Provision of lifesaving Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) support to communities affected by drought in Jowhar district Middle shabelle region Somalia ltpgtltspan style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif font-size: 9pt color: black"gtAccording
to the FSNAU post 2022 post Deyr assessmentlt/spangtltfont face="Arial, sans-serif" color="#000000"gtltspan style="font-size: 9pt"gt about 6.5 million people are
facing acute food insecurity IPC 3 and above. About 855,570 of those people are
living in the lt/spangtshabelleltspan style="font-size: 9pt"gt lt/spangtlt/fontgtltspan style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif font-size: 9pt color: black"gtregion. FSNAU post deyrs lt/spangtltspan style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif font-size: 9pt color: black"gtassessment
also indicated that large scale humanitarian response can avert famine in the
forecasted areas,  OCHA Situational update of December, the number
of people affected by the drought in Somalia has more than doubled this year,
from 3.2 million in January to 7.8 million in October, with the severity of
needs increasing proportionately. Displacement caused by drought increased by
over five to almost 1.3 million people in the same periodlt/spangtltbrgtlt/pgtltp style="" class=""gtltfont color="#000000" face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14px"gtThe proposed WASH intervention seeks to improve
access to lifesaving and sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene among
communities and healtt facilities affected by drought in Jowhar
district Middle shabelle region. The project will also contribute to the
reduction of mortality and morbidity, related to the poor access to WASH
services for most vulnerable communities living in underserved and hard to
reach areas in as a result of occasional and persistent drought among
populations in Jowhar district. This will be achieved through increased access
to adequate, safe and sustainable water following the rehabilitation and
construction of drought resistance water infrastructure proposed under this
project, improvement of access to gender sensitive sanitation facilities in
drought displaced settlements and promoting a culture of good hygiene practices
in order to reduce the related protection and disease risks especially among
women, girls and children in the targeted area. As an initial lifesaving
intervention, SORDES will prioritize provision of vouchers for clean water
services for 3000 Household in the drought affected areas in Jowhar as well voucher
for hygiene kits to 9000 extremely vulnerable households to increase their
household water storage capacity thereby reducing the frequent trips to water
points, which will as a result reduce congestion at the existing facilities.
SORDES will establish and capacity build water committees and rehabilitate 8 strategic
water infrastructures whose combined water supply will benefit 12000
individuals. To ensure improved quality of the water both at households and
supported water points, SORDES will undertake initial tests and regular water
treatment at source (bucket and batch chlorination).SORDES will
provide water treatment tablets to 3000 vulnerable households who will be
sensitized about household water treatment and safe storage. SORDES will
utilize the capacity of the local market by promoting market-based programming
in WASH through use of vouchers (Hygiene kits including women specific
sanitary kits) and contracting suitable construction services from the local
market following extensive market assessments and monitoring. To ensure
community ownership and sustainability, SORDES will help establish 10 water
resource management committees 50 members (30 women and 20 men) water source
management committees. All the members will be trained in basic operation,
maintenance, trouble-shooting and orderly access to the source. The training
will be conducted jointly by SORDES staff and Hirshabele Ministry of  Water and Natural Resources staff. To instill sustained culture of good hygiene
practice, the project will train and effectively engage existing 20 community
hygiene volunteers recruited from the targeted locations to enable them
mainstream hygiene promotion activities into the communities. The hygiene
promotion intervention is expected to benefit 18,000 individuals (3,000 Men,
6,000 Women, 5000 Boys and 4000 Girls). To enable SORDES to support communities
in case of a disease outbreak  AWDlt/fontgtltfont color="#000000" face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14px"gt,
SORDES will keep SHF updated on the situation in the district to enable swift
modification of the project to support outbreak related activities and
contribute to reduction in transmissions through robust infection prevention
and control initiativeslt/fontgtltbrgtlt/pgt