At the end of August 2022, in the city of Bokhtar, was held a seminar on the mid-term evaluation of the activities of the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project, which has been implementing by the Project Management Unit Municipal (Communal) Infrastructure Development in the Republic of Tajikistan (PMU MID RT) since 2019 with the support of the Government of the Republic and funding of the World Bank.
The results of the project work for six months of 2022 were discussed at the seminar. In particular, the reports of the Chief Engineer of the Project, monitoring and evaluation specialists, the social development team and other partners were listened to. As noted in the speech of the speakers, the project is actively pursuing tasks in the construction and rehabilitation of water supply facilities and the renovation of WASH facilities in social institutions in Khatlon region.
The Rural Water Supply and Sanitation project focuses on the more densely populated rural centers, while at the same time considering various water supply alternatives for remote and scattered villages. Women and children, especially girls, will benefit much more from project activities in terms of time savings for water collection and reduced morbidity, discomfort and stress associated with lack of access to safely managed water and sanitation.
As of the Mid-Term Assessment, the project is expected to reach more than 300,000 people living in rural areas and 100,000 people living in the district centers of priority areas (in the seven indicated pilot districts) of Khatlon region. Among them, about 100,000 people (mostly children) will benefit from investments in sanitation facilities and behavior change activities in WASH practices in schools and rural health centers.
The beneficiaries of institutional strengthening activities are government agencies at the national and local levels, in particular: the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, the State Unitary Enterprise “Khojagii Manziliyu Kommunali”, the Ministry of Education and Science (MOES), the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population (MOHSPP) , local authorities in the target areas of the Project, branches of the State Unitary Enterprise “KMK” in the target areas of the project, (Vodokanals and Tojikobidekhot), the National Healthy Lifestyle Center and their district offices and other institutions at the community level. The population in the Project target area will ultimately benefit from improved water supply through institutional support and capacity building activities at the national and local levels.
As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that as of January 1, 2022, 67.1% of the country’s population have access to safe drinking water, which does not meet today’s requirements. The remaining 33% use drinking water from household wells or surface water that does not meet sanitary and epidemiological requirements.