eWASH

Professor Dapo Longe

Professor Ezechiel Oladapo Longe of the University of Lagos has been elected Chairman of the Technical Committee of the Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP/WA).

Dapo Longe is a Professor of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Lagos. He replaces Professor Lekan Oyebande, an emeritus professor of the same university.

Nigeria Integrated Water Resources Management Commission (NIWRMC), an agency under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources has been  elected into the Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP/WA) Steering Committee.

These are some of the key decisions of the Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP/WA) Assembly of Partners meeting held in Accra, Ghana last week.

The meeting attended by representatives of Country Water Partnerships (CWP) in the region deliberated on the 2016 – 2019 Strategy documents and the GWP / WA 2014 – 2016 Work Plan, ongoing initiatives in the region (Water climate and Development Project, Mekrou, Drought Management, Ground Water), presentation of the 2012 progress and financial reports, and presentation of the 2013 Work plan and budget.

The GWP was founded in 1996 by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to foster integrated water resource management (IWRM).

GWP West Africa has been working together with the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) to promote IWRM in the region and help countries and stakeholders operationalise its principles through broad and active partnerships. ECOWAS recently adopted a regional water policy which aims at contributing to poverty reduction and sustainable development, and which now needs to be internalised at national level for effective implementation.

The GWP is contributing to that process through its 12 Country Water Partnerships created as multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral neutral platforms for dialogue supporting national policy development.

Health experts representing government, multilateral and bilateral organizations, civil society, youth and the private sector will soon meet in Lagos to address the unique needs of children living with Cerebral Palsy in Nigeria.

Children living with Cerebral Pals like other disabled, require special water supply and sanitation needs and the  meeting, which is scheduled to hold from April 11-12, 2013, is expected to come up with an action plan to strengthen the system of health care delivery for such special children and adolescents in the country.

Some of those expected at the Roundtable include Professor I. J. Ihenacho, Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Jos, Dr. Saad Tajudeen, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Kaduna Polytechnic, Mrs Josephine Nwabueze, Department of Special Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Dr. Ikani Egaga, Department of Special Education, University of Calabar, Mrs Olasimbo Oyekoya, Department of Physiotherapy, Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, Mrs Grace A Ademola – Sokoya, Department of Speech Pathology, Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos and Mr Akinola Olabisi, Centre for Learning Disabilities and Audiology, Abuja

In a statement released Friday, the founder of Benola: A cerebral Palsy Initiative, AVM Femi Gbadebo said the organization is facilitating the “Roundtable” to help improve the lot of special children and their families.

“We want to identify those geographical areas with limited medical resources and perceived unmet needs. Thereafter, we plan to use the information to provide guidance for new service programmes and also establish an agenda for action”.

WaterAid (http://www.wateraid.org)  has called on the Nigerian government to support the ambitious target of providing access to water, sanitation and hygiene for all Africans by 2030.

The call comes as hundreds of Nigerians took part in a Walk for Water to mark in Abuja yesterday to mark this year’s World Water Day

According to Nelson Gomonda, WaterAid Pan-Africa Programme Manager said: “330 million Africans today live without access to clean water, so the road to travel is long, but we can for the first time see the end in sight.  With more than 1,000 African children under the age of five dying every day from diseases brought about from a lack of water and sanitation, Africans will not accept failure. We have to reach this target.”

Currently in Sub-Sahara Africa, 334 million people (39% of the population) lack access to clean drinking water, while under 600 million (70%) lack access to sanitation(5).

 To tackle this problem now, WaterAid is calling on international leaders to:

1.         Recognise the need for the framework that replaces the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 to reflect the contribution of water, sanitation and hygiene to other areas of poverty reduction, including health, education, gender equality, economic growth and sustainability.

2.         For the UN to set a new global target to achieve universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030.

3.         Identify ways of accelerating future rates of progress on sanitation if the goal of universal access is to be met by 2030.

Efforts to improve access to safe drinking water supply and sanitation services for Africa’s rural communities will be given a fillip next week, when the African Development Bank (AFDB) launches a new initiative to facilitate improved coordination and sector learning among partners and Stakeholders towards the achievement of the Bank’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative (RWSSI).

Access to water supply and sanitation in rural areas in Africa is 54% and 30.7%, respectively as of 2010, but these figures are far below the MDG targets of 70% for water supply, and 62% for sanitation. Only about 16 countries in Africa are on target to meet the MDGs for water while less than 10 are likely to meet the sanitation targets.

The AFDB event called the ‘Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative’s  Regional Coordination Committee (RCC)’, will hold on March 26 and 27 at the Tunis head quarters of the Bank.

A statement by the AFDB says the launch will be attended by 150 – 200 experts representing all countries in Africa, as well as RWSSI stakeholders.

The Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative (RWSSI), a joint programme coordinated by the AfDB but financed by many donors, other partners and Regional Member Countries (RMCs), was first launched in 2003 by the African Development Bank with an overall goal of achieving universal access to water supply and sanitation services for the rural populations by 2025 with an intermediate target of 80% coverage by 2015 in a sustainable way.

The Initiative seeks to help mobilize as well as facilitate the flow of available and potential resources to accelerate investment in Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) in Africa, with goal to reach 80 percent coverage by the year 2015. The Initiative supports the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the reduction of poverty.

RWSSI was adopted in 2005 by AfDB’s main international development partners and African governments as a common framework, at the first International Conference on the RWSSI held in Paris April 1st, 2005.

The focus areas of the RWSSI include water supply, sanitation, hygiene, sector policy and strategy, capacity building and funds mobilization for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation sub-sector; and the Initiative targets about 280 million people living in rural Africa with access to new and rehabilitated water supply and sanitation (WSS) facilities.

According to an Internal Assessment of the AfDB’s water supply and sanitation initiative, “28 RWSS programs in 22 African countries have been approved, of which 16 have started to deliver water and provide sanitation services. The additional people served with access to water supply through the RWSS program rose from 1.15 million people at the end of 2007, to 32.63 million people at the end of 2010, while for sanitation it increased from 0.58 million to 20.09 million people, over the same period”

The overall objective of next week’s meeting in Tunis is to launch the platform that will facilitate improved coordination and sector learning among Partners and Stakeholders towards the achievement of RWSSI’s goals and targets.

The specific objectives of the meeting are: appraising stakeholders on RWSSI progress, achievements, challenges and plans leading to 2015. This will also include a discussion on some of the key issues affecting sector progress (sector monitoring and performance reporting; sub-sector financing; sustainability; sector coordination) and how Africa should address them; sharing country and field experiences in co-ordination to inform the way forward for RWSSI;  obtaining partner and stakeholder inputs towards identifying opportunities and addressing co-ordination challenges to achieve Africa’s rural water supply and sanitation targets; reviewing the draft terms of reference and membership of the RCC, and proposing undertakings for the first year (including modalities for their achievement); and, launching the RCC.

The meeting is expected to result in an enhanced understanding of the role, impact and contribution of RWSSI towards the achievement of Africa’s water and sanitation targets in rural and small town communities; greater awareness of key issues affecting sector progress and that are central to the mandate of the RCC.

These include sector performance monitoring and reporting, resource mobilization and sustainability of rural water supply and sanitation services, national level coordination, etc. climate change and adaptation, and how the RWSSI and the region is/should be addressing them;  and a better understanding of the need for co-ordination and a commitment to enhance this at regional and national levels.

Several stakeholders groups are planning to walk for water tomorrow in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city as the world marks this year’s World Water Day. They will be walking from the UNESCO office (near the Federal Secretariat buildings on Shehu Shagari Way) to the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) premises in Area 11, Garki,  Abuja.

The groups- WaterAid in Nigeria, the Water and Sanitation Media Network, the Youth WASH Network are partnering with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to call for urgent action to tackle Nigeria’s water and sanitation crisis, where only about half of the estimated 170 million people have access to safe drinking water, about 130,000 under five children die annually from preventable water related diseases and another 35 million people still defecate in the open.

About 1000 people comprising Youths, People with Disabilities, Youth Corpers, Civil Society Groups, Journalists, Civil Servants, are expected to participate in the ‘Walk for Water’

As part of the event, the activists will also get people to sign a petition calling on the Nigerian government to ‘Keep Your Promises’ on leveraging financial resources to develop the water and sanitation sector.

A round table discussion and exhibition on the World Water Day will also hold at the International Conference Centre, this Friday by 10am.

The World Water Day is celebrated annually to focus attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. This year’s event is dedicated to the theme of cooperation around water.

Presentations made at the Presidential Water Summit held February 18-19, 2013 are now available for download in the link below:

http://www.presidentialwatersummit2013.com.ng/index.php/downloads/presentations

Bauchi State and the USAID have signed s a cooperative development partnership which commits  the Bauchi State Government to making a 5% counterpart contribution for water sector reform project  supported by USAID/SUWASA in the state.

Governor  Mallam Isa Yuguda  signed on behalf of the state, and the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Terence McCulley, signed for USAID, – the United States Aid agency helping the urban areas of Bauchi state to restructure its water board to increase access to water and sanitation services.

A new draft Water Policy, which brings Bauchi in alignment with the Federal Government’s policy, was passed in 2011, while sector stakeholders have approved a new institutional framework which changes the name of the utility to the Bauchi State Water and Sewerage Corporation and introduces reforms to improve performance and increase access to water and sanitation services.

 Bauchi State Water Board (BSWB) with the support of USAID/Sustainable Water and Sanitation in Africa (SUWASA)  has conducted a customer database eneumeration exercise that has discovered 23,000 customers not listed  in the utility’s record for Bauchi town.

