‘Water Sanitation, Hygiene, Key To Sustainable Dev’

Some experts in the water and sanitation sector have described water sanitation and hygiene as key to sustainable development.
The experts who includes the General Manager of the Rivers State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), Mr. Napoleon Adah, said this  at a two-day baseline validation and investment planning meeting for establishment of comprehensive Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWS) Investment Plan Zone C, comprising Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Ebonyi, Enugu and Rivers States in Port Harcourt.
They noted that the sustainable development goal on water sanitation and hygiene is achievable if there is a commitment by all stakeholders to attain it.
Speaking, Napoleon Adah said the meeting was to validate the enumeration already carried out in the past with a view to finding out areas that can be amended and improved upon.
“Like I keep on preaching the gospels, water sanitation and hygiene is key.
“I keep telling people that prevention is better than cure and that prevention lies squarely on water and hygiene”.
“So what we are doing here is to validate the enumeration they made to really find out whether what they have on ground in areas we can make amend, so that is why we are here today”.
He said his agency, RUWASSA, has decided to improve on water sanitation and hygiene in the rural areas, adding that water sanitation and hygiene committees have been setup across the state to manage WASH facilities in the rural areas.
“Yes, we form what is call “WASH-COM” and WASH-COM means water sanitation and hygiene committee.
“They manage and operate all the facilities that are provided in various communities”, he said.
Also speaking, Professor Sunday Igboro of Team Work Global described investment plan for WASH as very simple, adding: “What we came here to do is to try to uphold the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) that says water should be accessable to every person, especially women and children in rural communities and then the Federal Government thought it wise that we should know what we have on ground in Rivers State in terms of WASH facilities in the state and in the rural part of the state”.
Igboro said the Federal Government is also interested in knowing whether there are WASH facilities in the state.

By: John Bibor & Oribim Ibama