Danish
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
DACAAR’s WASH interventions aim at improving health and quality of life among Afghan communities. Limited access to safe water for drinking and household use, coupled with lack of knowledge of good hygiene practices and unavailability of proper sanitation facilities are major causes of water borne diseases and COVID 19 in Afghan households, resulting in serious illnesses, depletion of scarce household assets, and even mortality among children and other at risk groups.
Over the recent years, we had to continually improve ourselves to meet the growing need for WASH services across the country as active warfare, COVID 19 pandemic, AWD/Cholera outbreaks and natural disasters caused great suffering and displacement.
We had to exponentially expand our emergency WASH services to cater for the immediately needs of large numbers of IDPs, returnees and host communities affected by conflicts and natural shocks.
Delivering hygiene messages and kits door to door is a vital component of our WASH interventions to support improvements in health and well-being of Afghan families, particularly women, children, persons with disability and other at-risk persons.
DACAAR is the largest NGO provider of WASH services in the country. Likewise, we remain at the forefront of efforts to improve WASH interventions in the country, by continuing to co-lead the WASH Cluster together with UNICEF, participating in other national and sub-national WASH working groups as well as by conducting regular training seminars on sector best practices at our Water Expertise and Training center (WETC).
We maintain a robust emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene capacity in the form of fully equipped and readily deployable Emergency Response Teams, strategically located stockpiles of commodities and resource mobilization capacity to launch rapid Water, Sanitation and Hygiene assessments and response in the majority of country’s provinces.
While delivering emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in the early stages of a crisis can make the difference between life and death for many displaced Afghans, sustainable Water, Sanitation and Hygiene solutions are as crucial in ensuring communities regain their dignity and resilience and embark on a journey of recovery and development. As such the bulk of our programs are aimed at ensuring durable access to safe drinking water and sustainable hygiene and sanitation behavioral change.
In line with our responsibility as the leading Water, Sanitation and Hygiene implementing organisation in the country, we maintain a Groundwater Monitoring System with an extended and growing network of Monitoring Wells spread across the nation. With the help of these wells, we measure water table and physical parameters in various river basins, collecting, analysing and mapping the data from these measurements and tests with the help of a specialised Integrated Water Resources Data Management System. We make results available to the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector to help improve planning and implementation of water supply programs in the country.
Our Water Quality Testing Laboratory is one of its kind and provides Water, Sanitation and Hygiene implementing agencies and the private sector with much-needed water quality testing services.