Sierra Leone Health Min. Miatta Kargbo attends Sanitation & Water for Life 2014 High Level Talks
Sierra Leone’s Hon. Health and Sanitation Minister Madam Miatta Kargbo has shown Sierra Leone’s success in combatting open defecation at this year’s Ministerial Participation on Thursday April 10, 2014 at the Headquarters of the Pan American Health Organization on 23rd Street North West, Washington DC USA, during the Health Sector Minister’s Meeting, which saw Thirty nine countries represented by their respective Ministers. (Photo: Hon. Minister Madam Miatta Kargbo)
During a panel discussion, she shared her Ministry’s experience in changing the behavior of people who were living in communities in Sierra Leone without adequate toilet facilities, and elaborated on the conceptual action implemented to accomplish the task which has seen the West African Country making tremendous progress in the increase in toilet facility in different parts of the Country.
“We used community based initiative through effective teaching and sensitization of the causes, effects and consequences of living in houses without toilet facilities. We further gave them practical examples, drawing from real incidents and grim consequences resulting from open defecation.”
“We appealed to affluent and persuasive community leaders to support the weakling by making their own input, while the government reinforced the projects where necessary.
Madam Miatta Kargbo Hon. Minister of Health and Sanitation, immediately after her presentation at the Pan American Health Organization (World Health Organization)
“Our partners (UNICEF, World Bank, WHO etc.) who are fully aware of what we do, invited the President Ernest Bai Koroma led government and in particular me, to be a forth leader authoritative voice on the issue of the Community led approach of behavioral change for sanitation.”
The Ministerial Participation Sectors Meeting not only saw government Ministers pledged concrete commitments to bring safe water, Sanitation and hygiene to “those who need it most” in their respective Countries: but also precedes the third biennial “Sanitation and Water for All” (SWA) high level meeting, scheduled for Friday April 11, 2014,to be formally declared opened by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, along with World Bank Group President Dr. Jim Yong Kim and Sanitation & Water for All Chair John Kufuor.
Several speakers including Jan Eliasson United Nations Deputy Secretary General, Anthony Lake Executive Director United Nations Children’s Organization (UNICEF), Dr. Shanta Devarajan World Bank Chief Economist of the Middle East and Africa Region, and government Ministers from Ethiopia and Kenya will also speak on the theme of the 2014 High Level Meeting “Smart investment to achieve water, sanitation and hygiene for all”.
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