Stakeholders in the water sector on Tuesday called for full implementation of the N85 billion earmarked for the Federal Ministry of Water Resources in 2017 budget.
They told The Tide source in Abuja that doing this would go a long way in ensuring that the country meets its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets by 2030.
The stakeholders  added that it would also improve access to water and sanitation for all.
Mr Oseloka Zikora, Outgoing Programmes Coordinator, Africa Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW), said there was the need for increasing funding for the water and sanitation sector.
According to him, investing in this sector will have a ripple effect on other sectors, which would lead to overall development.
“Increasing funding for water resources development would have a value adding impact on all other sectors such as health, reduction in water borne diseases, availability of water and sanitation facilities would improve school enrollment.
“We also believe that when you invest in water resources development, it would have multiplier effect on energy, because when you build multipurpose dam, you are able to get energy resource from that,” he said.
Zikora, who is also the Chairman, Governing Board, Federal Polytechnic Offa, said this would also promote irrigation and agriculture towards increasing food production and job opportunity for teeming unemployed youths.
Mr Victor Olaomi, Coordinator, Alliance for Hygiene Promotion, said the total amount for the sector was great, saying emphasis should be placed on projects that would touch the lives of people, especially in rural areas.
He said: “we really commend the Federal Government for the increase, if you look at what we have now and in previous years, you would see that there is improvement.
“It is commendable, but there is a lot more that can be done, we call for more capital projects that will have direct impact on the people.
“We call for projects that will directly benefit the people in terms of water supply, sanitation and hygiene, and not just building infrastructure alone.”
Olaomi said transforming the lives of Nigerians, especially in rural areas, would have direct impact on how inclusive development could be for the nation.
He urged state governments to take a cue from what the Federal Government was doing in terms improving their own budgets for water, saying transforming lives happen mostly at the state and local government levels.
He said access to water supply and sanitation was the first step to overcoming poverty, saying that there was the need for stakeholders to consciously prioritise water supply. He also called for effective measures to ensure that capital projects were completed; stressing that there should be an end to abandoned projects.
Ms Priscilla Achakpa, the National Coordinator, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) Nigeria, bemoaned the low priority given to the sanitation sector, as the bulk of the money was for Integrated Water Resource Management and River Basins.
The coordinator, who commended the increase in budget to the water sector, however, lamented that the issues of sanitation and hygiene had not been getting the desired governments’ attention.
Achakpa then stressed the need to scale-up funding to sanitation, hygiene and gender, noting that NGOs also needed to scale up awareness for government to realise the importance of funding the sector.