Kenya can prevent 40% of diseases by conserving the environment

September 29, 2009 · 0 comments

Report: Conserving environment cuts disease spread

Kenyans can prevent 40 per cent of diseases by simply conserving the environment, a new report says.

Public Health and Sanitation assistant minister James Gesami Tuesday warned of an increase in contagious diseases if the fragile eco-system was not properly managed.

“Floods, drought and famine are a harsh reminder of the human-environmental links,” Dr Gesami said.

The Implementation of the Libreville Declaration report assesses Kenya’s ability to jointly solve environmental and health concerns to solve an upsurge of diseases.

The Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment calls for Kenya to institute a development plan to curb further interference of the environment.

Malaria, tuberculosis, cholera and typhoid continue to claim millions of lives in Africa due to persistent depletion of natural resources, the report said.

Dr Gesami pointed out that a further 20 per cent of infections were caused by poor water management practiced in water-prone areas.

The SANA report confirms findings in the 2007 Hospital Management Information System that pointed out that most diseases are largely due to water-related diseases.

Malaria, respiratory tract infections and diarrhoeal diseases were responsible for over half of outpatient illnesses in hospitals.

The disease was cited as the highest cause of poor health as its prevalence is dependent on environmental factors like temperature ranges and rainfall patterns.

Currently, about 56 per cent of Nairobi residents live in slums along the Nairobi river banks, encroaching on the reserves that support sanitary facilities.

“Cholera outbreaks are largely due to water shortage or contaminated water points,” Dr Gesami noted.

According to an analysis on Kenya’s efforts to implement the 2008 Libreville declaration, health and environment remain the greatest challenges in combating infectious diseases to date.

The report is a follow-up to the implementation of the agreement that was discussed in the inter-ministerial conference on Health and Environment in Africa in Libreville, Gabon, last year in August.

In the Libreville Declaration, 52 countries committed themselves to implement 11 priority actions to address health and environment challenges in Africa.

The countries were also required to set up plans to hasten the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Kenya alongside Gabon was picked to run pilot projects on the interrelation between the two sectors and implement the 11 action items.

According to health experts, root causes of global environmental degradation are tied in social and economic problems such as pervasive poverty, inequity of distribution of wealth and the debt burden.

The report calls for an urgent need to address health, environment and economic development issues in an interrelated manner to generate new links in poverty reduction.

Also in attendance were Public health permanent secretary Mark Bor and stakeholders from the ministries of Environment and Water ministry.

Source – The Nation

USAID/OFDA success story: Fighting disaster-induced urban poverty in Zimbabwe

September 28, 2009 · 0 comments

During the past several years, Zimbabwe has faced an ongoing complex emergency due to a collapsing economy, limited access to basic services, political instability and violence, disease, and poorly maintained infrastructure. The effects of hyperinflation and unemployment have exacerbated poverty, while large-scale displacement in urban and peri-urban areas as a result of political violence has further jeopardized the livelihoods of vulnerable populations.

Since 2006, USAID/OFDA has supported the Joint Initiative (JI), an innovative, multi-sectoral program implemented by six relief agencies to fight disaster-induced urban poverty and restore human dignity in cities and high-density suburbs throughout Zimbabwe. The program seeks to improve the livelihoods and food security of particularly vulnerable populations, including households headed by elderly people, child-headed households, people with disabilities, children, and people suffering from chronic illnesses. JI activities are designed to be self-sustaining and generate momentum; a small initial investment enables beneficiaries to build a business or grow vegetables, thus improving their families! lives and their own.

BUSINESS TRAINING AND SUPPORT TO GENERATE INCOME

In Njube, a high-density suburb of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe!s second-largest city, Victor Magwada expanded a home tailoring business with JI support. “I was working for Barclays Bank,” said Mr. Magwada, “[but] I had arthritis, became lame, and took a disability retirement package. However, with inflation, the money quickly vanished.” Mr. Magwada had been using his family!s manual sewing machine to produce small amounts of clothing for sale, but noted that “business was not flourishing.” Mr. Magwada!s wife, Christine, had been attending a JI home-based care training group. In April 2009, Mr. Magwada contacted JI to inquire about business training. JI responded swiftly, and the same day, Mr. Magwada enrolled in a one-week JI business management training course. Mr. Magwada developed a business proposal to produce school uniforms, hats, trousers, and work overalls for sale. JI approved the proposal and provided an electric sewing machine and cloth to support the expansion of Mr. Magwada!s business.

