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Ethnic minorities in Nhat Tien Commune, Bac Son District in northern Lang Son Province gain access to clean water. All localities will be equipped with water quality management units by 2020. — VNA/VNS Photo Dinh Tran |
HA NOI — A newly-announced VND320 billion (US$16.4 million) programme will ensure that all of Viet Nam's cities and provinces will have water-quality-management units within five years.
And the units will be of international standard by 2020.
The Water Quality Management Programme is part of an effort to promote and sustain the achievements of the National Strategy for Clean Water and Environment Sanitation.
Purpose of the programme was to provide 85 per cent of rural residents with potable water by 2010, National Centre for Clean Water and Environmental Sanitation deputy director Nguyen Thanh Luan told a workshop to introduce and initiate its implementation in Ha Noi yesterday.
Just 18 of Viet Nam's 63 provinces had water-quality testing facilities, he said.
Most were newly-established, poorly equipped and had yet to meet appropriate standards.
Appropriate national and local mechanisms for the effective management of water and environmental sanitation; funds and the necessary construction were also missing.
Nine projects
The money for the programme would be disbursed through nine key projects so that all rural residents had access to potable water by 2020, said deputy director Luan.
The Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry had made a variety of proposals to ensure the targets are met.
But priority would be given to the monitoring of all sources of rural water supply and increasing their standardisation from the prevailing 40 to 100 per cent by 2020.
The ministry would begin the building of eight trial standardised testing centres in different ecological regions next year.
Projects to enhance quality control and management capability in all cities and provinces would follow with information about water usage included in a data base as a comprehensive national source.
The programme would also research and trial the application of scientific and technologic methods in monitoring water quality at households in particular terrain or in special social and economic conditions, said Deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry Dao Xuan Hoc.
International co-operation could work through various models including bilateral, multilateral and co-operation with non-government organisations, he said.
The ministry had asked the General Irrigation Department to take key responsibility for the programme's implementation and management.
The People's Committees of all the country's 63 cities and provinces were also responsible for managing their rural water quality.
United Nation Children's Fund, UNICEF, representative Craig Burgess emphasised the ministry's commitment to rural water quality and said he expected a sound implementation of the programme.
The ministry had realised the poor water quality in rural Viet Nam and taken the lead in the development and approval of the water quality management programme, he said.
But more important than the launch of the programme was how the ministry supported the sub-national effort and how each province, district, commune and individual went about improving water quality for all users, he said.
Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry figures show that only 30 per cent of rural water supply meets Health Ministry water-quality standards.
A 2006 Health Ministry survey found that water at only 15.6 per cent of rural households met its standards and of these only 29 per cent met the micro biological standards and 56.5 per cent the chemical standards.
UNICEF estimates that only 2.8 million out of 18 million rural children have access to Health Ministry-standard water.
The Northern and Central Highlands and the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta are the worse regions, it says. — VNS
