By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
As the world marks the 2023 World WaterDay today , WaterAid, a forefront water advocate in Nigeria has called on countries including Nigeria to scale up action to meet clean water and sanitation needs for citizens by 2030.
To commemorate the WWD, WaterAid called on the government to make WASH a top national priority, champion an inspirational vision and drive institutional reform that has results at all levels.
Country Director, WaterAid Nigeria,Evelyn Mere, said, “No one deserves to be denied of their rights to clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene.
“We have less than a decade to achieve the 2030 target for SDG 6- clean water and sanitation for all. Sadly, progress to achieve SDG6 is too slow, but there are ways to accelerate change – by implementing the right WASH policies in government and investing in WASH.”
Government can provide more, better quality finance for water, sanitation and hygiene in the long term to achieve and sustain national targets, Mere said.
The Water agency said that with only seven years to deliver on Sustainable Development Goal 6- clean water and sanitation for all.
Substantially increased WASH financing, ensuring costed finance strategies are developed, backed by sufficient public funds to build a high-performing sector that attracts finance and improves the quality of spending.
A WaterAid latest policy report on Ending water, sanitation and hygiene crisis, shows that the accelerating progress sets out a series of recommendations to countries working to accelerate progress towards sustainable and safe WASH services for all.
Adding that in the last 20 years countries which have prioritized WASH in national development have recorded real progress.
The WaterAid report.stated that in the next decade will see a continued rise in population and rural-urban migration. Climate change, political instability, disease outbreaks and economic downturns pose additional threats to health, water security, food security, the economy, gender equality and social development.
Ensuring sustainable and safe WASH will become even more critical to build people’s resilience.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, basic drinking water coverage rose from 43 per cent in 2000 to 73 per cent in 2020, which is still Midway through Sustainable Development Goals ,SDGs, with unacceptable slow progress, WaterAid said.
A situation where only 10% of Nigerians have access to basic WASH, 67% use basic drinking water services and per capita volume of water available to our rural population daily is 10 Liters, 40 liters less than the UN accepted standard, is unacceptable and requite urgent action to accelerate change.
Now is the time to put in place the necessary policies to get back on track and accelerate progress towards universal access by 2030.
Governments must lead the way and international organisations, communities, donors and business must play their part.
