The World Water Day is celebrated annually on March 22, to create awareness on the billions of people living without access to quality water, clean sanitation and sustainable water use.
The World Water Day is action minded event celebrated globally to tackle the water challenges the world is facing, Nigeria inclusive, and to support the activities of the sustainable development goals 6, which reiterate that safe water and clean sanitation be available for all by 2030.
The African Women Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Network (AWWASHNet) and the Environmental Rights Action (ERA) have called on the Nigerian Government to make water available, affordable and accessible by all.
The groups in a press statement to mark the 2024 World Water Day with the theme ‘Water for Peace’ emphasized that water is a human right and governments need to tackle the water challenges being faced by the populace.
In the press statement made available to BONews Service by Veronica Nwanya, the Coordinator of AWWASHNet, the group noted that this year’s theme focuses on fostering a more harmonious attitude towards water as a basic human right and not a contentious attitude.
The statement reads in part that “it should be a unified effort of everyone to make sure that everybody without discrimination access clean, safe and quality water supply.”
AWWASHNet and ERA reiterate how crucial water is to health, economy and the environment generally. It should be the collective responsibility of everyone to ensure that water is accessed in a good quality, acceptable, used and managed responsibly.
The groups thereafter noted that “government across the globe should rise to their responsibility of making this God free gift, available, accessible, affordable and good quality enough to the citizenry.
“There should be an attitudinal change of government across the globe, that plans to privatize water to desist from such plans, but rather devise means to make sure quality water, proper sanitation and sustainable water supply is in place for all.”