Not fewer than 997,000 people have been reached with Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities particularly, safe drinking water in Six LGAs of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States.
The achievement was recorded under the Accelerating Sanitation and Water for All (ASWA II) project undertaken by the Nigeria Government with funding from Government of the Netherland in partnership with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), Nigeria Country office.
There are Eight Beneficiary Countries of the project including Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire; Burkina Faso; Mali; Niger; Mozambique; Somalia; and Tanzania.
The disclosure was made during a meeting of Programme Endline Validation and Local Investment Plan Development Meeting held at the Conference Hall of Emerald Hotels, Gombe between 19th – 21st of March, 2024.
The programme was implemented for 5 years (2019 – 2023) with benefiting LGAs to include Jada and Guyuk in Adamawa state, Biu and Meigumeri in Borno State as well as Fune and Geidam Yobe state.
The implementing Partners of the project are Government of Nigeria through the State Government and the Local Government Authorities.
The purpose of the Meeting was that as the programme comes to an end, the meeting was organised to review the achievements of the programme, validate the endline survey and impact assessment and develop strategies to sustain the gains of the programme through a local investment and sustainability plan.
People in the target LGAs were provided with safe drinking water just as 880,000 people stopped defecating in the open and are now using a safe and hygienic toilet facility.
Furthermore, a total of 500 new water facilities were constructed and 1,000 broken-down facilities were
rehabilitated just as 54 schools and 38 healthcare facilities were provided with basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities.
3 local government areas of Biu, Guyuk and Jada were declared open defecation free (ODF) by the National
Task Group on Sanitation (NTGS) during the project implementation period.
As a result of the above achievements, the programme contributed to improved health, nutrition and wellbeing of poor and vulnerable people in targeted rural LGAs and communities, especially among women and girls.
The programme has also contributed to the positive reduction in “children on the move” and outbreak of cholera diseases in the period of implementation.
A cross section of participants at the meeting
