Many Nigerians may not be aware that the federal government, through the Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) programme, would make infrastructure investments and drive reform in five major areas under its National Action Plan (NAP).
Over a planned six-year period effective from January this year, the key reforms include governance and services provision in access to water sanitation services including construction and rehabilitation of WASH infrastructure.
The key areas are governance,sustainability, sanitation funding and financing, and monitoring and evaluation that will serve as government overall strategy and vehicle for investment and sector reform.
SURWASH programme was conceived and designed by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, in partnership with the World Bank, to support the implementation of NAP in November 2018.
It is an ambitious $700 million programme that will provide protection of human health and support economic growth in short and long term sustainable, inclusive economic recovery that improve livelihood of the poor and vulnerable.
The programme also consists of financing and utilizing a $640m Programme-for-Result (PforR) component, and a $60m IPF component that will be used to facilitate technical assistance for states and some selected implementing institutions to address critical institutional development and identify capacity gaps.
The PForR is an investment financing which is the first of its kind in Nigeria’s water sector, component of the programme is basically for infrastructure development and delivery of the actual reform activities that would apply to the results.
These results include providing basic drinking water to 6.1 million people out of which half are expected to be women, access improved sanitation to 1.4 million people, provide water supply, sanitation and hand washing to 2,000 schools and health facilities, and supporting at least 500 communities to achieve and maintain community wide open defecation free plus (ODF+) status.
We should all commend and support this laudable initiative.
Engr. Usman A. Aliyu, is the SURWASH Prog. Coordinator, Gombe state
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