The 2019 WASH NORM II Report launched on Tuesday by the Minister of Water Resources, Engr. Suleman Adamu has revealed that percentage of the population with access to basic water supply services has steadily increased from 68% in 2018 to 70% in 2019, which is about 9 million more people while, 44% of the population were found to have access to basic sanitation services in 2019 compared to the 42% in 2018.
The report also revealed that indicators across the country shows a slight improvement as 44% of the population were found to have access to basic sanitation services in 2019 compared to the 42% in 2018, about a third of all schools that is 33% have basic water supply services while only 26% of schools provide access to basic sanitation services, amongst others.
Adamu speaking during the launch of the report noted that the information and data in the WASH-NORM II Report are quite revealing, encouraging and instructive based in the following key findings:
“This is a National Survey being conducted annually by the Ministry in collaboration with National Bureau of Statistics, UNICEF and African Development Bank. The maiden survey (WASH-NORM I) took place in 2018 while the current survey (WASH-NORM II) covers 2019.”
The Minister also said that the survey was borne out of the need for comprehensive data on Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene for effective monitoring the progress our country is making towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals targets 6.1 and 6.2.
Engr. Adamu pointed out that the WASH-NORM II provides more statistics than the maiden edition due to enhanced scope and methodology.
“A cursory look at the report shows that a total of 331 WASH parameters were covered under WASH-NORM II in comparison to 271 in the WASH-NORM I”.
UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, Peter Hawkins said that “the results from this survey underline the urgent need to increase investments in sustaining and expanding access to hygiene, water and sanitation if we are to contain the spread of the CORONAVIRUS and other deadly diseases.
