From Dr Nathan Bundutidi Makaya, Blue Community ECC – Eglise du Christ au Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo:
Here, the health situation remains alarming. The Ebola epidemic is not only an infectious emergency: it acts as a revealer of the functional imbalances and structural fragilities of our health system, considered in its entirety.
Despite the significant efforts of our government, with the support of technical and financial partners as well as development and humanitarian action actors, we still largely remain in a crisis response logic: we mobilize a lot of resources when the disease appears, but still insufficiently to build, upstream, the conditions allowing populations and territories to remain healthy.
This is precisely where sustainable access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation take on their importance. We cannot build a resilient health system if communities, schools and the health facilities themselves do not have sustainable drinking water, adequate hygiene devices and safe sanitation systems. Water is therefore not just a question of infrastructure: it constitutes a fundamental determinant of health, dignity and prevention.
Our thinking at CEMPIK is precisely to contribute to a paradigm shift: gradually moving from a system mainly organized to fight against diseases to a system capable of producing health.
Producing health means acting before illness and strengthening the adaptive capacities of individuals, communities and territories. This involves linking primary health care, nutrition, water-hygiene-sanitation, health education, prevention, environmental health, responsible development of local resources and the One Health approach.
This is why I think that there is a real area of convergence between our approach at CEMPIK and the vision carried by Blue Community: placing water and the fundamental conditions of life at the heart of a territorial approach to health.
Ebola ultimately reminds us that responding to the epidemic is essential, but that building communities with safe water, a healthy environment and health systems capable of preventing, anticipating and absorbing crises is an even more fundamental investment.
It is around this vision that I would be very happy if we could deepen our discussions and consider concrete avenues for collaboration.
