Africa’s water situation grim: Schlettwein

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Namibia’s agriculture minister and president of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), Calle Schlettwein has said the continent is in a grim state when it comes to access to water and sanitation, calling for urgent action from leaders on the continent and development partners.

Schlettwein on Thursday while addressing the one day virtual high-level ministerial conference on water said although Africa has made progress, only a few countries have achieved the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG) target 6.1 and 6.2, which seek to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for all.

“In sub-Saharan Africa alone, over 400 million people still do not have access to basic water services. The situation is even more alarming for sanitation as over 767 million Africans do not have access to basic sanitation and hygiene services and over 250 million people still practice open defecation,” he stated.

Schlettwein noted that despite these challenges, financial flows to the water sector are not adequate as they have declined sharply from US.dollars 3.8 billion in 2000 to US.dollars 1.7 billion in 2017, adding that the current financial flows are but a fraction of the actual need and must be significantly enhanced without pushing already vulnerable economies into debt crises.

Schlettwein said the water sector is further challenged by climate change, inadequate policies and regulatory frameworks, weak coordination among actors, weak institutional and human resource capacity and weak monitoring, reporting and learning systems.

“The continent’s challenges remain steep and there is an urgent need for member states of the African Union and indeed the Global World to put in place the needed strategies and policies to accelerate progress towards achieving SDG 6 for all by 2030, but equally the required financial and technological resources.”

The high-level ministerial conference was an important opportunity to highlight the challenges Africa faces, but also bring to the table proposals of how better coordination and appropriately targeted financial resources have to be availed to accelerate action in the implementation of SDG 6, the minister said.

Source: Namibia Press Agency