Health care Final NRVA 2005 Report

Afghanistan NRVA 2005 23 The local enumerators were instructed to assess the quality of housing of the surveyed households. This assessment can only be subjective, most likely also relative to their own house when judging other houses. Another factor compounding the subjective assessment is that these questions were included in the male part of the questionnaire; traditionally, the rooms for receiving guests are separate, so it was difficult to quantify their judgment without having access to all rooms of the house. In some parts of the country such as the east, in the summer when the assessment took place the reserved place for male guests is outside, in front of the house Dera. The lack of access to the main house made it difficult to evaluate the quality of the house. Male enumerators in such circumstances were advised to ask the female enumerators to evaluate the housing condition as they conducted the interview inside of the house. However, equivalence of male and female assessments is relative. Taking this into account, 43 of all dwellings were considered to be in a good condition windows and doors present and a non leaking roof, 20 of all houses had one or more deficiencies of doors, windows or roof. Thirteen percent of all households live in poor housing conditions. Furthermore, 9 live in a temporary structure that can be described as being good, while 6 live in a poor temporary structure. Table 11: Housing condition Categories Non leaking windows, doors, roof Leaking windows, doors, roof Traditional ten t Relief tent Temporar y struc tur e - good Temporar y struc tur e - bad Incomplete struc tur e Poor Kuchi 11 4 66 4 2 3 2 8 Rural 43 23 1 8 6 5 14 Urban 51 13 0 15 8 4 8 National 43 20 4 9 6 5 13 Out of all Kuchi households interviewed, 66 lived in traditional tents at the time of the interview, these figures includes semi-nomadic populations, who stay in tents during summer. In the urban areas, 51 of all houses were in good condition, ranging from 2 in Nangarhar to 73 in Kunduz. The highest proportion of temporary structures was 16 in Hirat; out of those, 51 are of good quality and 12 of poor quality. In the rural areas the housing assessed with good quality was 43, and 23 was poor. The highest quality of houses was assessed in Paktika and Bamyan about 90; this figure may be biased by the local enumerators that compared their own housing with those of interviewees; housing in Bamyan generally looks among the poorest in the country. Ghazni and Zabul had the highest number of temporary structures. Overall, very few households 3 own a second dwelling. The difference between urban and rural areas is negligible. Ten percent of Kuchi households possess an alternative dwelling; most likely their winter housing. Table 12: Ownership of second dwelling Categories No Yes Kuchi 90 10 Rural 98 2 Urban 97 3 National 97 3 Afghanistan NRVA 2005 24

3.5.2. Drinking water and sanitation

In the NRVA 2003 survey, safe drinking water was defined as water from hand pumps only, while all other water sources surveyed were considered to be unsafe, as per the UNICEF 2003a definition. In NRVA 2005, the definition of water from a protected source was introduced. Safe water is considered to be water from a protected source. Several options were mentioned in the questionnaire. Safe water protected Unsafe water Hand pump – public Shallow open well – public Hand pump – in compound Shallow open well – in compound Bored well – hand pump Spring – unprotected Bored well motorized Arhad Spring – protected Karez Pipe scheme – gravity River Lake Canal Pipe scheme motorized Kanda Pipe scheme – municipal Nawar Dand Dam Bowserwater tanker Pool Howz Drainage Other Nationwide, 31 of the households have access to safe drinking water. Kuchi households have lowest access to safe drinking water 16, while rural households have 26 and urban households 64. Table 13: Households with access to safe drinking water Categories households No. weighted observations Kuchi 16 30,636 Rural 26 787,922 Urban 64 409,295 National 31 1,227,853 Afghanistan NRVA 2005 25 Rural households in Kandahar 50, Logar 49, Nimroz 45, and Kabul and Nangarhar 41 have the highest percentage of households with access to safe drinking water. Very low access to safe drinking water was reported in Samangan 4, Daykundi 3, and Nuristan 2. No safe access to water was reported in Zabul. It should be pointed out that in a province like Nuristan, unprotected high- altitude water springs are endowed with high quality water, but as per the definition of safe drinking water, this source is accounted as unsafe. Access to safe drinking water in urban households is highest in Kandahar 99, followed by Kabul 71 and Balkh 67. Among the provinces with lowest access to safe drinking water are Baghlan and Hirat 35 and the lowest access is in Kunduz 15. Figure 9: Households with access to safe drinking water Provincial averages of access to safe drinking water are highest in Kabul 65, Kandahar 54, Logar 45 and Nangarhar 43. In contrast, Zabul 0, Nuristan 2, Daykundi 3, Samangan 7, Bamyan, Uruzgan and Sar-I-Pul 8 have the lowest access to safe drinking water. 11 11 In some province like Nuristan their main water sources are spring, which may be safe, but not protected, so based on the above mentioned definition considered as unsafe.