ABUJA – A new report by WaterAid Nigeria, an international non-governmental working towards improved access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities, has revealed that two-thirds of 200 Primary Health Care facilities in the country lack access to adequate water while 20% lack access to toilets.
The report also shows that while majority of the Primary Health Care centres assessed had one form of water source or the other, only 27.6% of the PHCs met NPHCDA minimum standard of access to a motorised borehole.
Presenting the report to the media yesterday, WaterAid’s country representative, Michael Ojo, said there was no evidence that there is inequality in access to water by location. According to him, access to piped water into facilities was generally low across all locations while urban and semi-urban areas had more facilities with piped water in the facilities with 12% and 7.6% health facilities respectively.
Ojo noted that improving access to water and sanitation is going to take collective efforts and urged stakeholders to join the Federal Government in this regard.
“For us to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goal 6, we need every agencies to work together and support the Federal government’s plan to make it happen,”
He commended the Federal Government for its current efforts to improve access to health care facilities, water and sanitation in the country.
“We believe that it can be done. By 2030 everywhere and everyone in Nigeria will have access to water, sanitation and hygiene. We are working very hard to support government to deliver that ”
He disclosed that WaterAid is also looking at other things that affects nutrition and also how to prevent diseases which are still connected to lack of access to water.
“We are working with the Ministry of Health and other agencies to see how we can bring the programming together. We are going to be partnering with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) to address some of these findings ”
“As part of our world water day event, we had a round table with UNICEF and other agencies and we know that budget of the NPHCDA for 2017 has a line dedicated to WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene). We are happy to know that and begin to see that it will expand,” he said.
