Nigeria: More Nigerians Have Access to Cell Phones Than Toilets – Unicef Official
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says more people have access to cell phones in Nigeria than they have access to toilets.
Quoting a 2018 report by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the Chief of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), UNICEF, Zaid Jurji, said 140 million people in Nigeria have cell phones, while only 97 million have access to improved sanitation.
Mr Jurji who spoke at a two-day media dialogue on European Union Niger Delta Water Project, in Port Harcourt on Monday, noted that the sanitation sector in Nigeria is severely under resourced, as sanitation is only 19 per cent of WASH budget.
He further added that only 39 per cent Nigerians use an improved toilet that is not shared by more than one household.
Over 46 million people still practice open defecation on Nigeria, with 32 percent living in rural areas and 12 percent in urban areas.
This figure is far from the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG) target by 2030, which aims at achieving universal access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene.
In his remarks, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who was represented by the principal information officer of the ministry, Toye Falayi, urged media partners to sustain advocacy for improve water sanitation and hygiene.
Irish Water begins €35M Dublin drinking water supply project
Irish Water has initiated a major project to secure drinking water supply in the Greater Dublin Area by linking the Leixlip Water Treatment Plant with the Saggart Reservoirs.
The work will result in greater connectivity between water supplies so Irish Water can access different sources at different times of the year and during extreme weather events to help ensure a more secure and resilient water supply.
Irish Water is investing over €35 million in the Leixlip to Saggart Water Main Project, which will involve the construction of a 6.8km pipeline and pumping station.
Irish Water engineer William McKnight said “The size and scale of this project is really significant and is of real strategic importance to Greater Dublin Area.
"Once completed, the new pipeline will increase Irish Water’s ability to distribute treated drinking water in the Greater Dublin Area and the surrounding region.
"This is a huge advantage to consumers and Irish Water, particularly during extreme weather events, likes the storms last winter or the drought this summer.
It will increase the security of the water supply for homes and businesses alike.”
Why outbreak of waterborne diseases persist in Northcentral states
“Pure water” is the household name for packaged sachet water.
Efforts to gain entrance into the main compound proved abortive but a quick survey of the entire factory revealed that the products are conveyed in an unbranded white but rickety looking ‘pick-up’ Van, while the major production factory is a sore sight.
For instance, a sachet water producing factory with brand name Tbillz Daily table water is located in a popular estate along Lifecamp, Abuja.
A visit to some factories in the state revealed how the purportedly “pure water” is packaged in shops located in secluded areas, away from prying eyes of the public.
There was a case where somebody just picked another person’s nylon, printed the same thing and was producing water.” Similarly in Niger State, from the three factories visited (Al-machus, Supreme and Kabinaf), only one of them seemed to be operating in a fairly clean environment.
On getting to the factory’s entrance, one could not have imagined that water for drinking is being packaged for sale in such place.
According to him, considering the environment where the water is being produced, there are possibilities that the source of water is not from a borehole within the environment.
“The question mark on this sample is that they may be using direct tap water because I have seen instances, where people will say, is it not treated water from the water board.
However, NAFDAC has to be particular about the environment because they are not always there to monitor.” “If it is NAFDAC that went to that site, it will be closed down irrespective of the water quality because they will always tell you that your factory should not be close to the dump site.
Like typhoid, it could be waterborne or food-borne.” NAFDAC Speaks When contacted, the National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration Control (NAFDAC) affirmed the situation but explained that there are cases where manufacturers lower their standards after getting the required certification from the agency.
SADC looking to increase water access to 75%
By Timo Shihepo Windhoek – The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is aiming to increase water access levels to at least 75% by 2027 for both safe drinking and sanitation.
SADC also wants to increase the annual renewable water storage resources from the current 14% to about 25% during the same period.
Water in the southern African region is becoming scarce, and aggravated by El Nino drought – the worst in 35 years, which riveted the region in recent years – the escalating situation can no longer be ignored.
Within the region, there are 15 shared river basins but are not fully functional.
In May this year, officials from SADC countries convened in Windhoek, Namibia, where they formulated a strategy meant to secure funding to develop regional water resources.
According to the information emanated from the SADC council of ministers meeting and seen by The Southern Times, over 70% of the 292 million people living in the region rely on the groundwater as the primary source of water.
Agriculture, the main economic activity in the SADC region, draws an estimated 20% of its water resources needs also from underground.
If this abstraction is not properly monitored and adequately managed it can lead to over-abstraction and pollution of the resource, warns the council of ministers.
