Nigeria, Others To Access $5m Sanitation Grant

Nigeria is among the African countries to access the five-million-dollar grant to support sanitation and hygiene activities in their countries, a source from the National Task Group on Sanitation (NTGS) has said.

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) based in Geneva had raised 60 million dollars to promote hygiene, raise awareness, as well as create demand for sanitation activities in developing countries.

The source who pleaded anonymity told newsmen on Sunday in Abuja that the grant was to support sanitation activities for a period of five years.

He said that the visit of Mr Barry Jackson, the Programme Manager of Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) of WSSCC, to Nigeria early this year was to ascertain the country’s readiness to access the fund.

The source explained that the purpose of GSF was to support national effort to help larger number of poor people to acquire basic sanitation and adopt best hygiene practices.

“The fund only operates in countries where it has the explicit approval and welcome of the national government.

“It works by pooling financial contribution from donor government and other sources in a global trust fund and then distributes funds in selected countries through an executing agency of the NTGS which will manage the process’’ he said.

According to him, Nigeria is making progress in accessing the fund as it has just completed a sectoral review and sanitation gap analysis, done by an independent consultant.

He said Nigeria had moved to a process of developing the country proposal to accessing the fund, adding that two consultants had been contacted to develop it.

“The two consultants are Mr Yemi Adeleye and Dr (Mrs) Comfort Olayiwole and they have started working, hopefully we should be able to access the fund by the end of the year, if there is no delay.

“The grant will be used to support the implementation of national water and sanitation policy, organising roundtable conferences and media charts.

“A mid-term review will be done to evaluate the success of the programme.

“We expect that the fund will be used for the promotion, development of sanitation and hygiene work, on the software components.

“Rather than paying for the construction of toilets, it is better for households to be motivated to construct their toilets,” the source said.

Meanwhile, four countries in Africa and three from Asia are to benefit in the first round while Nigeria tops the list of second round beneficiaries.