IMPROVING ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER AS A MEANS OF ACTUALIZING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Improving access to Water, Hygiene, and Sanitation (WASH) is important to the actualisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially in areas such as eradicating hunger, promoting gender equity, health, and education for all as well as sustainability.

Poor access to safe drinking water has been a lingering issue of public health emergency in Nigeria with experts calling for urgent policies and actions on prioritising investment in WASH projects.

Without improved access to safe Water, Hygiene, and Sanitation curbing water-borne diseases, malnutrition, and stunting would be extremely difficult.

Poor sanitation is linked to the transmission of diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera and dysentery, as well as typhoid, intestinal worm infections, and polio. Experts have endorsed access to water and hygiene as a human right.

Despite the role of hand hygiene in preventing the spread of epidemics, millions of people from many African countries, including Nigerians, mainly hundreds of thousands of school-going children, do not have access to handwashing facilities with soap. People living in rural areas, urban slums, disaster-prone areas, and low-income countries are the most vulnerable and the most affected.

Research has shown that improved access to safe water and hygiene has a strong impact on the health indices of any country. Also, the overall healthcare indicators could be adversely affected on some levels without improved access to WASH. The health indicators include diarrhea, nutrition, complementary food hygiene, female psychosocial stress, and violence, maternal and newborn health. Others are menstrual hygiene management, school attendance, oral vaccine performance, and waterborne as well as neglected tropical diseases.

World Health Organisation (WHO) recognises access to Safe Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) services as an essential precaution to protect human health from the onslaught of emerging diseases, epidemics, and pandemics like COVID-19.

Similarly, studies show that improved WASH can address the water crisis, a critical age-long problem in many African countries such as Nigeria.

Girls, women, and children are the most vulnerable, and affected burdened by the scarcity of clean drinking water. In most African societies, women are the collectors, managers, and guardians of water, which they share with their children, especially the girls. The trend promotes school absenteeism, increasing school drop out among girls.

Despite the emergence of boreholes, which have replaced pipe-borne water in many parts of the country, the situation is not getting better today especially in some rural parts of the country.

Many citizens at both urban and rural community levels hardly have access to safe drinking water, hygienic toilets, and soap, despite boreholes’ availability mainly dug through private efforts. Even when they have access to clean water and soap, many children forget to wash their hands, despite regular demonstrations and monitoring.

WASH aligns together several interventions that often affect a wide range of direct outcomes beyond just health. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF) clean water, basic toilets, and good hygiene practices are essential for the survival and development of children.

Poor access to improved water and sanitation in Nigeria remains a major contributing factor to high morbidity and mortality rates among children under five. The use of contaminated drinking water and poor sanitary conditions result in increased vulnerability to water-borne diseases, including diarrhoea, which leads to the death of children.

A larger percentage of the diarrhoeal and enteric disease burden is associated with poor access to adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and is disproportionately borne by poorer children.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “Frequent episodes of WASH-related ill-health in children, contribute to absenteeism in school, and malnutrition. Only little percent of the population uses improved drinking water sources and sanitation facilities. Also, 23.5 percent of the population defecate in the open.”

To address the WASH crisis in the country, the Federal Government of Nigeria launched the National Action Plan for the Revitalisation of the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sector and declared a State of Emergency in the WASH sector in 2018. The National Action Plan is a three-phase plan to revitalise the WASH sector comprising: an 18-month emergency plan; a 5-year recovery programme and a 13-year revitalisation strategy.

The National Action Plan comprises five interrelated components: Governance, Sustainability, Sanitation, Funding and Financing, and Monitoring and Evaluation. In addition to the National Action Plan, a national sanitation campaign tagged ‘Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilets’ was launched to address the sanitation crisis and deliver an open defecation-free Nigeria by 2025.

Prioritising actions that enhance healthcare system capacities to promote safe WASH and fulfill its public health oversight role, including implementing effective outbreak response systems, is of utmost importance.