66 million Nigerians lack access to potable water – WHO/UNICEF

The World Health Organisation/United Nations Children’s Fund Joint Monitoring Program, in its 2012 progress report on drinking water and sanitation, has ranked Nigeria third behind China and India on the list of countries with the largest population without access to improved drinking water.

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program report which covered between 1990 and the end of 2010, noted that about 66 million Nigerians lacked access to drinking water, while 34 million, about 20 per cent of the country’s population practised open defecation.

The other countries with large populations lacking access to potable water include China with 119 million, India — 97 million, Ethiopia — 46 million and Sudan — 18 million.

For open defecation, Nigeria was fifth behind India (626 million), Indonesia (63 million), Pakistan (40 million), and Ethiopia (38 million).

Globally, the report noted that in 2010, 89 per cent of the world’s population, or 6.1 billion people, used improved drinking water sources, exceeding the Millennium Development Goal of 88 per cent; while 92 per cent are expected to have access in 2015.

This means that 11 per cent of the global population, or 783 million people, are still without access, while the WHO/UNICEF JMP projects indicates that 605 million people will still not have access in 2015.

Noting the disparity between rural and urban areas in access to improved water supply, the report stated that an estimated 96 per cent of the urban population globally used an improved water supply source in 2010, compared to 81 per cent of the rural population.

Nigeria was one of the eight countries in the world having between only 50 and 75 per cent of their urban population accessing improved drinking water; for the country’s rural area the figure is less than 50 per cent.

The report also noted that sub-Saharan Africa accounted for more than 40 per cent of the global population without access to improved drinking water, adding that the region was not on track for meeting the drinking water MDG target.

However, some countries such as Malawi, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Namibia, and Gambia, were said to have already met the target, while Liberia is on track to meet it.

Recently, the Minister of Water Resources, Mrs. Sarah Ochekpe, decried the low access to potable water in Nigeria, stating that the Federal Government was collaborating with stakeholders to increase access to water supply in the country.