By August, Mr. Magwada had increased the sewing business!s weekly revenue from approximately $25 to approximately $120, providing much-needed income for his wife, 18-year old son Cliff, and 11-year-old daughter Tsitsi. “Now,” he said, “there is money for food, for rent, and for materials. We can even drink coffee, tea, and juice.” The electric sewing machine allows Mr. Magwada to work faster%he can produce 50 hats or 20 school uniforms per day%and with business proceeds he has bought additional sewing machines and a generator for times when the municipal grid does not provide electricity. Mr. Magwada also hopes to hire another worker to sew while he travels to deliver goods to customers. Before the JI intervention, demand for Mr. Magwada!s products had been high, but “I would often upset customers,” he said, “because I could not raise the cash to buy material. Now I pre-order 30 or 40 meters of material from my supplier in town, rather than purchasing 2 meters per time, because the supplier knows I will pay.” Through a small initial investment to help Mr. Magwada invigorate his business, JI helped the family generate income in the face of disaster-induced poverty.

Source – ReliefWeb, Sept. 23, 2009

Toilets Making a Difference at Clinton Global Initiative

September 28, 2009 · 1 comment

NEW YORK, Sept. 25 /PRNewswire/ — Open defecation and flying toilet still remain the predominant methods of human waste disposal in urban slums, a situation that offers great planning, health and socioeconomic challenges to governments and development partners. Nearly a billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion people lack access to sanitation (half of whom must defecate in the open due to lack of infrastructure development). To combat this problem, Ecotact announced a new commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative this week to invest in a total of 100 Ikotoilet facilities in the next one year in fifteen selected municipalities in Kenya and Zanzibar. The commitment total will be $2 million. This commitment announced by President Clinton and Ecotact CEO David Kuria is expected to serve at least 300,000 people daily with safe water and sanitation and create a pool of 1000 employees by next year.

“It is the toilet that makes a difference in terms of social, economic and political transformation of our societies. So we’ve created a ‘toilet mall’ concept to connect businesses with toilets to ensure sustainability. In Nairobi today we are selling soda and snacks in the toilet and the profits go to maintain the business,” said David Kuria, CEO of Ecotact. “We are trying to make sanitation sexy and beautiful to change our personal relationship with the toilet and guarantee sustained behavior change. Today 30,000 people per day are using our facilities in Nairobi. We also engage the political establishment to lobby for increased financing for sanitation by governments and development partners,” continued Kuria.

The Ikotoilet model aims to increase access to safe water and sanitation for the urban poor in Kenya and the region. Project implementation strives to achieve objectives such as: providing convenient, highly hygienic and sustainable water and sanitation services to urban centres; creating employment opportunities for youth; conserving diminishing natural resources as well as conserving public health; influencing a policy shift in the governance of municipalities in relation to the provision of water and sanitation services; transforming, restoring and ensuring sustainability of social dignity in the growing urban populations; and revolutionizing people’s perceptions towards toilets as well as environmental and sanitation awareness.

This is a new idea on social transformation and David Kuria was granted the Africa Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 award by the World Economic Forum for this thinking.

The concept has stimulated demand across East Africa and new programs will soon start in Tanzania and Uganda. As they scale-up, Ecotact has finalized an Ikotoilet youth franchise incubation model that will generate young entrepreneurs in sanitation.

Sanitation is currently one of the greatest challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa in meeting the Millennium Developments Goals Targets under the MDGs. The Report of the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) of the WHO and UNICEF in 2004 highlighted that the number of people lacking basic sanitation services rose from 2.1 billion in 2001 to 2.6 billion by 2004. In Kenya only 46% of 34 million Kenyans have access to adequate sanitation and the current diarrhea outbreak is costing 20 deaths weekly (May 2009). This problem is significantly affecting the urban poor, who live in mainly polluted environments in urban slums.

