World bank

In:Resources

Challenges in The Nigerian Water Sector – If the Problem is not Lack of Comprehensive Regimes, then what is it?

Chambers Umezulike June 2, 2017 4

Photo Credit: Water Aid

Water is life and sufficient water supply is central to life and civilization. Water is part of the five basic human needs and plays a key role in the other four. Nigeria is abundantly blessed with water resources. However, as at 2015, only 69% of Nigerians have access to improved water supply with 57% of them being of rural population. During the oil boom days of the 1970s and early 1980s, the country invested hugely in water resources development, primarily in the construction of multipurpose dams which were meant to control flood, provision of water for domestic and industrial uses, the environment, hydro-power generation, control of riparian rights releases and for fishing, inland waterways, livestock and irrigated agriculture amongst others.

The responsibility of water supply in Nigeria is shared between three tiers of government – federal, state and local. While the federal government is in charge of water resources management and state governments have the primary responsibility for urban water supply through state water agencies; local governments together with communities are responsible for rural water supply. To improve manpower supply for the water resources sector, the National Water Resources Institute, Kaduna was established in 1979, running certificate, remedial and National Diploma and Higher National Diploma and professional post graduate courses in water resources. Preceding this was the establishment of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources (FMoWR) in 1976 with the mandate of developing and implementing programs, policies and projects that will lubricate sustainable access to safe and adequate water to meet the cultural, economic development, environmental and social needs of all Nigerians. The FMoWR has 12 River Basin Development Authorities under the Ministry, responsible for developing and planning irrigation work, water resources, and the collection of hydrological, hydro-geological data.

The National Water Supply and Sanitation Policy was approved in 2000, encouraging private-sector participation and provides for institutional and policy reforms at the state level. However, little has happened in both respects. As at 2007, only four of the 36 states and the FCT (Cross River, Kaduna, Lagos and Ogun States) have introduced public-private partnerships in the form of service contracts. While the federal government has a decentralization policy in this regard, little decentralization has happened. In addition, the policy also lays emphasis on rural water and sanitation through community participation. It targeted to increase water coverage from 43% to 80% by 2010 and 100% by 2015. This was not met. In addition, the capacity of local governments to plan and carry out investments, or to operate and maintain systems with respect to rural water management has remained low despite efforts at capacity development. As a result, the FMoWR and the river basin development authorities have been directly carrying off water facilities provision such as boreholes in rural communities.

In 2003, a Presidential Water Initiative: Water for People, Water for Life, was launched by then President Olusegun Obasanjo. The initiative had ambitious targets to increase water access (including a 100 percent target in state capitals), 75% access in other urban areas, and 66% access in rural areas. However, little has been done to implement the initiative and targets have not been met. The National Water and Sanitation Policy was also launched in 2004 with emphasis on water management and conservation. Nigeria was also not able to reach the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation. In June 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari approved a Water Resources Roadmap (2016 – 2030) with the goal of reaching 100% water supply to Nigerian citizens by 2030. The roadmap encompasses several priorities including: the establishment of a policy and regulatory framework for the sector; development and implementation of a National Water Supply and Sanitation Programme to attain the Sustainable Development Goals 6; identifying alternative sources for funding the delivery of water supply and sanitation through improved collaboration with development partners, states and local government authorities, communities and the private sector [Partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (PEWASH)] etc. It’s hoped that this does not go down history as one of the country’s numerous policies in the sector that was not thoroughly implemented.

There have been enormous contributions of several external partners with respect to water supply in Nigeria, rural water provision especially, and the Nigerian government welcomes such contributions. These partners include the African Development Bank (ADB), the EU, JICA, UNICEF, USAID, WaterAid, Action Against Hunger and the World Bank. The ADB and the World Bank provide loans to the federal government; the EU, JICA and USAID provide grants to the government; the UNICEF and WaterAid receive donations from the public and grants from governments to implement their projects in cooperation with, but not through the government. Even many domestic NGOs all have programs on the provision of rural water supply to counter the water crisis in many of such communities.This is through direct project implementation and advocacy. This is where Connected Development comes in, using its Follow The Money program to track governmental expenditure on rural water provision in rural communities to facilitate service delivery and provision of clean water. The program also advocates for governmental intervention to address the aquatic needs of most of these communities.

At this time, what is key is the provision of financial resources from all concerned parties to finance the Water Supply Section of the PEWASH Phase I (2016 – 2020) of the FMoWR’s which is at the estimate of NGN 108 billion. There are also key challenges with respect to the management of water facilities around the country. In many rural communities, water boreholes are abandoned and cannot be maintained over the lack of a preceding regime for the funding and maintenance of such water facilities. This has continued for sometime and has to be checked. Thus, it is imperative that the government encourages user participation in the management of water facilities especially at the rural level with realistic water tariff structures. In addition, there is a need for proper coordination between the different levels of government and the public. Ultimately, a recurring challenge is the unavailability of adequate and reliable data upon which planning, analysis, and water management can be based. Data on characteristic patterns in hydrological and meteorological changes over time need to be monitored with utmost sense of duty. This is exceedingly important for efficient planning and service delivery.

