunction with the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Britain pledged the massive funding support, being the second phase of the programme, here.

It is part of the British Government's backing of Tanzania's implementation of the Big Results Now (BRN) initiative. "The funding also complements the second phase of the Water Sector Development Programme (WSPD)," stated Ms Ros Cooper, the Acting Head of DFID in Tanzania.

She pointed out that more than two million people will get access to clean water and 300,000 others provided with improved sanitation.

"That will make significant contribution to the global target in providing water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for an additional 60 million people by December 2015," added Ms Cooper, when launching the DFID second phase support at the Annual General Meeting on Implementation of Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sub-Programme here.

Between this year and 2019, British investments will cover an input funding of 67.4 million British Pounds to the WSDP basket for increased delivery of water supply services through construction and rehabilitation of water points as well as scaling up implementation of national sanitation and hygiene campaigns through local government authorities countrywide.

But the second phase support comes with the introduction of 'Payment by Result Instruments' meant to make additional payments to local government authorities that are able to deliver additional results each year.

"The scheme is designed to provide incentives focused on sustainability of rural water supply as recent surveys indicate that about 40 per cent of rural water points are not functioning, mainly due to weak systems and inadequate financial and human resources to maintain the water points," pointed out Ms Cooper.

Due to that therefore, Britain will be injecting 2.5 million pounds to provide technical support in implementation of WSDP to the local government authorities, regional secretariats, the ministry responsible for regional and local government and the Ministry of Water.

The Water Minister, Prof Jumanne Maghembe said that through the support, DFID will also be paying each of the local government authorities 1,500 British pounds, equivalent to 4 million/- for each additional well-maintained and functioning water point in every district.

"The DFID will also give 140,000/- for each existing functional water point with the rewards based upon increasing the total number of functioning point and given that general maintenance and restoration in most cases cost-effective than new construction," Prof Maghembe explained.

The DFID had provided support to the first phase of the water sector development programme since 2012 with total funding of BP 30 million (75 billion/-) to rural water supply and sanitation through which 1.5 million people benefitted in Tanzania.

In addition, the DFID through the International Climate Fund (ICF), has allocated initial funding of 5 million British pounds (13 billion) to improve data generation and information management and build capacity of the Rufiji Basin Water Office for water resources management.

Present at the second-phase launching event here was the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Water, Eng. Bashiri Mrindoko, as well as senior staff in ministries of water, local government, health and social welfare.