Nigeria aligned WASH to national water priorities – Minister

The Minister of Water Resources, Engr. Sulieman Adamu has said the federal government commitments made in 2019 during the Sector Ministers Meeting (SMM) in Costa Rica, were aligned to National priorities for the WASH sector in Nigeria.

Adamu stated this while attending the 2022 Sector Ministers Meeting (SMM) organized by Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) in Jakarta Indonesia recently.

According to a statement by the Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Funmi Imuetinyan, Adamu also commended the Nigerian government and other stakeholders in the WASH sector for their commitments to increased access to water and sanitation across Nigeria.

According to him, the 2022 SMM with the theme ‘Building Forward Better for Recovery and Resilience’, is focused on the integration of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) approaches in addressing the negative impacts of climate change, COVID-19 and economic crises thrown up by the Russia-Ukraine war.

Engr Adamu also reported the progress on the commitments made by the 4 constituencies of the SWA in Nigeria – the government, Civil Societies, the Private Sector and development partners, as well as the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) at the global level under the Mutual Accountability Mechanism (MAM) process.

He also revealed that the three commitments made by the government includes Internalization of the National WASH Action Plan by Sub-national governments and operationalization of PEWASH programme by 2019; the operationalization of the communication strategy for Open Defecation Free Campaign by 2020; as well as the scale up of WASH Information Management System and the execution of WASHNORM Annual Survey respectively.

The Minister further noted that the commitments by Civil Societies, Private Sector and Development Partners were targeted at supporting the actualization of government commitments with specific support to the Ministry and focal States.

In another session on the role of political leadership in addressing the triple crises of health, climate and economy, Engr Adamu highlighted evidence-based advocacy, inter sectoral coordination and collaboration, as some of the strategies engaged by Nigeria to ensure the high level prioritization of WASH in the country.

He listed some of the initiatives in the sector such as the PEWASH programme, the Presidential launch of the National WASH Action Plan, the Clean Nigeria Campaign, and the signing of the Executive Order No.9 and ODF Pledge Card by the President, among others.

The SMM is expected to strengthen the existing Inter-sectoral collaboration among the line ministries towards achieving the SDGs at country and global levels.