Access
According to the Joint Monitoring Program of the World Health Organization and UNICEF, three quarters of the Beninese population had access to an improved water source in 2008, whereas 12% had access to improved sanitation. The share rose from 63% concerning water and from 5% concerning sanitation in 1990. Coverage in urban areas is considerably higher than in rural areas.
| Access to Water and Sanitation in Benin (2008) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urban (41% of the population) |
Rural (59% of the population) |
Total | ||
| Water | Improved water source | 84% | 69% | 75% |
| Piped on premises | 26% | 2% | 12% | |
| Sanitation | Improved sanitation | 24% | 4% | 12% |
Significant differences in water supply coverage were found among regions. The situation depends on the accessibility to ground water, the geographic orientation of donor investment programs and the effective demand of the inhabitants of a community or region. In urban areas, lack of access to safe water is mostly concentrated in the outskirts of cities.
The national government uses another definition of access, under which water supply coverage was 50% in urban and peri-urban areas and 41% in rural and semi-urban areas in 2005. The annual water sector review for the financial year 2009 indicated 55,1% access for rural and 57% for urban areas. In order to reach the MDGs, the national government's strategy is to increase coverage to 75% in urban and peri-urban areas and 67.5% in rural and semi-urban areas by 2015. Concerning sanitation, the Ministry of Economic and Financial Development reported that in 2003 67% of the population did not have adequate facilities for the disposal of excrements. The annual sector review indicated an access of households to sanitation facilities of 39,4% and 71,6%, of school children, in 2009.
Read more about this topic: Water Supply And Sanitation In Benin
Famous quotes containing the word access:
“Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the state of victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, “they” don’t want me, “they” accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, “they” don’t deserve me.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)