The Importance of Water: An HIV and WASH Bi-Directional Guide

For many of us across Africa, December is a time of rain. This rain is needed for our crops, our livestock and of course our day-to-day wellbeing.

For people living with HIV, access to water is very critical and SAfAIDS have been working with WaterAid to help programmes on the ground better integrate their efforts around Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and HIV. We did this, as always, through consultation in four southern African countries where WaterAid are programming: Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia. It was the community level dialogues that indicated the need for a field-savvy guide. With backing from Anglo America, SAfAIDS and WaterAid pulled together information to form the Guide.




During ICASA SAfAIDS hosted two days of stakeholder and community dialogues in and around the ICASA venue. One of the last ones we held was titled "Integrating WASH and HIV: Towards Improved Health Outcomes". We put together a very Knowledgable Panel with representatives from SNV, CAFOD, FAO and a local Swaziland partner Nazarene Compassionate Ministries.


The guide starts with our global targets and makes the link to PLHIV:

 

Emerging from community level are four solution areas to focus on (and give lots of practical advice, informatics and links to assist in these areas):



We conclude with some tried and tested tools, including some case study sharing, to encourage good practice on the ground. Want to know more, or how to obtain one of these guide? Get in touch info@safaids.net

As this is the last post for the year, wishing you all that you would wish for yourself.