Chambers Umezulike is a Programme Manager at Connected Development and a Development Expert. He spends most of his time writing and choreographing researches on good and economic governance. He tweets via @Prof_Umezulike.

In:Earth HourUncategorized

Skin & Bones: The Great Green Wall Project

Hamzat Lawal January 7, 2016 0

The dry, dusty trade wind, blows over the West African subcontinent thinly coating surfaces with dust, cracking up skins and drying up moisture in the atmosphere. Harmattan – the yearly phenomenon which sends winds from the Sahara Desert into the Gulf of Guinea has brought with it a period of hotter days and colder nights than experienced in recent years.

The earth is getting warmer; climate change is tipping on the negative.

The Great Green Wall Project or Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative is a planned project to plant a wall of trees across Africa at the southern edge of the Sahara desert as a means to prevent desertification. It was developed by the African Union to address the detrimental social, economic and environmental impacts of land degradation and desertification in the Sahel and the Sahara.

Contributing to improved local incomes, the Great Green Wall will be a global answer to the combined effect of natural resources degradation and drought in rural areas. The Initiative is a partnership that supports the effort of local communities in the sustainable management and use of forests and other natural resources in drylands.
The bulk of the work on the ground was initially slated to be concentrated along a stretch of land from Djibouti, in the east to Dakar, Senegal, in the west—an expanse 15 kilometers (9 miles) wide and 7,775 kilometers (4,831 miles) long. The project later expanded to include countries in both northern and western Africa.

In 2007, during the eight ordinary session of the Conference of Heads of State and Governments held on January 29 and 30, 2007 in Addis-Ababa (Ethiopia), African Heads of State and Government endorsed the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative.
Subsequently, in June 2010, a convention was signed by Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan in Ndjamena, Chad, to create the Great Green Wall (GGW) Agency which created the Panafrican Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAGGW).

The land degradation experienced is a factor of both human-related and natural activities; poor farming activities, overgrazing, illegal waste management, and extreme weather are the most common causes.
It is estimated that 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are affected by land degradation which poses threats to agricultural productivity which is a main source of livelihood.

The project’s $2 billion budget, stemming largely from World Bank co-financing and partnerships fostered by the African Union, ensures participating countries will have the means to see the project through to the end. Examples of success include more than 50,000 acres of trees planted in Senegal.

Figure 1: The expected growth path of the GGW project

Implementation of the project in Nigeria takes place in eleven frontline States of Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Yobe and Borno. Covering over 43 LGAs and rehabilitate 225,000 Hectares of land.

The Follow The Money team decided to do on-site visit in November 2015 to the projects in Kebbi [Bachaka], Kano [Kadandanni] and Jigawa [Jeke]; Kebbi because the GGW was flagged – off in Kebbi State in November 2014, Kano to compare the success of the GGW to the state’s government reforestation program, and Jigawa because it shares an international border with the Republic of Niger.

Abubakar Maiyaki (Mai Yakin Bachaka) the deputy of the traditional leader of Bachaka said the Great Green Wall project has made significant impact in their community. “Community members have undergone training and recruited as forest and security guards, an orchard was created where economic trees were planted, shelter belts were also planted and are flourishing, two boreholes were provided to the community, social mobilization and sensitization of the community on the importance of tree planting were carried out, school children were trained on how to plant trees and gardening”

For Maiyaki, the Great Green Wall project provides an opportunity to empower and educate the community on the importance of tree planting

In Kano, the team visited Kadandanni community in Makoda LGA and welcomed by Adamu Abdullahi, the traditional leader of the community who expressed that the community were initially excited about the project; an optimism that has waned with the passing months.

“The Kadandani inhabitants are much aware about the benefit of planting trees, owing to awareness and training programmes by the government, but it has had its own challenges, at the beginning of the GGW, we were promised water, an important amenity to us and our livestocks, but looking back, this is not the case if you visit the proposed site for this amenities”

Abdullahi felt that the project had become politicised as the norm with pressing issues in Nigeria.
An assessment of the existing infrastructure in the community showed poor maintenance of the solar powered pumps for water – the borehole had stopped working six months ago, the storage shed for tools had been blown away winds earlier, the orchard was drying up and dying.

The team also met with the representative of the women association, Hajiya Mari who was selected to head to Katsina state for 2-day seminar on the importance of the project. Mari said they were trained on how to grow plants and given date seedlings to plant in the community to fight off desertification, and she has planted 10 in her house.

The story isn’t any different at Jeke, a dry community located in Sule Tankarkar LGA in Jigawa state. Yakubu Magaji, the community leader who took the team to inspect the site of the project expressed dismay at the state of the nursery, orchard and wind-powered borehole.

“The wind is not strong enough to fully power the borehole”

Magaji says as the community has to subsidise using the borehole three times a week to generate water needed.

MOVING ON …
As much as the Great Green Wall project is seen as means to reduce the expansion of the Sahara into Nigeria, it represents an opportunity to restore land once rich with biodiversity and vegetation. There is a commitment by the Federal Government of Nigeria and other governments to the project but the pace is almost negligible.

If the project comes to fruition, it can really help the sub-Saharan part of Africa and the continent on a whole in its drive to help the climate, provide a means of empowering communities and create a large social impact.