President Marc Ravalomanana of Madagascar is the only president in the world who is attending the current World Water Week being held in Stockholm, Sweden. About 2500 experts and government leaders are here discussing all kinds of issues and experiences relating to water.
At the opening session of the conference on Monday President Ravalomanna said he had set sanitation and safe drinking water problem as the top priority to tackle.
According to a national plan which is called MAP, the goal is by the year 2012 to ensure safe access to drinking water for 65% of the population and good sanitation facilities for 71% of the population.
In 2005, only 14% of the population had access to safe drinking water in rural areas while 66% in the urban areas. Regarding sanitation facilities, only 7% of the population in the rural areas have access to toilets compared with 27% in the urban areas. And about 9 million people out of the total 19 million do not have access to basic sanitation facilities.
Madagasgar is one of the least developed countries in the world and the water and sanitation situation is very difficult.
"There is not one exclusive situation in Madagascar, at least there are 1500 very different situations. For instance, the situation in the driest areas in the southern part of Madagascar is very different from the situation in the most humid rainy areas in the vanilla region, in the East of Madagascar," said the president.
The country doesn't have any modern water supply facilities, but only some are connected with pipes in their houses while others get water from drinking fountains located on street corners. Many women and children are still spending a lot of time and energy to fetch water from rivers which are not very safe.
Another reason for the difficulty is that in different areas there are many different taboos and the government must work closely with chiefs to modify or discard practices that actually harm the people or slow down the development.
The president said that Madagascar is also affected by climate change. There are more draughts in the dry areas and the country is hit by more flooding and cyclones.
The President said that in the developing world 1.6 million children die each year because of water related diseases, which is more than from malaria, measles and AIDS combined.
According to UNDP estimation, for every dollar invested in sanitation, nine dollars are returned to national economies in increased productivity and reduced burden of health care. Healthy children can attend school and get better education. Better education means a more skilled workforce.
Facing great challenges in many aspects in development, the Madagascar President identifies sanitation and water supply as priority and have taken a series of measures to solve the problem.
First he created just two weeks ago a Ministry for Water and Sanitation which would dedicate exclusively to drinking water, environmental sanitation and water resource management.. Before these duties were in the Ministries of Health and Energy. "This will provide clear leadership, strategy and resources," said the President.
"Nothing great can be accomplished alone. You need cooperation, collaboration and communication."
He said his government is ready to establish partnerships with private sectors and international organizations.
And one of the big successful stories is the national WASH coalition. The key WASH messages are taught in schools. The children learn proper sanitation techniques and go home and teach their families. It is very successful.
"The message is not as complicated as making a rocket, it is as simple as telling children to wash hands with soap and teach people to drill wells," claimed the President.
"When you can change the habits of children, you can make big steps in social change," said the President.
Madagascar has reversed the upward child mortality trend and it is now going down.
The country also made a law-The Water Act which defines roles and responsibilities for the public and private sectors, sets technical standards and provides a policy framework.
Madagascar is one of the first pilot countries to benefit from the Global Sanitation Fund.
The President called on international community to continue to support Madagascar to turn their ambitious strategies into reality.
By Xuefei Chen People's Daily Online correspondent in Stockholm.
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