|
Zaire Sanitation and Nutrition
According to UN estimates, only 14 percent of the
population
has access to safe water (52 percent urban and 20 percent
rural).
Potable water is provided to approximately half the
population in
urban areas through private connections or through public
standpipes. The remaining 50 percent get their water from
wells and
surface water of varying quality. Roughly 30 percent of
the urban
population has access to a sewage system, 10 percent use
septic
tanks, and 60 percent use latrines. There is no garbage
collection
system. In rural areas, water quality varies widely. Only
about 10
percent of the rural population has access to communal
standpipes.
About 20 percent of the population uses pit latrines.
Malnutrition is widespread in Zaire. Measures of
children's
standard weight-for-age show at least 25 percent of the
country's
children to be undernourished. Protein-calorie
malnutrition and
anemia are widespread. Iodine-deficiency disorders
resulting in the
growth of goiters and in cretinism are commonly seen in
Équateur
and in Haut-Zaïre.
The major cause of malnutrition is poverty. Gross
domestic
product (
GDP--see Glossary)
per capita has been decreasing
in the
1980s and early 1990s, and Zaire's per capita GDP places
Zaire
among the poorest and least-developed countries in the
world. Local
markets are reported to have abundant supplies of food,
but most of
the population cannot afford to buy it. For example,
average
earnings in the capital of Kinshasa are not enough to buy
the
minimum basket of essential foods. Deficiencies in food
production
and diet are additional causes of malnutrition. Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
statistics
show national average calorie production per inhabitant as
less
than the minimum daily consumption requirements. The
balance is
made up by importing food. Dependency on cassava as a
staple
further degrades the diet. Cassava contains few nutrients,
and the
cyanide it contains is not always properly leached out in
the
process of food preparation.
Data as of December 1993
|
