One of the aims of a US$80million aid package signed on 20 July by the Guinean government and 14 UN agencies is to boost drinking water availability in the troubled Forest Region in the southeast of the country.

The package envisages an increase in the number of people with access to drinking water in the region from 59 to 85 percent by 2011, with the main goal of reducing waterborne diseases like cholera and diarrhoea.

“There is a real need right now,” said Idrissa Souare, head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) N'Zérékoré office in the Forest Region. “It’s really very worrying.”

He told IRIN there were 3,067 drinking water points for over two million people in the Forest Region - about half the required number.

Access to potable water has long been a problem in Guinea, not only in the Forest Region, but right across the country, including in the capital, Conakry. Some residents have not had running water for over five years.

A cholera epidemic has already killed three people in slum areas of Conakry since the beginning of June, and 163 other cases have been registered this season. Last year, a more serious outbreak killed nearly 100 people, mostly in the prefectures of Gueckédou, Kissidougou, Lola and N'Zérékoré in the Forest Region. The epidemic was largely linked to poor hygiene and limited access to potable water.

Improved access to water is part of the far-reaching aid package addressing social and economic development in Guinea’s troubled Forest Region, which has been home to hundreds of thousands of refugees from conflicts in the neighbouring countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and more recently Côte d’Ivoire.

The joint programme brings together various agencies in the spirit of mobilising funds and coordinating work - ranging from reducing violence against women to increasing levels of education and job opportunities.

“It will allow the Forest Region to rebuild its economy,” UNICEF’s Souare said. “It was once the richest region in Guinea. But today, after more than 15 years of emergency relief activities, it became one of the poorest regions.”

“A huge step”

The water portion of the joint programme is spearheaded by UNICEF, which already coordinates water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programmes across the country, partly financed by the European Union (EU).

UNICEF says the new joint programme will see the construction of about 300 new drinking water points and the availability of cheap water treatment products so that individual families can disinfect their own water. Such products are already on the market, Souare said.

The project also aims to raise awareness among the population about good hygiene practices and diseases that are linked to water in the hope of changing behaviour.

“We can provide potable water, but people’s management of that water can make it non-potable,” Souare said, noting that studies have shown that water from a clean source can become contaminated by the time it reaches the home, if improperly handled.

Six million US dollars for the entire joint programme’s work in the Forest Region are already available for 2007, but $74million must be mobilised for the work to continue until 2011.

“I believe that if we can mobilise both the resources and the population itself around these issues, it will be a huge step, not only for the region, but for the country as a whole,” said Latifou Salami, coordinator of UNICEF programmes in Guinea.

The government of recently named Prime Minister Lansana Kouyate has pledged that it will not drag its feet in mobilising funds for these projects. The Guinean government has long been criticised for failing to provide even the most basic services for its people, despite the country’s wealth in bauxite, diamonds, gold and aluminium.

EU water project

Potable water has been such a pressing need in Guinea that several projects are designed to improve its availability.

In 2005, the European Union launched a water engineering programme for villages in the Forest Region which foresaw the construction of 425 new water points and 1,000 latrines by the end of 2007.

Guinea’s Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2007-10 presented at an international donors’ meeting in Paris last week, detailed plans to improve access to potable water, which had “strongly deteriorated” in urban areas since 2002. The strategy includes rehabilitating and developing water production capacity, introducing water taxes, and involving the private sector.

According to the 2006 UN Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index, 50 percent of the Guinean population does not have reasonable access (20 litres per person per day from a source within one kilometre is the UN definition) to an improved water source, which includes a household connection, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and rainwater collection.