The Southern Times understands that the region has been struggling to attract private sector financing due to water being a social and economic good.
SADC Director for Infrastructure and Services: Water Division, Phera Ramoeli, said despite being assessed, documented and understood, the benefits of transboundary water cooperation have not been communicated well in the region.
Florence Flooding Threat Continues As Storm Moves On
The hurricane is now blamed for at least 19 deaths throughout the Carolinas, according to reports.
Roy Cooper on Sunday.
While the remnants of the Florence storm mass have moved on to the north, North Carolina is still facing the effects.
Larger rivers eventually will rise to flood stage as well."
In Union County, N.C., one-year-old Kaiden Lee-Welch was swept away from his mother’s grip after their car was pushed off the road and into trees by flood waters.
A search for him resumed Monday morning and his body was found in flood waters.
Other victims are: Rhonda R. Hartley, 30, who died early Sunday after driving a pickup truck into standing water near Gilbert, South Carolina.
A husband and wife died in a Fayetteville, North Carolina, house fire Friday A mother and her 8-month-old child were killed when a massive tree crushed their brick house Friday in Wilmington, North Carolina An 81-year-old man died while trying to evacuate Wayne County, North Carolina, on Friday A 78-year-old man was electrocuted in the rain while trying to connect extension cords for a generator in Lenoir County, North Carolina A 77-year old man died after he went outside to check on his hunting dogs and was blown down by strong winds Three people died in Duplin County, North Carolina, because of flash flooding and swift water on roadways Amber Dawn Lee, 61, died late Friday when the vehicle she was driving struck a tree near the town of Union, South Carolina ‘Cut Off From The Rest Of The State’ Flood waters left Wilmington virtually cut off Sunday as homes and businesses in the city and other parts of New Hanover County faced the threat of losing access to drinking water because a major utility is critically low on fuel.
They could lose drinking water if the agency doesn’t get needed fuel within 48 hours, and was considering options such as trying to get fuel by ship or aircraft.
Related coverage: Photo: Old vehicles are surrounded by flood water from the Neuse River September 16, 2018 in Kinston, North Carolina.
Danger at the faucet
As 50,000 students returned to Detroit Public Schools earlier this month, they found themselves without running water.
Read more Blade editorials According to a July report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 43 percent of the country’s school districts had tested for lead in 2017.
Of those districts, 37 percent found “elevated levels” of lead in the water.
Fifty-seven percent of school districts, serving more than 35 million students nationwide, either had not tested for lead in the past two years or did not know if they had tested.
Replacing pipes is an expensive process, however, and budgetary restraints have prevented many schools from rectifying the problem.
But there are cost-effective ways to improve the situation, such as more frequent flushings of a school’s water lines.
This can be an expensive process as well — a statewide test in Indiana cost $4.7 million — but this should be money well spent if it keeps drinking water safe for school children.
State Sen. Art Haywood, D-Montgomery, said he had wanted the testing requirement to be mandatory, but others were concerned about the cost.
“My position is that the cost to our communities and our children of having the lead ingested is a much higher cost than doing testing,” Mr. Haywood told WHYY in Philadelphia.
Precautionary measures like flushing a water line or testing lead levels prevents a situation in which children are denied access to drinking water or, worse, ingest contaminants that could threaten their lives.
Chinese SGR contractor launches water project in Kenyan county
NAIROBI, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) — Residents of semi-arid Kajiado County located south-west of Kenyan capital city Nairobi are the latest beneficiaries of a water project by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) that is implementing Phase 2A of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project linking Nairobi to the resort town of Naivasha.
Elected leaders from Kajiado county and representatives from the CCCC recently attended the ground breaking ceremony for the Kimuka Community Water Aid Project stemming from the adjacent 4.5-kilometer long SGR tunnel.
Guo Qing, Deputy General Manager of the CCCC Kenya SGR Project, said a partnership with Kajiado county government has paved way for construction of a water project that will boost access to the commodity among households.
The contractor was proud to be part of the development of this particular water project that will enable about 5,000 people in Kimuka area and the larger Kajiado County to access clean water, according to Guo.
He said that the CCCC will construct two tanks with a capacity of storing 1,600 cubic meters of water that will later be supplied to local households in the semi-arid region where pastoralism is the main economic activity.
Guo said that the CCCC has been on the frontline of offering solution to water supply challenges in Kajiado and other semi-arid counties along the SGR corridor as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Joseph Ole Lenku, the Governor of Kajiado County, hailed the launch of a project that will help address acute water scarcity and transform livelihoods of local farmers and pastoralists.
