Implementing the program on scaling up rural sanitation and clean water in 2021

– In the morning of May 12, the Provincial Executive Board of the program on scaling up rural sanitation and clean water held the program summary conference with the aim to summarize the program results in 2020 and announce the program targets in 2021. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Luong Trong Quynh, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee, Head of the Executive Board.

The program is organized thanks to the World Bank’s loans and implemented in rural communes in the rural areas of the province with 3 key components: Rural water supply (including water supply for communities, water supply and sanitation for schools) in rural areas; rural sanitation (including support to build hygienic latrines for households, constructing water supply and toilets at commune health stations); improving communication, monitoring and evaluation capacity (including building capacity, changing behaviors through communication; improving capacity of program management, inspection, monitoring, evaluation and assessment for program workers).

Mr. Luong Trong Quynh, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee giving remarks at the conference

It is reported that a number of project were implemented in 2020: For the program component No.1, local functional agencies handed over and put into use one community water supply system; temporarily handed over for use 10 water supply systems, constructed and installing  12 projects; completed a number of 4,812 water supply connections; handed over and put into use 12 water supply and sanitation items; For the program component No.2: The program supported building and renovating 1,371/3,650 household l hygienic latrines; constructed 33 water supply and sanitation works at medical stations, 8/13 communes achieving sanitation rate in the whole commune. For the Component No.3, branches and units have coordinated and organized training workshops to improve the capacity for staff participating in the program.

In 2021, the program will be implemented with a total budget of over 113.7 billion VND to achieve the goals as follows: building 8,188 water supply connections; achieving 13 communes with sanitation rate in the whole commune; building and renovating 1,726 hygienic latrines; renovating and building 85 new clean water works and hygienic latrines at schools (forwarded from 2020 to); building 33 clean water supply works and hygienic latrines at commune health stations.

Within the framework of the conference, the delegates discussed problems and solutions related to the program implementation such as the disbursement of capital; the coordination at all levels and branches; the organization of the program training and program implementation.

Giving remarks in the conclusion session of the conference, Mr. Vice Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee emphasized: “The program is of great significance in ensuring sanitation and supplying clean water use for people and schools and health stations in rural areas in the whole province. In order to improve the effectiveness of the program, relevant departments, agencies and sectors should actively instruct and coordinate with districts and cities to complete the tasks of the program; strengthen the propaganda to raise people’s awareness of sanitation and the relationship between water supply and sanitation with health and social development”.

At the same time, he asked the assigned program unit participants to quickly accelerate the implementation progress timely and effectively so as to complete the set-out targets by the end of 2021.