Summary of a KAP survey in Aweil East County-Highlands in 2010
Extract from ‘KAP Survey Report: Aweil East County-Highlands, Northern Bahr el Ghazal state. November 2010’. By Jane Gune, Project Manager (Tearfund DMT South Sudan). Funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.
The project area in the highlands of Aweil East County has a population of ~124,000 and is a major returnee entry point as the disputed oil rich area of Abyei is to the north. The survey in November 2010 aimed to:
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assess the knowledge and practices related to healthy living among the targeted population
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determine the impact of the Tearfund programme by comparing these results to those from the baseline survey of November 2009.
120 households (30 clusters of 4 households) were randomly selected. The person interviewed was usually the head of the household.
Results
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87.5% of the 120 respondents were from the host community and 12.5% were returnees (i.e. had returned within the last two years).
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23.3% were male and 76.7% were female.
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15.0% were aged 10 – 18 years, 81.7% were aged 19 – 50 years and 3.3% were aged above 50 years.
Table 1 shows that compared to the previous year, a higher proportion of people benefited from Tearfund services especially in the areas of water, health promotion, latrines and food security.
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)
49.2% of the target population had access to borehole water compared with 42.3% in 2009 and there was an increase in the litres of water utilised/person/day from 13.0 to 14.7 (although this did not reach the SPHERE recommendations of at least 15 litres or the WHO benchmark of 20 litres). In addition:
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7.5% of the population had access to a latrine; 0.8% buried their stools and 91.7% disposed of stools in the bush.
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87.3 % of the latrines were in use and 71.4% were clean.
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17% of the community had latrines under construction.
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39.5% of the households gave evidence of using soap in 2010 compared to 37.5% in 2009.
Health
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Morbidity was estimated at 0.31 persons/household/week. This means that 1 person was sick in every 23 households or 1 in every 137 persons per day.
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The crude mortality rate was estimated at 0.15/10,000 persons/day and the under-five mortality rate was 0.25/10,000/day.
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Among young children 77.3% were vaccinated against measles, 73.4% had a BCG scar and 72.8% had completed their tri-vaccine dose against DPT.
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75.8% of the population received health messages in 2010 compared to 74.0% in 2009 – see Figure 1.
Knowledge of HIV and AIDS had increased from 41.3% in 2009 to 56.3% in 2010.
Figure 1. A Tearfund health education session.
Food Security
38.3% received food security support from Tearfund in 2010 compared to 1.9% in 2009. When asked what type of food security intervention would be beneficial:
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60% of respondents suggested seeds distribution
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31.7% suggested tools distribution
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15.8% requested ox-ploughs
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16.7% opted for training on improved farming methods
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14.0% did not know of any solutions to improve food security.
Literacy and Gender
Only 5.8% of the respondents had attained formal education to the level of primary. The majority, 94.2%, did not attend any formal education and therefore were illiterate. The percentage of illiteracy among women was 98.9% compared to 76% among men. In the 5-20 year age group, 32.1% of boys and 58.6% of girls were not attending school.
Conclusions
There was an increase in service delivery to the beneficiaries across different sectors in the programme. The results showed improvement in WASH activities with an increase in the quantity of water used for domestic purposes. Latrine construction and usage was encouraging when compared with previous results. Observation showed that there was a remarkable increase in food security support this year compared to previous years. Health services were delivered successfully with no disease epidemic recorded during the year. Both crude mortality rates and under-fives mortality rates were below the Sphere thresholds for Sub-Saharan Africa and are well controlled. There is a serious education deficit among the population with 94.2% classed as illiterate. More than half of the female children were not attending school, and school dropout rates among girls was alarmingly high as they progressed to the upper classes. There was concern about the huge expected influx of returnees in the area. The influx may reverse the progress made if needs for the services surpass the available resources. More resources will be required to meet the increased demand.
To obtain the full report email [email protected].
