UN-Habitat and Coca Cola Foundation this week launched water, sanitation and hygiene project for six Tanzanian schools.

During the function held at Butimba B Primary School in Mwanza, the Regional Commissioner for the area Mr. Evarist Ndikilo said : On behalf of the United Republic of Tanzania, l would like to assure Our partners (Coca-Cola and UN-Habitat) in this project that the Government fully support this WASH for schools project and it is looking forward to work together with you in the implementation of the project."

On his part, Mr. R.K. BALA the Chief Executive Officer of Nyanza Bottling Co. Ltd, a Coca Cola subsidiary said: Through this project, we hope that children will stay in school; the incidences of water borne diseases will reduce, while knowledge transfer through behavior change will trickle to the communities. I would therefore like to call for broad based partnerships and closer collaboration among all players in the water sector so that we can deliver on the MDG target".

Mr. Philbert Ishengoma the UN-Habitat Chief Technical Advisor for Lake Victoria Water and Sanitation said that lack of clean water and sanitation facilities in schools meant that children were exposed every day to various types of waterborne diseases because most of their day was spent in the school,

"The program hopes to improve enrolment rates, reduce incidences of water borne diseases and boost knowledge transfer through behavior change among the pupils and parents," he said.

UN-Habitat through this project seeks to work towards meeting the 10th target of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 7 which is to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

See the Programme Summary and a Fact Sheet on the project.