Housing characteristics Housing ownership and characteristics

Housing 96 Figure 9.2 Percentage of the total population with access to safe drinking water, by province Next to the quality of water, the very access to water is a key factor in the provision of hygiene and adequate living conditions. Overall, for 42 percent of the households immediate access to water with no travel time is available. The corresponding figures for the urban, rural and Kuchi households are, respectively, 75, 35 and 21 percent. It takes up to half an hour to fetch water return trip for over half of the Kuchi and rural households and for just under one quarter of the urban households. Around 8 and 4 percent of the, respectively, Kuchi and rural households need more than one hour. The NRVA 20078 figures suggest an improvement compared to the 2005 results, as the overall share that had access to water within one hour increased from 86 to 97 percent. 3 Sanitation Safe disposal of human excreta creates the first barrier to excreta-related disease, helping to reduce transmission through direct and indirect – for example, animal and insect – routes. The 20078 NRVA found that 21 percent of the urban population had access to adequate sanitation facilities, but only 1 percent of the rural population and almost no Kuchis. Overall, access to improved sanitation was 5 percent Table 9.4. These figures would imply a decrease in the share compared to 2005, when the NRVA reported improved sanitation for 7 percent of the total population. 4 For sanitation purposes some 25 percent of the population use open field or ‘darean’, a place inside or outside the compound used for waste products. For the other types of sanitation combined, 89 percent of the population has access to sanitation within the compound 99 for urban, 87 for rural and 67 for the Kuchi population and 22 percent shares the sanitation facility with other households. _____________________________________________ 3 Based on survey months July and August for reasons of comparability with NRVA 2005. 4 A decrease in access to improved sanitation is difficult to explain. Seasonal and methodological effects are not in order, although fast population growth could have some impact.