The exercise has revealed that the number of illegal connections is far much more than the registered ones and as such BSWB is not collecting payments for the service it delivers to most consumers.

Almost 40,000 customers were enumerated under the customer database enumeration exercise in Bauchi town, as against 17,000 in the utility’s records.

The General Manager of the Water Board Engineer Aminu Aliyu Gital says, ” the customer database ‘will eventually enable the Board to be autonomous, and ease the financial burden of the state government. The Water Board’s billing efficiency has been extremely low because most customers in its old database could not be reached or identified, so bills produced were wasted. But with the new database, bills will be produced more accurately and delivered to the precise locations of their owners, making follow-up easier”

The coding system – uses the satellite imagery of the town,  a specially designed enumeration form and a computer program developed in Microsoft Access. This is particularly suited to Bauchi municipalities, where houses are not numbered and most streets are not officially named.

According to Engineer Aminu Aliyu Gital, the data from this exercise is also expected to assist in the planning for future expansion of the pipe network so as to reach more residents in the State’s urban areas and will facilitate specific queries targeted at addressing particular requirements essential for planning:

“With an updated customer database, the Water Board will increase its revenue, regularize illegal connections, and ultimately, achieve autonomy in delivering sustainable services.The exercise is significant at this stage of transition of the Water Board from a public utility that is fully dependent on government subsidy for its capital and operational costs, to a corporation that has full autonomy, and operates based on commercial principles.BSWB staff will be trained on how to carry out the exercise to ensure an enduring system of updating the customer database is firmly in place.”

Water sector practitioners in Nigeria have advocated for allocation of at least 5% of annual budgets of both the Federal Government and the States for the development of the water sector through a “Water Emergency Fund”.  They also called for a provision of appropriate penalties to the relevant authorities where there is default in usage and full Monitoring to guarantee deployment to the Water Sector.

This is the highlight of the communiqué of the Presidential Summit on funding the Water Sector held in Abuja, 18 and 19 February 2013. It was just released  via an email sent by Engineer Benson Ajisegiri, Secretary of the Local Organizing Committee of the Presidential Summit

Other recommendations contained in the communiqué are:

1. Adoption of a viable instrument such as the Water Investment, Mobilization and Application Guideline (WIMAG), to: attract funding, administer, and improve coordination of actors within the sector; and roll-out the principle of co-operative funding as stipulated in the National Water Supply and Sanitation (NWSS) Policy.
2. Organization of a meeting between the Federal Government and Governors’ Forum to articulate and adopt a collective and mutually acceptable solution to the various sectoral challenges, which would also include cost-sharing.
3. Adoption of the UBEC, MDGs and Basket-Funding models for co-operative funding to improve efficiency and effectiveness in resource application.
4. Holding a Joint Sector Review of the sector to: track funds invested, ensure transparency, and to serve as an incentive for collaboration between the government, private sector and development partners.
5. Collaborate at the regional and sub-regional levels on adaptation and mitigation strategies in the context of climate change should be carried out as a matter of importance.
6. The development and adoption of an Integrated Water Resources Management Plan.
7. Endorsement of the draft Nigeria Water Resources Management Commission ( NIWRMC) Bill passed in2011 by the National Assembly to ensure effective regulation of the sector
8. Greater coordination of donor funding and activities in the water sector.

Press statement

SOCIETY FOR WATER AND SANITAION (NEWSAN) And Water and Sanitation Media Network

THE WATER LED CRISIS AT NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY, KEFFI

1. The Society for Water and Sanitation (NEWSAN) and Water and Sanitation Media Network (WASH Media Network) condemns the avoidable loss of lives at Nasarawa State University, Keffi, last week, where an acute shortage of drinking water in the university led to a crisis that resulted in the death of some undergraduates.

2. NEWSAN and the WASH Media Network believe this tragic occurrence would have been avoided if the students had access to safe water supplies within the campus.

3. The authorities of Nasarawa State University, Keffi, and the Nassarawa State Government should therefore accept full responsibility for this loss of innocent lives and ensure the families of the victims are adequately compensated with a least N10m each.

4. NEWSAN and the WASH Media Network notes deplorable tate of water and sanitation facilities in almost all tertiary institutions in Nigeria as students bath and defecate in the open.

5. We therefore call on the Federal and State Ministries of Education and all authorises of higher educational institutions in Nigeria to ensure there is adequate access to safe water and sanitation services on campuses, as a step towards making them conducive for learning.

6. The Federal Government should declare a state of emergency in the water and sanitation sector, and implement its commitments made at various high level meetings to increase access to safe water and sanitation services for Nigerians.

Babatope Babalobi,
Chair, Water and Sanitation Media Network
08035897435

Leo Atakpu,
National Coordinator, NEWSAN
08039718335

March 2, 2013