Nigerian Environment Weekly

FG, Cross Rivers government tasked on WASH policy, counterpart funding

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Purpose and other stakeholders in water and sanitation projects in Cross River State have appealed to the state government to provide the twenty five percent counterpart fund expected to enable communities benefit from Water, Sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programmes in the state.

They said the government has not done enough in closing the gaps and feared that the people stands to lose if urgent steps are not taken.

The call was contained in a communiqué jointly signed by relevant stakeholders in Calabar during a one- day engagement with the state’s WASH Steering Committee on Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Reform Programme (WSSSRP) II status.

In the communiqué, the stakeholders called on the state government to establish WASH department in the state.

Speaking earlier, the Director General, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency, (RUWATSSA), Ita Ikpeme, said the state government could not raise the counterpart fund to support donor agencies in WASH projects because of the state’s financial situation.

He noted that Governor Ben Ayade has been passionate about providing water and sanitation to communities in all the local government areas, hence his promise to commit $15million to WASH projects despite lean resource.

Meanwhile, a university lecturer, Emmanuel Akpabio, has called on the federal government to formulate a coherent policy for water sanitation and hygiene. He observed that, the lack of such policy has hampered government’s effort to sustain improved WASH performance.

Akpabio who lectures at the University of Uyo made the call during a one day public engagement on a European Union project aimed at improving the capacities of policy makers, scientists and relevant stakeholders for achieving evidence-based policies in WASH held in Uyo.

He noted that roughly 42 percent of the urban and semi urban populations are estimated to have access to safe drinking water as compared with about 29 percent of the rural dwellers.

He said the present ad-hoc arrangement was not good enough, adding that, the entire government system has to be reformed to pave way for innovation and smart ways of project implementation.

He noted that the task of securing access to safe drinking water and sanitary services is transferred to the ordinary citizens who have to depend on all forms of unimproved sources mostly dictated by economic, social and environmental circumstances as well as religious and cultural beliefs”.

He further explained that unsafe drinking water; inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene are a major challenge in developing countries with dire consequences of avoidable deaths and diseases.

“WASH has diverse dimension, water (quantity and quality). It is associated with the transmission of water-washed, water borne, water –based and water related disease arising from inadequate supply, poor quality, hosts to aquatic invertebrates and the spread of diseases agents respectively. The sources of water we drink, the storage medium and the way we manage water are fundamental. Sanitation and hygiene carry several elements including personal hygiene, domestic and environmental cleanliness, waste disposal, hand washing, food hygiene, menstrual hygiene, child, safe disposal of human excrement and control of waste water”, he said.

Akpabio bemoaned the impact of water, sanitation, hygiene and public health on children and woman who spend so much of their time and energy to secure water for drinking at the expense of engaging in other productive/study activities.

According to him, a child carry the main responsibility for collecting water with girls under 15 years of age being twice as likely to carry the responsibility as boys’ under15 years pointing out that in Africa, 90 percent of the work of gathering water for the household and for food preparation is done by women.

“Indeed, WASH challenge in Sub South Africa is complicated by the existence of layers of socio-cultural and religious beliefs, attitudes and values across geographic, religion and economic groups, our greatest problem is our inability to disengage WASH matters from socio-cultural behaviour and religious beliefs which in some cases are reproduced at the policy arena,” he added.

Oil exploration threatening 6.5 million fishing population in Niger Delta

No fewer than 6.5million people involved in fishing-related activities in the Niger Delta have been threatened by the oil exploration. Renowned environmentalist, Nnimmo Bassey, disclosed this in a paper delivered at a summit in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
The summit themed: “”Key Indices for Visionary Leadership, Good Governance and Sustainable Development in Bayelsa State”, was organised by the G24 Embasara Foundation, an Ijaw group committed to new leadership and governance initiative in Bayelsa and Ijaw land.He highlighted that the debilitating impact of oil and gas exploration and production had distorted the bio-diversity of the region.

According to him, the region had suffered adverse degradation resulting in “ecocide” due to lack of leadership as well as weak regulatory environmental institutions.Bassey stressed the need for re-ordering of priorities and adoption of new approaches to environmental sustainability by political leaderships.He said, “Oil production depletes environmental resources; for every barrel of oil, there is over 13 barrels of toxic effluents that come from the oil wells and nobody gives account of these wastes, which the oil firms discharge into the environment.

“We have about 6.5 million people involved in fishing-related activities threatened by the oil industry, which employs some 5,000 people. Our leaders should think of the jobs of the majority and channel resources to developing renewable energy”, he added.He rationalised that there is no future for fossil fuels which would be depleted in a few decades since the world had advanced with cars that run without oil.

Bassey called on the Niger Delta people to change their attitude and refrain from pipeline vandalism, oil theft and illegal oil refining which further pollute and degrade their environment.

Some stakeholders at the summit including the Convener and former Commissioner for Environment in Bayelsa, Mr. Iniruo Wills, expressed concerns over issues of poor leadership and bad governance by public office holders in the state over the years.

They called for a review of recruitment process for political leadership in order to make public office holders answerable and accountable to the people.So pecifically, Wills said the group was developing Ijaw nation code of ethics, which prospective political office-holders must subscribed to.

The chairman of the occasion, Amba Ambaiowei, said the group is worried about the under-development in Ijaw land resulting to lack of access to basic social amenities.Ambaiowei, a former Commissioner for Education and Labour in the old Rivers State, said the group would scrutinise the competences of Ijaw people seeking public offices.

ONDO GOVERNMENT ADVOCATE TREE PLANTING TO HALT CLIMATE CHANGE

To further reduce the effect of climate, Ondo State government has urged all residents to cultivate the habit of planting trees in their homes.The Commissioner for Natural Resources, Alhaji Rasheed Badmus, stated this while declaring open the training workshop on “National Forest Inventory Techniques and Data Collection” in Akure.
The five-day training workshop was jointly organized by Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO-UN) and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) towards ensuring an end to deforestation.

Badmus lamented the visible climatic change as a result of deforestation, saying the need for proper management of forests in the state and country should be encouraged.

“The way forests are being managed has strong ties with climate change. Deforestation and forest degradation through agricultural expansion, conversion of land and infrastructure development account for about 20per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“Thus, as consensus grows on the serious impacts of global climate change, the role of forest in carbon storage is increasingly being acknowledged. Given the crucial role played by forest, gradual decrease of deforestation is seen as a practical approach to mitigate climate change,” he said.He noted that state government had expended appreciable resources to the development of the forestry sub-sector, adding that forestry is the bedrock for economic survival and development.

The Commissioner assured that the state would continue to support the efforts of World Bank, FAO at expanding REDD+Readiness activities, saying Forest Reference Emission Levels (FRELS) and National Forest Monitoring Systems (NFMS) are huge successes.Badmus further maintained that ban had been placed on logging activities in Ose River Park and Akure Forest reserves to enable the conservation and sustainable management of the forests.


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“The state government has entered into partnership with Wewood Company and West Africa Plantation Limited to plant over 33,000 hectares with gmelina, teak and some indigenous species.

“This project has commenced and planting of the plantation is progressing. This project would employ at least 1000 jobless youths,” he said, listing other measures taken to conserve the forests.While the National Coordinator of REDD+ Programme, Moses Ama, said the workshop was put together in order to have a National Forestry Inventory in the country.

Ama stated that two states of the federation, Ondo and Nassarawa, were selected out of the nine states that applied for the programme as a result of their compliance with the procedures.