About Ecotact Ltd – Innovating Sanitation

The Ikotoilet project is based on the ecological sanitation concept that ensures optimizing utility and design values of urban sanitation. The project is a private/public partnership between Ecotact Ltd (private sector) and the respective local authority, and water and sewerage utilities (public sector) all geared towards provision of hygienic public utilities. The project is borne out of the reality of an increasing lack of public conveniences. Where they exist, the conditions are in a pathetic hygienic state, coupled with significant pollution and accompanied by poor maintenance.

http://www.ecotact.org

About the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)

Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) convenes global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Since 2005, CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 100 current and former heads of state, 14 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations, major philanthropists, directors of the most effective nongovernmental organizations, and prominent members of the media. These CGI members have made more than 1,400 commitments valued at $46 billion, which have already improved the lives of 200 million people in 150 countries. Commitments made at the 2008 Annual Meeting are expected to affect almost 160 million people. The CGI community also includes CGI University (CGI U), a forum to engage college students in global citizenship; and MyCommitment.org, an online portal where anybody can make their own Commitment to Action. CGI will hold its Fifth Annual Meeting September 22-25, 2009, in New York City. For more information, visit http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org.

Source – http://sev.prnewswire.com/environmental-services/20090925/NY8226925092009-1.html

South Africa – Getting electricity was so exciting!

September 28, 2009 · 0 comments

21st century life, September 11th 2009

In South Africa’s informal settlements, there are on average 10 shack fires a day, with over 200 people a year losing their lives. The one-room huts are assembled using plastic, cardboard and corrugated iron and built closely together, so fire spreads rapidly. In the eThekwini district of KwaZulu-Natal, which includes Durban, over 900,000 people live in informal settlements and, without electricity, people are forced to use parafin stoves and candles. Abahlali baseMjondolo, a movement which campaigns for decent housing held a Shack Fire Summit last November to raise awareness of the issues and to commemorate those who have died. Zodwa Nsibande lives in the Kennedy Road settlement and was burnt badly in a stove accident in 2006.

Read More – http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=1245&catID=9

South Africa – Protests over one ‘VIP’ toilet per 10 families

September 28, 2009 · 0 comments

One ‘VIP’ toilet per 10 families, 23 September 2009

DESPITE a South Gauteng court challenge that was taken to the Constitutional Court, Ekurhuleni Metroinsists that one chemical toilet per 10 families is all it can afford.

This week Constitutional Court judges described the initiative as “pathetic”. The council has appealed to communities to be patient, pleading financial constraints.

Residents of Harry Gwala informal settlement near Wattville, Ekurhuleni, went to the court in a bid to force the municipality to provide one ventilation improved pit toilet per household.

“The project commenced in May with investigations of health hazards in informal settlements and the provision of the toilets will soon get under way,” Metro spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said. “The project is expected in Harry Gwala informal settlement next month,”

But residents Thembeka Mendu and Nobesotho Mthshubungu said: “We are against the idea of sharing a toilet with nine families. This is what is making us sick. Having to get out of the yard to use the toilet at night is also not safe.”

An amount of R100million has been budgeted for this year. A total of 1000 families will benefit from the project.

“We know the difficulties faced by people living in informal areas but things cannot happen overnight, especially if one looks at the finances required ,” Dlamini said.

He said the rolling out of high mast lights is also on the cards.

“Plans are in place to provide access roads and waste removal services to all informal settlements in Ekurhuleni,” Dlamini said.

He said the only risk to the projects was the uncertain future of informal settlements.

Source – http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1068775

Buenos Aires – Dengue prevention campaign

September 28, 2009 · 0 comments

The government began an awareness campaign to prevent dengue in shanty towns

The Buenos Aires government began yesterday a “prevention campaign to combat dengue in the slums and squatter settlements in the city,” involving 350 thousand people living in those conditions.

1,400 specialists from Instituto Pasteur of the Epidemiology Department in the Health area of Hospitals and personnel from SAME were present.

The campaign’s slogan is: “Without water there’s no eggs, without eggs there’s no mosquito, without mosquito there’s no dengue”. They started in shanty town 19 of INTA neighbourhood, on 6999 Dellepiane in Villa Lugano.

Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, Chief of Cabinet, and Maria Eugenia Vidal, Minister of Social Development, led the operative which aimed at bringing awareness on the preventive meassures necessary to combat dengue.

