Seventy-eight million children in Nigeria are exposed to a three-fold water related crisis, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.
Jane Bevan, UNICEF’s chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), revealed the country’s stark safe water situation in a statement on Monday.
– A key point to note
“78 million children in Nigeria are at the highest risk from a convergence of three water-related threats – inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); related diseases; and climate hazards – according to a new UNICEF analysis,” the statement said.
The notice comes ahead of the 2023 UN water conference.
The statement said Nigeria had failed to provide access to safe water and hygiene to a segment of the population, and up to two-thirds of children cannot access sanitation services.
“In Nigeria, one-third of children do not have access to at least basic water at home, and two-thirds do not have basic sanitation services. Hand hygiene is also limited, with three-quarters of children unable to wash their hands due to lack of water and soap at home,” it said.
“Nigeria is one of the 10 countries that carry the heaviest burden of child deaths from diseases caused by inadequate WASH, such as diarrhoeal diseases.
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The statement is an indictment on Nigeria’s federal and state governments and highlight their failure to provide clean and safe water to citizens.
The country awards billions of naira annually to its water agencies at all levels of government but not much has changed as most citizens rely on untreated water sources such as borehole for drinking and washing. Last year, UNICEF said in a report that the search for water in Nigeria kept girls out of school.
The UN statement said that groundwater levels in the country are dropping, requiring some communities to dig wells twice as deep as just a decade ago.
“At the same time, rainfall has become more erratic and intense, leading to floods that contaminate scarce water supplies,” it said.
“I believe we need to rapidly scale-up investment in the sector, including from global climate financing, strengthen climate resilience in the WASH sector and communities, increase effective and accountable systems, coordination, and capacities to provide water and sanitation services, and implement the UN-Water SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework.”
The UNICEF chief said at the current pace of investment it will take 16 years to achieve access to safe water for all in Nigeria.
“Investing in climate-resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene services is not only a matter of protecting children’s health today, but also ensuring a sustainable future for generations to come,” she said.
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