Upgrading provision of water, sanitation and hygiene
The provision of potable water supply and sanitation is the responsibility of all the three tiers of government in Nigeria. Thus, the direct involvement of the government in this regard, the revitalisation of Nigeria’s water supply, sanitation and hygiene WASH sector, through the recent inauguration of the federal steering committee of the Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) programme.
In 2020, the SURWASH programme was approved by the World Bank as a six-year $700 million programme, conceptualised to improve Nigeria’s WASH situation through the support for the five thematic areas of the Nation Action Plan (NAP), launched in 2018, which are governance, sustainability, sanitation, funding & financing and monitoring & evaluation that serve as government’s overall strategy and vehicle for investment and sector reforms.
While congratulating the seven states that are to benefit in this instance, Gombe, Delta, Ekiti, Imo, Katsina, Kaduna and Plateau States, for which already a federal steering committee has been inaugurated in Abuja, there is the hope that more states will be part of the SURWASH programme in the future.
The programme, as the Minister of Water Resources, has said, consists of a hybrid approach to financing by utilising a $640m Programme-for-Result (PforR) component, and a $60m investment financing instrument that will be used to facilitate technical assistance for states and selected implementing institutions to address critical institutional development.
The programme would be applied to provide basic drinking water to 6.1 million people, access to improved sanitation to 1.4 million people, provide water supply, sanitation and handwashing to 2,000 schools and health facilities, and support at least 500 communities to achieve and maintain community wide open defecation free plus status.
The SURWASH programme was designed to ensure our assets and services for WASH are sustainably managed and accessible to all Nigerians, achievable by 2030, and to meet the SDG targets 6.1 & 6.2 for water and sanitation.
SURWASH programme is the culmination of the collective and relentless drive of the Federal Ministry of Resources which began in 2019 with a view to supporting the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) for the revitalisation of Nigeria’s WASH sector that was approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2018, launched by President Muhammadu Buhari as he declared a state of emergency in the WASH sector.
Engr. Usman A. Aliyu,
Coordinator, Gombe state
is the SURWASH Prog.