Today they will be handing out informative leaflets where the importance they stress the importance of avoiding having water containers, as it’s there where mosquitoes breed.

It’s also advised to have window nets against mosquitoes in the households, as well as the use of the traditional repellents.

Source – Momento24

ADB Funds to Improve Health and Environment Services in Bangladesh

September 28, 2009 · 0 comments

28/09/2009

The FINANCIAL — Two Asian Development Bank (ADB) loans and one technical assistance will improve the living standards of Bangladesh’s city dwellers, especially the urban poor.

ADB’s Board of Directors approved the Bangladesh Urban Public and Environmental Health Sector Development Program that composes two loans (a program loan of $70 million and one project loan of $60 million) and a technical assistance grant of $500,000 that will support better public and environment health services in Bangladesh’s large cities.

Except for a few city-states, Bangladesh is the most densely-populated country in the world (more than 1,000 people per square kilometer), with an urban population expected to rise to 89.5 million by 2030, from only 39.5 million in 2005. As a result of the rapid pace of urbanization, many people live in poor hygienic conditions and are more vulnerable to health hazards.

“Weak public and environmental health services, poor sanitation, overcrowding, unhygienic living conditions, and poverty, among others, impact on the health of the urban poor,” said Sekhar Bonu, Principal Urban Development Specialist at ADB’s South Asia Department. “A burgeoning urban population is only going to make the situation more challenging.”

Local urban agencies that are mandated to provide these services have limited institutional and financial capacities.

The Sector Development Program will help reduce child mortality and morbidity by decreasing the prevalence of waterborne and food-related diseases in six cities covering 34% of all urban areas in Bangladesh – Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi, and Sylhet – and other towns.

ADB’s $70 million program loan is aimed at addressing a wide range of complex but interlinked urban public and environmental health challenges. The program loan will help strengthen institutions and agencies managing public and environmental health; and improve their financial sustainability, service delivery, governance, and management.

The $60 million loan will provide funds to accelerate improvement in the delivery of solid and medical waste management and food safety, as well as supporting program management, institutional support, and capacity development. The sector development program will help mitigate climate change by reducing carbon emissions through hygienic disposal of municipal waste consisting largely of organic materials.

The loans are sourced from ADB’s concessional Asian Development Fund. The program loan will have a 24-year repayment period, and will be released in three tranches ($30 million, $20 million and $20 million) upon compliance with agreed tranche conditions. The project loan will have a 32-year repayment period. The Bangladesh government will provide counterpart fund of $20 million for the project loan.

The loans have an eight-year grace period, and an interest charge of 1% every year during the grace period and 1.5% every year thereafter.

A $500,000 technical assistance grant will be used for consultancy support to jump start the sector development program’s implementation and overcome start up delays.

Source – Financial Channel

NEPAL: Kathmandu faces worsening water crisis

September 24, 2009 · 1 comment

kathmandu

KATHMANDU, 24 September 2009 (IRIN) – Fetching drinking water is a daily ordeal for schoolgirl Sumitra Maharjan, who queues from dawn for hours to access a local public tap.

“I often miss school, and this is badly affecting my studies,” said the frustrated 15-year-old, holding a blue water bucket and standing behind 100 other people.

However, Maharjan is luckier than some – she manages to get water at least once a day. A large number of residents in Kathmandu have not seen a drop of water from their taps for months.

“My tap has been dry for the last six months. You can imagine the crisis we are facing,” said a local resident, Ramesh Gurung.

Most of Kathmandu’s drinking water comes from the Bagmati river system, which has seven streams in Kathmandu valley. However, the supply is insufficient for the city, which has a chronic water shortage.

The government blames changing weather patterns – the country is counted as one of the most vulnerable to climate change – and a growing urban population.

“The water shortage is worsening,” said Rameshwar Shrestha, spokesman for the Upatyaka Khanepai Limited (KUKL), a government body responsible for supplying drinking water to Kathmandu’s two million people.

In Nepal, rainfall has become erratic, and winters have become drier in recent years. Last year, there was less rain than usual during the mid-year monsoon season, and the country also experienced a severe winter drought which stretched into 2009 – which meant not much water was stored.

