WATER DEPARTMENT NEEDS HELP

THE challenge of lack of water and proper toilets experienced by many communities, especially the poor, is a key area of need that requires investment to obviate the burden of diseases and life threatening illnesses.

Lack of water and proper sanitation amenities is a problem that besets mainly communities on the periphery of the economy, those that daily face an unenviable choice of using their meagre resources either to put something to eat on the table or build themselves decent toilet facilities.

Therefore, there is a need for implementing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, the aim of which is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

And, business and civil society should tackle issues that affect communities and hamper their social and economic development.

The financing of water and sanitation infrastructure still predominantly comes from public sources. However, this is inadequate and thus requires financing from different sources, including the private sector.

We cannot take away the importance of government, but the role of the private sector needs to be intensified as public finances become more strained as competing responsibilities increase, placing a burden on infrastructure projects.

The correct framework conditions, including good governance and a strong enabling environment for private sector participation, will provide more funding for water and sanitation infrastructure in the future.

In this regard, everyone should focus on championing the SDG 6 to ensure it is realised. The SDG 6 must be elevated to a point where all partners can work together to devise ways to implement it.

Despite being constrained by limited resources, the Department of Water and Sanitation has made reasonably significant strides to progressively realise the right to access to water and sanitation.

Since 1994, the department has improved water and sanitation services, putting up infrastructure for people to lead healthy lives. But it is acutely aware of the significant number of communities that are still without any water and sanitation.

Thus, the annual World Toilet Day on November 19, marked throughout the month, raises the importance of access to toilet facilities as a core constitutional right.

The role of this important amenity has been trivialised to an extent that it is considered of least importance. The reaction of shock by the public at World Toilet Day is an indication of how inconsequential it is thought to be. We have become so accustomed to it that we have begun to take it for granted. Yet lack of this facility has a detrimental impact on the lives of so many people. Recognition of the need for this amenity prompted the UN to designate November 19 as the day to mark the importance and need to provide toilets.

Having access to a toilet could easily engender a sense that those who still do not enjoy this right and hence make a noise about accessing it are an irritation. But those in need of it are seriously affected and their lives a daily struggle.

The department stresses the incontrovertible fundamental rights to restore human dignity by providing access to water and sanitation services to communities.

Failure to deal with challenges in the water and sanitation sector in a decisive manner would erode other achievements. This is so because providing houses without the basic needs that go with it to restore human dignity amounts to nothing.

Thus, providing basic necessities – water and sanitation – will concretely give effect to the constitutional value of human dignity.