The Honourable Minister of Water Resources Engr. Suleiman H. Adamu on Tuesday in Abuja officially launched the 2019 Wash Norm II Report.
This was contained in a release made available to our newsman by the Director Information of the Ministry, Kenechukwu Office.
According to the release, this is a National Survey being conducted annually by the Ministry in collaboration with National Bureau of Statistics, UNICEF and African Development Bank and serves as the maiden survey (WASH-NORM I) which took place in 2018 while the current survey (WASH-NORM II) covers 2019.
The Minister in the release, said that the survey was borne out of the need for comprehensive data on Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene for effective monitoring the progress our country is making towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals targets 6.1 and 6.2.
Adamu pointed out that the WASH-NORM II provides more statistics than the maiden edition due to enhanced scope and methodology. “A cursory look at the report shows that a total of 331 WASH parameters were covered under WASH-NORM II in comparison to 271 in the WASH-NORM I”. This was as a result of modifications made which include: National Water Quality Assessments, Household WASH expenditure Tracking and Urban Water Utilities Mapping thereby further growing the stock of WASH data and information available in the sector.
The Minister noted that the information and data in the WASH-NORM II Report are quite revealing, encouraging and instructive based in the following key findings: The percentage of the population with access to basic water supply services has steadily increased from 68% in 2018 to 70% in 2019, about 9 million more people gaining access to basic water supply services between 2018 and 2019, 44% of the population were found to have access to basic sanitation services in 2019 compared to the 42% in 2018, indicators across the country shows a slight improvement as 44% of the population were found to have access to basic sanitation services in 2019 compared to the 42% in 2018, about a third of all schools (33%) have basic water supply services while only 26% of schools provide access to basic sanitation services, amongst others.
In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, Adamu said that gaps in handwashing should immediately be seen as a major public health issue. To this end, stronger high-level commitments with policy initiatives based on evidence-informed interventions to close the gaps in access to WASH services are needed. Some key policy initiatives have already been enacted at the national level, including the Partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (PEWASH) programme, Open Defecation Free (ODF) roadmap with the Clean Nigeria, Use Toilet Campaign and National Action Plan for Revitalization of the WASH sector. He therefore called on State and Local Governments beef up efforts in domesticating national programmes with strong commitments backed by adequate budgets for rapid turnaround in the sector.
The Minister thereafter note ably said that Nigeria is clearly in the right direction due to the opportunity presented by the NORM survey in tracking WASH critical indicators. In order to ensure real-time and seamless flow of WASH data, the innovative NORM dashboard and NORM intervention Profiling Tool are now available at www.washims.gov.ng with associated factsheet that clearly captures the WASH situation at subnational levels.
He expressed his optimism that this is a legacy that he hoped would be bequeathed to the new generation of WASH Implementers at all levels and Tiers of Government.
UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, Peter Hawkins said that “the results from this survey underline the urgent need to increase investments in sustaining and expanding access to hygiene, water and sanitation if we are to contain the spread of the CORONAVIRUS and other deadly diseases. This should include partnership with the private sector, communities and with young people. The results also provide us with a critical roadmap on exactly where we need to put our resources.
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