These factors affected the supply of drinking water both in and outside the capital, according to KUKL. Shrestha said there is a daily demand for at least 200 million litres in Kathmandu, but KUKL has only been able to supply 160 million litres.

Crumbling pipelines

The capital’s main pipeline system is 100 years old and much of it has fallen into disrepair, according to local NGOs lobbying for water rights.

The government has said that over 38 percent of the pipes are leaking, and it is often difficult to repair them due to a lack of funds, according to KUKL.

But more than financial constraints, activists blame a lack of political will from the government to resolve the crisis.

“We have been warning about the impending water disaster for years, and now the crisis has reached its peak,” said Lajana Manandhar, convener for the Fresh Water Action Network (FAN) Nepal, a national network of NGOs lobbying for water and sanitation rights and policy.

Groundwater

For Kathmandu residents, the only alternative so far has been to extract groundwater.

According to the NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation, over 60 percent of households are already doing this by using home-installed electric pumps. The number of users is growing, leading to concerns about the over-exploitation of groundwater.

“This resource will also dry out soon, because the depletion has already started with more people relying on groundwater,” Prakash Amatya, the director of the group, told IRIN.

Groundwater is being depleted at an alarming rate, with the water level sinking an average of 2.5 metres annually, according to the government’s Ground Water Resources Development Board.

Hopes pinned on water project

Aid agencies and the government agree that the only solution to the water crisis is to implement the long-delayed Melamchi Water Supply Project .

The project, estimated to cost US$317.3 million, is being financed by several international agencies and banks, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). The government is also contributing around $90.6 million, said officials.

The project, launched in 2000, aims to supply water to Kathmandu through a 26km tunnel from the snow-fed Melamchi river in Sindulpalchowk District, northeast of the capital.

However, political instability, and demands from local villagers, who said they were not compensated enough for use of their land to build the tunnel, have proved to be serious obstacles, according to NGOs.

But the four-year project has been relaunched, and the agencies involved are hoping the tunnel can be built.

“This is really badly needed, because Kathmandu as a city has a chronic water shortage,” Barry Hitchcock, the ADB’s country director for Nepal, told IRIN.

“In four years’ time, when water starts coming out of the pipe, there will be a new water facility attached to that, and we will be in a better position to deliver water to the population,” he said.

Source – IRIN News

ZAMBIA: Peri-urban Farmers Resort to Human Waste for Fertiliser

September 23, 2009 · 0 comments

zambiaLUSAKA, Sep 22 (IPS) – The economy’s down, the price of fertiliser’s up. And Zambian farmers are stealing sewage for their vegetable gardens.

Yes, raw sewage is a cocktail of germs that can cause life-threatening illnesses. Sanitation officials in both Lusaka and the Copperbelt province are accusing peri-urban farmers of creating epidemics by nourishing their crops with foul water and partially-decomposed human poo.

But Irene Moonga, a sales assistant at one of the agricultural companies in Lusaka, sympathises with farmers trying to make a living as the price of fertiliser has risen over the past two years 58 dollars for a 50 kilogramme bag.

And as Zambia’s economy stumbles in the wake of fallen copper prices, hard-pressed consumers in urban centres are having to depend more and more on vegetables as their main relish.

A sackful of leaves from the rapeseed plant, treasured by Zambians as a table vegetable, costs as much as 30,000 Zambian kwacha ($6.50) wholesale at the fresh produce market where middlemen who buy from the “sewerage farms” bring the vegetables for onward sale.

Rosemary Mwamba, a market woman at Kaunda-Square Market in Lusaka, says they do not ask where the produce – rape, beans, green maize and sugarcane are among the vegetables being grown – is coming from before they decide to buy from a farmer.

“We are driven more by the quality of the vegetables. If the leaves are fresh and big then we buy. In any case, even if we were to ask questions I don’t think that would help us, because if a person knows they are selling something bad they will not tell,” she observed.

Human waste as fertiliser
There are a number of techniques for composting human waste to produce fertiliser. In Malawi, for example, farmers add wood ash and soil to faeces and urine, producing fertiliser over a period of six months.

