The government kicked off the second sanitation survey using 4,075 tablet computers procured for 2.1 million dollars by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

To be held across the regional states and two city administrations, the survey includes documenting both government and private facilities for potable water and sanitation quality. The survey will also include recording water wells, water supply sources, distributions, urban sewerage systems and other private and public sanitation facilities.

The survey is expected to take half a month to complete and another four months for results to be announced.

Since the last survey was conducted eight years ago by the Ministry of Water, Irrigation & Electricity, the current allocation for 100 million Br came from AfDB to cover the cost of the tablets and other miscellaneous costs.

Coffey Tetra, a United Kingdom-based tech company that oversees more than 110 projects in 25 countries, designed the software to be used by the survey and will consult on the project. The firm will be paid 3.6 million British pounds for their services by the UK Department For International Development.

Named WaSH MIS System, the software stores information regarding locations, water and sanitation facilities and the number of people being surveyed. It will keep the data and will upload it to a central data centre once internet connections are established.

Previously, the Ministry was challenged in providing sufficient, accurate and well-organised potable water data for the country, according to Sileshi Bekele (PhD), Minister of Water, Irrigation &  Electricity.

To conduct the survey, a total of 4,000 professionals are being deployed, of which 500 are supervisors and the rest are data collectors. The Ministry gave a capacity building training for all of the professionals.