Lack of operation,maintenance practices costing Nigeria 25% of WASH investment, says UNICEF

Business a.m

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has expressed concerns over the loss of approximately 25 per cent of annual investments in Nigeria’s water and sanitation sector. 

According to UNICEF, the lack of adequate operation and maintenance, combined with infrastructural dysfunction, is the main cause of the setback in the sector. This was highlighted at the Nigeria/UNICEF Annual WASH review meeting in Abuja, which brought together stakeholders from the public and private sectors to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector in Nigeria. 

In her remarks, Jane Bevan, UNICEF’s chief of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene , expressed concern over the alarming trend identified through a critical analysis of the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene National Outcome Routine Monitoring (WASHNORM) and the Sector Wide Sustainability Checks (SWSC). 

WASHNORM is a national monitoring system used to track progress on water, sanitation, and hygiene service delivery. SWSC is a tool used to assess the sustainability of WASH interventions in Nigeria.

UNICEF’s WASH Programme Priorities for 2023 to 2027 are focused on addressing the key challenges in the sector and advancing progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The priorities include strengthening WASH sector financing, ensuring the sustainability of infrastructure and services, enhancing capacity-building efforts, and creating an enabling environment for WASH in institutions, with a particular emphasis on schools. Additionally, the programme prioritises ending open defecation through the Clean Nigeria Campaign and addressing climate resilience in WASH efforts.

Bevan emphasised the need for collaboration between different sectors to fund WASH initiatives in schools and primary healthcare centers. She also enjoined the ministries of education, health, and water and sanitation to work together to prioritise WASH funding and ensure that every child has access to a healthy learning environment. 

UNICEF’s strategies for achieving sustainable WASH include building the capacity of WASH sector institutions, creating a conducive policy environment for WASH, developing scalable operation and maintenance models, implementing standardized policies and guidelines, and improving partnerships with the private sector. These strategies are designed to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which aims to ensure universal access to clean water and sanitation by 2030.

Olabode Fashoyi, Deputy Director of WASH Collaboration and Partnerships at the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, highlighted some of the achievements in 2023, including the establishment of WASH departments in new local government areas across the country and the training of 1,000 WASH committees to promote community awareness.

For 2024, UNICEF and its partners, stated that they are planning a range of initiatives to further advance WASH in Nigeria. These include launching a water facility operation and maintenance strategy in selected states, implementing new guidelines for drinking water monitoring, and supporting the establishment of more WASH departments in local government areas.

Chizoma Opara, national coordinator of the Clean Nigeria, Use the Toilet Campaign Programme, emphasised the need for states to redouble their efforts to meet the 2025 target for Open Defecation Free (ODF) status. While some states have made progress, Opara noted that operational funding is crucial for effective monitoring and evaluation. She urged states to increase their investment in sanitation facilities and hygiene education programs to ensure a sustainable ODF environment.