The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund in conjunctio
While approximately 779 million still lack basic sanitation services (including 208 million who still practice open defecation) and 839 million still lack basic hygiene services.
According to a UNICEF/WHO special report focused on Africa, launched at the World Water Forum hosted by the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) with UNICEF in Dakar, Senegal on 21st to 22nd March 2022.
It said “Achieving the SDG targets in Africa will require a 12-fold increase in current rates of progress on safely managed drinking water, and a 20-fold increase for safely managed sanitation and a 42-fold increase for basic hygiene services to drastically accelerate progress on water, sanitation, and hygiene.”
The report noted that in order to ensure that all African Union member states achieve universal access to safely managed drinking water, safely managed sanitation, and basic hygiene services by 2030, a dramatic acceleration in the current rates of progress are required to drive the force of basic hygiene level.
“This special report calls for urgent action to be taken on a continent where water scarcity and weak sanitation and hygiene services can threaten peace and development.
Between 2000 and 2020, Africa’s population increased from 800 million to 1.3 billion people. About 500 million people gained access to basic drinking water and 290 million to basic sanitation services.”
Stressing that “Equitable access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene is not only the foundation of health and development for children and communities. Water is life, but water is also development, water is peace”, said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “In a time when water scarcity fuels conflicts and water points are targeted, UNICEF calls for urgent actions. We need water, sanitation, and hygiene in schools, especially for girls who may miss school because there are no toilets or because they have to fetch water. Women and children need safe access to water. As climate change puts additional pressure on resources, we need climate risk-sensitive and resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene services for children and their communities. And we need it now”.
Worldwide, UNICEF works in over 100 countries to help provide access to safe water and reliable sanitation, and to promote basic hygiene practices in rural and urban areas, including in emergency situations particularly as significant inequalities persist within countries including between urban and rural, between sub-national regions and between the richest and the poorest. “In urban areas, 2 out of 5 people lack safely managed drinking water, 2 out of 3 people lack safely managed sanitation, and half the population lacks basic hygiene services. In rural areas, 4 out of 5 people lack safely managed drinking water, 3 out of 4 people lack safely managed sanitation, and 7 out of 10 lack basic hygiene services.”
UNICEF is seeking to achieve better water, sanitation, and hygiene results for children by working directly with schools and healthcare facilities to improve access to these services, providing life-saving support in humanitarian settings, aimed at inspiring climate-related collective action where community members and government leaders identify solutions to the challenges they face.
