Enugu Govt To Partner Rural Communities To Provide Water

The govern­ment of Enugu State has announced plans to partner with rural com­munities in the state on the provision of clean water.

Briefing journalists at her Enugu office, Chika Mbah, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH), revealed that the partnership would be community-led despite being government-driven and financed.

“The people of Enugu State are already aware of Governor Peter Mbah’s 180 days water challenge for Enugu metropolis. What is less know is his drive for rural water provision. The governor is not only inter­ested in urban water; rural water is very much in his plan”, she said.

Explaining how the part­nership would work, the governor’s senior aide on WASH stated that potable water would be provided to the various rural communi­ties as they wanted it.

“It is up to each commu­nity to decide on what and how they want the provi­sion and management of water, and come with that plan to the WASH office at the State Ministry of Water Resources. They can for in­stance decide if they want a borehole or a spring har­vested.

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“The government is also interested in reticulated water facilities, especially those that can serve more than one community. Ad­joining communities can therefore present a joint plan stating the manage­ment structure.

“In this way communi­ties will own and manage the facilities, with the gov­ernment being a stakehold­er. However, a benefiting community must also work on ending open defecation within their locale. The pro­vision of water is thus tied to a number of behavioural change indicators. One is community-led sanitation, another is ownership and management of public fa­cilities. This type of ‘coun­terpart’ is both novel and sustainable”, she explained.

She noted that a state-wide survey of water sit­uation in the state by the WASH office showed that the situation was dire, dis­closing that Enugu State has close to 400 non-functional public boreholes, while open defecation was a common practice.

She said the government was working towards end­ing open defection in the state, saying this informed the passing of a bye-law by the 17 local government councils in the state in that regard, as well as a state-wide stakeholder sensitiza­tion on safety of water and control of water-borne dis­eases, also aimed at reduc­ing under-5 mortality rate in the state.

The Eastern Updates