"We are glad to witness launch of a project that will be critical in addressing water scarcity in Kajiado County.
Currently, only about 35 percent of households in the expansive Kajiado County have access to clean water.
Ole Lenku said his administration will ensure that 60 percent of households have access to clean drinking water by 2022.
Florence cuts off access to Wilmington, disrupting water supplies
By Thomas Goldsmith, North Carolina Health News Flooded state roads caused by Hurricane Florence meant that Wilmington was cut off from land routes Sunday, leaving the port city of 120,000 on the brink of closing its water plant because of waning fuel supplies.
“We are having a lot of road access issues into and out of the county,” said New Hanover County communications and outreach coordinator Jessica Loeper on Sunday.
“We … had a closure on U.S. 74 in Columbus County,” Trogdon said.
According to University of North Carolina system President Margaret Spellings, students who had evacuated from UNC Wilmington were unable to return to campus due to the closed roads.
New Hanover County officials initially said the water utility plant was running out of fuel because of the road closings, potentially affecting health and public safety.
“We’re having some calls about this, but I think most of our residents were prepared not to have water and not to have power for several days,” she said.
‘No immediate threat’ But by early afternoon Sunday, the utility offered a more reassuring picture.
There is no immediate threat to water service disruption.” State officials said efforts are also underway to reach Wilmington through its access to the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean.
“We’re … working other contingencies to support Wilmington on the ocean side,” Trogdon said.
Hospitals and other health-care providers had emergency plans in place and were not reporting problems Sunday, Loeper said.
More Nigerians have access to cell phones than toilets – UNICEF Official
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says more people have access to cell phones in Nigeria than they have access to toilets.
Quoting a 2018 report by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the Chief of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), UNICEF, Zaid Jurji, said 140 million people in Nigeria have cell phones, while only 97 million have access to improved sanitation.
Mr Jurji who spoke at a two-day media dialogue on European Union Niger Delta Water Project, in Port Harcourt on Monday, noted that the sanitation sector in Nigeria is severely under resourced, as sanitation is only 19 per cent of WASH budget.
He further added that only 39 per cent Nigerians use an improved toilet that is not shared by more than one household.
Over 46 million people still practice open defecation on Nigeria, with 32 percent living in rural areas and 12 percent in urban areas.
This figure is far from the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG) target by 2030, which aims at achieving universal access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene.
In his remarks, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who was represented by the principal information officer of the ministry, Toye Falayi, urged media partners to sustain advocacy for improve water sanitation and hygiene.
After 25 years of broken promises, this north Kashmir village doesn’t have access to clean drinking water
Langate: Hampora village of Langate constituency in north Kashmir’s frontier district Kupwara doesn’t have access to clean drinking water for last 25 years.
“This village doesn’t have access to the clean drinking water and however the authorities are still unmoved,” villagers said.
Last time Mehbooba Mufti as Chief Minister during Awami Darbar at Kupwara announced a water supply scheme but now after the imposition of Governor’s rule in the state the authorities of PHE department are refusing to take up the work on the water supply scheme citing lack of funds a reason to refuse the take up the work on this water supply scheme.
The villagers while narrating the tale of pain and agony to Kashmir News Service (KNS) “despite knowing the hardships of the population are facing in this village, the officials are turning a deaf ear to our cries.
We have to walk about one kilometer to collect water from a nallah (stream).” “PHE (department) has never bothered to let the dream of portable water coming true in this village and is now refusing to take up the work on water supply scheme announced by Mehbooba Mufti as Chief Minister during her visit to the area last year.
Our pleas fall to deaf ears.
Even before the announcement of the water supply scheme for the village our village, along with seven other villages in this area, was supposed to get piped water supply in 1990 under a scheme called Zag Sundree, but portable water did not reaching this village under that scheme also.” Few months back the residents of Hampora village blocked Kralgund-Langate road and after about two hours authorities persuaded to call of the protest by officials of the district administration with an assurance from Deputy Commissioner Kupwara, Khalid Jahangir who directed the concerned authorities to ensure water supply to the affected village but again the Deputy Commissioner too has failed to keep his promise.
When contacted Secretary Public Health Engineering (PHE) Irrigation and Flood Control Department, Farooq Ahmad Shah told KNS, “Chief Secretary has himself visited the district and directed the PHE Executive Engineers both Kupwara and Handwara to complete the languishing schemes by March end next year.
No laxity on part of officers will be tolerated.
They will be accountable and they will ensure safe and drinking water to the people of the Kupwara district.”