Over 400 years for Ghana and Eritrea to have access to clean drinking water and decent toilets – UN

The international community has made an initial assessment this week of its achievements in pursuit of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

This year, UN member states focused on the first six development goals. At the time of the stage point, Africa is particularly lagging behind and will struggle to achieve its goals.

This is particularly true with regard to access to water and sanitation.

To strike the spirits, the Water Aid organization, which works for better access to water, decided to share shock figures. Based on UN data, she came to the conclusion that some African countries could only have access to clean drinking water and decent toilets in several centuries: only in 2507 for Eritrea, 2468 for Ghana or 2180 for Namibia.

For ChiChi Okoye, director of the organization for Nigeria, the consequences are dramatic: “If you take into account the fact that most health centers do not have drinking water and sanitation and yet there are surgical operations, children are born in these centers. How is it possible? Many schools are not equipped either… When girls have their period, many of them leave school.”

The problem lies mainly in the lack of funding and political inertia. “Africa needs more than $8billion to provide access to water for all. So we need governments that really prioritize this and unfortunately most do not.”

Because everything is about will. Rwanda and Ethiopia, which are not among the richest countries, are on track to reach their goal in this area in 2030.

Source: RFI