By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Nigerians have been assured by federal government that by the year 2030, they will have access to water, sanitation and hygiene. They were also assured that five years before then, by 2025, the problem of open defecation would have been totally solved.
Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu, who gave this assurance on Tuesday at the closed meeting at the 2019 World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, said government was determined to meet this target.
At the meeting on the National Action Plan for the revitalization of the Wash Sector in Nigeria, Mr Adamu urged all Nigerians and International Development partners to give focused attention and consideration to the possibility of establishing a program in Nigeria to support the actualization of the goals.
During his speech themed Open for Business: Building Partnerships for the Revitalization of the Nigeria WASH Sector, the Minister noted that the journey to revitalize the WASH sector in Nigeria began in 2017, after the receipt of the worrisome World Bank WASH Poverty Diagnostic Report on the state water supply system and the increasing number of people without access to sustainable sanitation, including those defecating in the open.
To address the problem of low access to water and poor sanitation in Nigeria, Mr Adamu stated that, “President Muhammadu Buhari, demonstrated high political commitment on November 8, 2018 with the launch of the National Action Plan for the Revitalization of the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Sector and declared a State of Emergency for the WASH Sector.”
Federal government, he continued, “has made the conscious decision to open up opportunities in the Nigerian WASH sector to the international development community, to support our efforts through establishment of new partnerships in development cooperation and investments for the development of requisite skills, competences, technologies and financial systems.”
He said, “Our goal is to listen to you and learn from you on what we need do as a government to strengthen our existing partnerships and collaboration as well as build new international development cooperation and private sector relationships to enable us to achieve the SDG 6 in Nigeria.”
