Water and Sanitation Programs in Southeast Asia

Devastating diseases, a lack of clean drinking water and poor health facilities plague many of the countries where AFAP works. Often, these problems can be reduced or eliminated through awareness and health programs.

Water plays a role in mosquito-borne diseases by providing breeding grounds for mosquito larvae. AFAP works closely with local authorities to maximise the benefits of water supply programs by ensuring that the water that is provided is safe from water-related vector borne diseases. Using evidence-based approaches, suitable interventions are being developed in mitigating dengue risk from water supply infrastructure, including the design and trailing of dengue-safe water supply and storage models in the Mekong, a hotpot for dengue fever.

AFAP continuously improves access to potable drinking water in communities and schools.  Apart from providing access to clean and safe water, AFAP provides sanitation facilities.  More significantly, AFAP projects take a step further to address animal waste, which contaminates wells.  This growing problem of animal waste contaminating wells and water supply has been addressed by an innovative approach of using enzymes to treat animal waste so as to prevent further contamination of water resources.  This approach had caught the eye of World Bank Development Marketplace, which brought the project into a high profile.

While measures to provide clean and safe water is commendable, AFAP compliments these with an important element of coordination of public health campaigns at community level and at policy levels, the aim is to change behaviour to reach our program outcomes and influence policy.  Through continuous engagement with the community in the development of IEC materials on primary health care education and hygiene and using effective monitoring and evaluation frameworks with most significant change stories, AFAP strives to break the cycle of poverty and achieve Millennium Development Goals.

Working in Viet Nam and Cambodia to address water issues and concerns, AFAP has reached more than a million beneficiaries (women, men and children) who are now able to access and enjoy clean and safe water, an improvement in their lifestyles, removing further burdens on families who otherwise might have to spend time looking after sick children or losing income due to their exposure to unsafe water.

AFAP’s Southeast Asia Water and Sanitation Programs:

Dengue Fever - Innovative Solutions to a Public Health Threat

Na Ri Integrated Rural Community Development Project
Vietnam Women's Program