But the addition of ash and the composting time are crucial to the elimination of harmful micro-organisms. The Zambian farmers growing vegetables near municipal waste plants are simply dumping fresh, untreated waste on their crops.

Health officials are concerned. Jacob Bwalya, a health inspector with the Kitwe City Council, 470 kilometres north of Lusaka, runs through a list of diseases untreated waste can spread: dysentery, typhoid, gardiasis, infectious hepatitis and salmonella…

“It is because of this that under the Food and Drugs Act it is a big offence for one to use raw sewerage to water vegetables that are going to be sold to members of the public,” Bwalya added.

“They will puncture the sewer pipe as it traverses a vacant lot and use the raw sewerage to water and fertilise their vegetables,” he said.

The managing director of the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company, George Ndongwe, failed to respond to inquiries about the extent of the problem in the capital, but an official at the utility, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained that the company is engaged in a “Tom-and-Jerry” game with the farmers.

“The moment they see our men at the sewerage ponds, these people bolt into the bush only to return after we are gone. To access the water, they first vandalise the settling ponds and the sewer pipes in order to tap into the raw effluent,” he said.

Margaret Zulu, spokesperson for Kafubu Water and Sewerage Company which manages potable water and sanitation on the Copperbelt, admits that vandalism of sewer pipes and ponds to hijack waste is a big headache for the company.

“Every once in a while we join hands with the councils to slash all the vegetable (gardens) using raw sewerage and clear the illegal farmers from the area, but they always come back. With cholera a persistent threat, we have to be on guard, especially now when we are going towards the rain season,” she explained.

Since 1991, Zambia has suffered regular cholera outbreaks, typically occurring at the start or in the middle of the rainy season that lasts from November to April.

Most of the recorded cholera cases – often in excess of 10,000 each year – occur in the unplanned settlements of Lusaka.

But it’s interesting to note that last year’s epidemic, for example, did not start in either Lusaka or the Copperbelt where many eat the waste-fertilised vegetables, but in fishing camps in Mpulungu district of Northern Province on the shores of Lake Tanganyika before spreading to high density locations in Lusaka and Kitwe.

Farmers seize on this to justify continuing to use raw sewage in their plots, though cholera is only one of a host of potential diseases. Farmer Samson Zulu, who has a vegetable patch at the foot of Lusaka’s Kaunda-Square settling ponds, is unrepentant.

“What do they want us to do? We have families to look after and this government, even the one that was there before it, have failed to give anybody a job,” Zulu declared bitterly.

Source – http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48551

Philippines – Global partners move to reduce maternal, neonatal deaths

September 21, 2009 · 0 comments

 Manila (18 September) — The Department of Health (DOH) today announced that the three United Nations (UN) agencies – the United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Children’s Fund, and the World Health Organization have joined forces and resources to undertake a joint program on rapidly reducing maternal and neonatal deaths in the country and meet the Millennium Development Goals.”This is a very welcome development and I am very glad that the Philippines will benefit from this multi-UN agencies collaborative effort”, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.

The Philippines is among the countries which contribute to the high percentage of maternal and neonatal deaths worldwide. According to the 2006 Family Planning Survey, the maternal mortality ratio was pegged at 162 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

“This joint undertaking focuses on accelerating our efforts to attain the targets of MDG #5, which is the reduction of maternal mortality ratio by 75% and the universal access to reproductive health services by 2015, and MDG #4 which is the reduction of the neonatal mortality rate”, Duque declared adding that this initiative will also attain the results desired by the National Maternal, Neonatal, Child Health & Nutrition strategy.

The health chief also said that, with the new project, people can expect better health services as each UN agency will be able to assist the government by pooling procurement, sharing costs in service delivery, common equipment, training of healthworkers, and monitoring and evaluation.

The new project, with the support of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) is divided into two significant phases: the Transition period (2009-2011) which will cover the provinces of Eastern Samar, Ifugao, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, North Cotabato, and Saranggani, and the urban poor areas in Tacloban, General Santos, Taguig, Navotas, Parañaque and Makati; and the Full Operationalization Period covering the years 2011-2016.

To seal the partnerships of the three UN agencies, the DOH, and AusAID, a document was signed by the heads of the respective agencies.

Source – http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&r=&y=&mo=&fi=p090918.htm&no=59

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