One of the things I have learned from the last 10 years in development activity is that sometimes we can lose the roots from the trees. By this I mean that certain subjects regarding humanitarian assistance become more important, though their prevention could be saving fewer lives at a higher cost than other initiatives which would save more lives at a lower cost. One of the areas that was neglected for a long time in development circles, but which is now gaining ascendency, is diarrhoeal diseases, particularly affecting children under the age of five.
This long ignored subject has come to the fore partly because of the work done by my wife, Indra Deva, who very unfashionably started talking about diarrhoea, hand washing, child mortality and preventing children's death due to poor sanitation as far back as 2002, when the whole world was talking almost exclusively about the AIDS epidemic, cholera and malaria. Surprisingly, more children die of diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation than all the children dying from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. But until the advent of this pioneering initiative, the former has gained attention from the development community while the latter was highly topical.
Indra Deva is the Chairman and founder of Hope for Children Belgium. Under her leadership, Hope for Children Belgium has been a pioneer in promoting the importance of funding Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programs to prevent infant and child mortality. For nearly fifteen years she has stressed the importance of providing clean water, hand sanitizing gels, food and zinc tablets to stop millions of at-risk children from dying because of dirty water and bad sanitation practices.
Zinc is known for being highly cost effective, costing only $0.02 per tablet. It is also proven to help reduce the duration and severity of diarrhoea in zinc-deficient or otherwise malnourished children and is recommended by the World Health Organization for treating diarrhoea. Another effective treatment is sanitation gels, which can prevent the spread of bacteria that causes diarrhoea by allowing people who otherwise don't have access to clean water a way of cleaning their hands without the use of water.
Diarrhoea is the number one killer of children under five, affecting five million children every year. Over the years Hope for Children Belgium has met with the ECHO committee on AIDS, TheWorld Bank, Ambassadors, MEPs and other high level officials, as well as hosted awareness-raising events at the European Parliament to help promote the worldwide effort to provide water, sanitation and hygiene assistance.
Indra has focused on severely affects countries such as India, Nepal and Sri Lanka with a particular focus on remote areas where not even major development actors have allocated resources, simply because their strategies target mostly highly populated urban areas. Ten years later, policy makers are beginning to recognise they are mistaken. UNICEF's latest report published in September 2010 statistically proves that reaching the poorest and most marginalised children is pivotal to the full realisation of the MDGs, and that concentrating resources in urban areas is misguided and inequitable.
In Sri Lanka, for example, Indra has worked to help people affected by the 2004 Tsunami which devastated its maritime provinces.
At the time, she commented, “Children were dying of diseases and lack of clean water. They were living in tents, schools and churches. I knew something had to be done for them.”
Indra has visited Sri Lanka every year for seventeen years. During her visits she has met with children in vulnerable communities where children are suffering.
After the war many children couldn’t get access to clean water. She was able to access these vulnerable areas, including orphanages, and give sanitation and other aid directly to the people. Back then there was not any international funding to help them. Children around the world need the help urgently; they are dying one-by-one.
In 2010, the European Commission allocated €27.9 million to Pakistan which provided millions of people with drinking water, disinfection tablets, hygiene kits, constructed latrines and established diarrhoea treatment centres. ECHO plans to continue funding in 2011. The European Parliament has also recently passed a resolution, which was brought forward by Gay Mitchell, MEP, also co-signed by myself and several other MEPs, requesting funding for zinc treatments for prevention of diarrhoea and malnutrition. Over the years Hope for Children Belgium has been a key player influencing and informingMr.Mitchell and otherMEPs about this issue.
Far too often aid money to developing countries is lost, wasted, or simply stolen by corrupt officials. Time and again it is our tax payers who foot the bill for the inefficient and untransparent delivery of aid. However, it is the simplest things that often remain the most effective in making a difference to those living in poverty. Providing children with the means of adequately washing their hands before meals, and teaching them its importance, can save millions from dysentery and other infectious diseases.
For many years this was a sensitive issue that no one wanted to talk about. Now I am so pleased that the European Commission is allocating substantial funds to finally tackle this easily treatable problem. But you can’t just give the children these tablets and then stop, it has to be delivered to communities on a consistent basis. They have to know how to use the gels and zinc. Hygiene needs to be incorporated into education programs in schools. I hope that this is just the beginning and I am so pleased that this preventable killer disease is finally at the forefront of conversation at the international level.
