What are the main sanitation challenges in SA?
Gertrude Matsebe: The main challenge is reducing the sanitation backlog. Although almost 11 million South Africans have been served with basic sanitation since 1994, more than 13.3 million people do not yet have access to basic sanitation services. Adding to this is the challenge to halve the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015 in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Louiza Duncker: Some other challenges include insufficient coordination between stakeholders, such as government, implementing agents and the users of toilets, insufficient community participation, non-compliance of some sanitation projects to policy requirements and minimum design standards and norms. Barriers to sanitation are also created through inadequate maintenance of sanitation infrastructure due to capacity constraints at local and municipal level. IPS: Please explain the tight linkage between water, sanitation and health. LD: Clean water and proper sanita
