African ministers seek harmonised policies on sanitation

 Frank Ikpefan, Abuja

THERE Is a need for a harmonised policy document on sanitation, African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW), has said.

The body said this will enable the region to operate a single direction by using a single document by stakeholders.

Speaking at a stakeholders’ consultative meeting in Abuja, the Executive Secretary for AMCOW, Canisius Kanangire, said he had been mandated by the African Union (AU) to provide leadership, policy direction and advocacy on the management and development of water resources on the continent.

He said the mandate also included the provision of sanitation services for the continent.

Dr. Kanangire noted that the mandate was given mainly for the purpose of good services by the horizon of 2025, which was the African water vision.

According to him, there are other commitments that would help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals with the horizon of 2020, which he said was aimed at providing services to all.

He said there were other Africa agenda to be achieved ahead of 2063, stating that there were efforts at contributing to ensure that the people exhibited high level commitments.

Kanangire said: “When we look at sanitation, one of the issues we noticed is that most African countries are still working on policies guided by the MDGS objectives and target and yet the MDGs was evaluated in 2015.

“Now we have moved to the SDGs which were targeted at having the number of people who are not accessing different basic services.”

“So the policy that we are promoting today should be the one with the right target, with the right objectives and because of that they should develop the needed factors that will ensure that they succeed,” he said.

The Director, Water Quality Control and Sanitation, Federal Ministry of water Resources, Emmanuel Awe, commended the Federal Government for its efforts in the area of sanitation.