Open defecation. (Courtesy).

A health expert at the UN children’s agency UNICEF is urging the South Sudan Ministry of Health to speed up efforts to eradicate open defecation, as majority of the country’s population still lack access to toilets or pit latrines.

Open defecation is the human practice of defecating in the open bushes rather than into a toilet or pit latrine.

The World Bank said more than 6 million South Sudanese lack access to basic drinking water supply while 8.2 million others practice open defecation.

Also in 2016, the non-governmental organization WaterAid, said more than 93 percent of South Sudanese lacked access to an improved toilet.

Since 2019, the country has been reeling from devastating impacts of flood as this has left hundreds of thousands of people displaced with no shelter.

UNICEF WASH Expert Lominsuk Robert said there has been little tangible improvement in terms of addressing open defecation in the country, and urged the ministry of health to take the lead in sensitizing the communities.

“There are a lot of challenges that we still need to circumvent. And I think key to that is we need really the government to really take leadership. Because if the government is not in the lead, it’s not going to be sustainable at all,” he said.

“If it’s tied to a project, projects come and go. But the government is there to stay. If the ministry is well supported with finances and human resource, there could be significant improvements in trying to engage communities to take action to improve the situation.”

Mr Robert stressed the need for the government and partners to accelerate efforts to achieved free open defecation in South Sudan by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goal.

“In accordance with SDG number 62, we want to leave no one behind. And as South Sudan, our statistics are one of the worst. But we’ve developed a roadmap for ourselves.”

“We need to accelerate it. If we do it as usual, we will not reach. So, we need to work like really five times. How we are going to do it is not a one person’s business. It’s really everyone. So, we need everybody to join forces for us not to be left behind by the whole world.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Albert Eluzai, the Director General for Rural Water and Sanitation in the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation said the government is working to expedite community sensitization against open defecation.

According to him, the government will roll out guidelines to the rural settings across the country in a bid to encourage households to construct pit latrines.

“We started as early as 2021 and we have come with community-led total sanitation. and it is a technical guideline that can scale up construction of toilets within the community and it is by the community.”

“So, our purpose is to get the community to trigger them to understand that those feces are dangerous and it can cause disease and illness. So, once they understand that feces is not good, it has to be kept in a toilet.”