Seven years after the end of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGS, the President of the Nigeria Network of Women Professionals in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, WASH, Barrister Cordelia Agbo has said that Nigeria was far from achieving universal access to clean water, urging the incoming government to prioritise the sector.
This is coming as Nigeria and other African countries have been urged to prioritise investments in water and sanitation to close the gaps as well as achieve the Goal Six of the SDG in the face of climate change and population growth.
Agbo who spoke at the sideline of the opening ceremony of the 21st African Water Association International Congress and Exhibition- 7th International Faecal Sludge Management Conference in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, said the incoming government of Nigeria should look into the water and sanitation sector to ensure that Nigerians have access to safe drinking water.
She regretted that despite paying its counterpart funding for some water and sanitation projects granted to some of the states in the country by AfWaSA, the government failed to monitor the full implementation of the projects.
”AfWA gave three states in Nigeria grants for faecal sludge in 2020 and they promised to come to Nigeria for training, unfortunately, there is no adequate monitoring of those projects by the government.
”Nigeria must look into it so that this faecal waste will no longer be a waste for us, even the wastewater is being converted into good water in some countries like South Africa. They developed their wastewater for drinking. These are projects the Nigerian government should be embarking on.
”These are the things we want the incoming government to tackle. We need to encourage the new government to invest in water and sanitation.
The project is ongoing and still, on the documentation level it is after this stage that they will now visit Nigeria and the government will now give them land for them to develop and build the plants for the faecal sludge.”
She said as the president of RIFPEA in Nigeria, she is going back home to do more consultation and training for their members in the 36 states of the country on water and sanitation.
In his address at the opening ceremony of the congress, the President of, the African Water and Sanitation Association, AfWaSA, Dr Eng Silver Mugisha stressed the need for the African government to invest in water and sanitation.
He recalled that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the water and sanitation sector in Africa faced several challenges and the pandemic amplified the challenges, ”all pointing towards a potentially overwhelming burden to the water and sanitation sector in Africa, ” he added.
Mugisha said the theme of the congress emphasised the task before Africa as they make efforts to bridge the gap between water, Sanitation, & the people, and make progress to the SDG6 and Agenda 2063 of Africa.
He said:” The challenges facing African water and sanitation entities are known and systemic. They include weak corporate governance systems, top utility leadership mixes with insufficient emphasis on smart solutions and action but instead focussing on position, little belief in self-sufficiency and do-it-yourself mindsets, strategic plans with inadequate clarity and home-grown solution intents, ageing infrastructure, rapid urbanisation which strains existing water systems, and inadequate infrastructure financing resulting from foundational weaknesses like operational and cost inefficiencies.”
He noted that in the recent past, a lot of progress has been made to address these challenges but a lot remains to be done.
He said the three days conference provide an opportunity for experts to make a significant contribution to addressing the challenges.
”Our actions have the power to change the African water and sanitation sector and inspire others in our lives to get up and take action too. We must respond to the challenge faced by our continent by taking action and bridging the water and sanitation gapsl.
”We have come here today with a common resolve to make vital commitments, and take solid actions to make these happen to serve the huge population that remains unserved with WATSAN services.”
He said African governments should be focusing on technological innovation that will in turn bring about significant financial and technical returns.
He said there was also the need for sustainable infrastructure financing options including the use of corporate cash flows to access financial markets.
Others recommendations are: Strengthening people and systems, through a plethora of productivity management arrangements, leadership and managerial competencies and talent identification. Streamlining corporate governance and enabling legislation, Inculcating a strong continuous improvement culture, through relevant capacity building and learning systems.”
Speaking, Director Executive, Faecal Sludge Management Alliance, Mme Jennifer Williams noted that Africans will never have clean water until it achieved safely managed sanitation, adding that Africa still has a long way to go as the world approach 2030.
” But this conference is here to change that. This joint event has unified and brought together the entire WASH sector in Cote d’Ivoire, in a way that I have not seen before.
”We need new, diverse thinking to safeguard our world for future generations. We have so many wicked problems we continue to address but have yet to fully solve. I look forward to seeing how the younger generations can achieve what we haven’t.”
Source : Vanguard
