Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The purpose of the document is to lay out the findings from this diagnostic exercise. Its key messages include stressing the need to reach higher to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for water and sanitation in the light of little improvement in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era; the lack of access to improved water for rural dwellers and the issues with quality, affordability and reliability of water services for urban dwellers, and how this is linked with the overreliance on an informal service provider market; the lack of improved sanitation in the population with 80% still reliant on rudimentary and unsafe facilities; the identification of rurality and poverty as the primary drivers of low WASH coverage with an in-depth data-based and political economy analysis on why water point failure in rural Tanzania is so high (20% of all water points fail in the very first year of operation); improved WASH can lead to broad knock-on effects on productivity and human development in Tanzania, in particular for reducing chronic malnutrition in children under five; identifies the importance of emphasizing improved WASH in public spaces also such as in schools and health centers; identifies how shortcomings in the decentralization process for Tanzania's WASH sector have impacted its capacity to deliver services, and how these bottlenecks may be unblocked. It then makes a series of recommendations in order to deliver a better service.

Decentralization --- Health --- Hygiene --- Inequality --- Living Standards --- Poverty Reduction --- Sanitation --- Small Private Water Supply Providers --- Stunting --- Town Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water --- Water Policy & Governance --- Water Resources --- Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water Supply and Sanitation Economics --- Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Tanzania is home to the third highest population of stunted children in Sub-Saharan Africa, with about 2.7 million children under the age of five failing to reach their full potential of growth attainment compared with the reference population as per the World Health Organization standards. Several studies have shown that stunted growth during childhood entraps the future of children in a vicious circle of recurrent diseases, reduced human development, and lower earnings, thus increasing their likelihood of being poor when they grow up. To reduce stunting, the Government of Tanzania and development partners are introducing a convergence of multisectoral interventions adapted to local needs. However, the existing stunting data are representative only at higher administrative levels, thus making it difficult to implement these efforts. The paper uses the 2016 geo-referenced Demographic and Health Survey in conjunction with relevant spatially gridded covariate data, such as nighttime lights, water and sanitation access, vegetation index, travel time, and so on. Geospatial techniques, such as model-based statistics and Bayesian inference implemented using the INLA algorithm, along with appropriate model validation exercises are employed to develop high-resolution maps of stunting in Tanzania at 1x1-kilometer spatial resolution. The maps show that areas of consistently high stunting rates tend to be more common in rural parts of the country, especially throughout the western and southwestern border areas. There is high prevalence of low stunting in the urban areas around Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and Dodoma, as well as in the south of Lake Victoria.

Early child and children's health --- Geo-statistics --- Geospatial economics --- Health care services industry --- Health policy --- Health, nutrition and population --- Hydrology --- Inequality --- Nutrition --- Poverty reduction --- Reproductive health --- Stunting --- Water resources

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The severity of COVID-19 disease varies substantially between individuals, with some infections being asymptomatic while others are fatal. Several risk factors have been identified that affect the progression of SARS-CoV-2 to severe COVID-19. They include age, smoking and presence of underlying comorbidities such as respiratory illness, HIV, anemia and obesity. Given that respiratory illness is one such comorbidity and is affected by hand hygiene, it is plausible that improving access to handwashing could lower the risk of severe COVID-19 among a population. In this paper, we estimate the potential impact of improved access to handwashing on the risk of respiratory illness and its knock-on impact on the risk of developing severe COVID-19 disease across Zimbabwe. We use a geospatial model that allows us to estimate differential clinical risk at the district level. Results show that the current risk of severe disease is heterogeneous across the country, due to differences in individual characteristics and household conditions. This study demonstrates how household level improved access to handwashing could lead to reductions in the risk of severe COVID-19 of up to 16% from the estimated current levels across all districts. Taken alongside the likely impact on transmission of SARS-CoV-2 itself, as well as countless other pathogens, this result adds further support for the expansion of access to handwashing across the country. It also highlights the spatial differences in risk of severe COVID-19, and thus the opportunity for better planning to focus limited resources in high risk areas in order to potentially reduce the number of severe cases.

COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020 --- -COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-