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Housing
9.2.2 Housing characteristics
The construction materials of Afghan dwellings are relatively uniform, especially for rural and resident Kuchi households. A typical Afghan house is made of mud brick walls, a wooden roof and has a dirt floor Table 9.2. Urban houses
somewhat deviate from this general picture in the sense that concrete is a more common building material, especially for floors, as well as bricks and stone. Thereby, they provide more durable shelter than the traditional Afghan house.
Table 9.2 Household dwellings, by residence, and by dwelling part, construction material in percentages
Construction materials
Residence Urban
Rural Kuchi
National
a. Construction material of walls
Fired brickstone 17
4 1
7 Concrete
5 1
Mud bricks mud 78
90 91
88 Other
5 8
4
Total 100
100 100
100 b. Construction material of roof
Concrete 10
2 Wood
72 81
86 79
Bricks 16
17 12
17 Other
2 2
2 2
Total 100
100 100
100 c. Construction material of floor
Dirt earth 60
98 100
90 Concrete tile
38 2
9 Other
1
Total 100
100 100
100
The most frequently observed numbers of rooms per dwelling for rural Afghan households are two and three, whereas for urban households it is three and four Table 9.3, panel a. The distribution for Kuchis is measured in number of
tents. Altogether, three-quarters of Kuchi households live in one or two tents. The consequence of this is visible in the average number of occupants per tent, which is 6.4 in the 43 percent of the Kuchi dwellings that consist of one tent
only panel b.
A clear pattern can be observed in panel b of Table 9.3: the fewer rooms a dwelling has, the larger is the average number of household members per room. The overcrowding that is especially reported for the smallest dwellings, indicates a
relatively poor status of households occupying these small houses. It also indicates adverse health conditions for its members, among other things facilitating the spread of infectious diseases. The effect is more frequently reported for
rural than for urban households; the overall average number of persons per dwelling is also lower for urban households than for their rural counterparts 2.1 and 2.7 persons per room, respectively. Overall, one-third 34 percent of Afghan
households can be considered overcrowded, meaning that on average more than three people share one room.
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Table 9.3 Dwellings, a by residence, and by number of rooms in percentages; b average number of occupants, by residence, and by number of rooms
Number of rooms
a. Residence percentage b. Residence mean occupancy
Urban Rural
Kuchi Total
Urban Rural
Kuchi Total
1 2
8 43
9 5.4
5.7 6.4
5.9 2
16 28
33 26
3.2 3.2
3.8 3.3
3 25
29 14
27 2.3
2.4 2.9
2.4 4
27 19
5 20
1.9 2.0
2.7 1.9
5 11
7 2
8 1.5
1.7 2.2
1.7 6
9 4
1 5
1.4 1.5
1.7 1.5
7 3
1 2
1.2 1.3
2.0 1.3
8 3
1 2
1.0 1.1
1.8 1.1
9 1
0.9 1.1
0.9 1.1
10 or more 2
1 1
0.8 0.8
0.7 0.8
Total 100
100 100
100 2.1
2.7 4.7
2.7
9.3 Housing facilities
9.3.1 Water and sanitation
Basic hygiene provided by safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are the most effective strategies to improve the health status of the population. There is evidence that globally provision of adequate sanitation services, safe water supply,
and hygiene education represents an effective health intervention that reduces the mortality caused by diarrhoeal disease by an average of 65 percent, and the related morbidity by 26 percent WHO 2000. Inadequate sanitation, hygiene and
water result not only in more sickness and death, but also in higher health costs, lower worker productivity and lower school enrollment. Access to improved water sources and sanitation are built into the indicator set to monitor the progress towards
the targets of the Millennium Development Goals see Boxes on MDG indicators 7.8 and 7.9 below.
Water supply
The inventory of community preferences for development among male and female Shuras emphasized the importance of water supply, as they assigned it top priority see Section 11.3. Overall access to safe drinking water in Afghanistan
is calculated at 27 percent of the population. Large differences in the share with access are observed between the urban population on the one hand and the rural and Kuchi populations on the other Table 9.4, Similar differences exist
between the provinces Figure 9.2. The present figures are somewhat lower than those of the 2005 NRVA 31 percent overall,
1
and a little higher than the MICS 2003 finding of 23 percent
2
. However, different questionnaire designs and data collection methodologies prohibit direct comparison.
Table 9.4 Percentage of the total population with access to a safe drinking water, b improved sanitation, and by esidence
Residence and province
Access to a. Safe drinking water
b. Improved sanitation Urban
58 21
Rural 20
1 Kuchi
16
Total 27
5
_____________________________________________ 1
Among other things, NRVA 2005 included water supply from water tankers and from bottled water in the category of safe drinking water, which is not in line with international guidelines. If these types of water supply are included in the 20078 figure, the population share with access to safe drinking water rises to 28 percent.
2
The UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey for the year 2003 did not include Kuchis. If the NRVA 20078 data would similarly be restricted to urban and rural populations, the population share with access to safe drinking water rises to 28 percent. There are, however, additional factors that complicate comparability.
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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.