by Mukundi Mutasa
Africa joins the rest of the world in commemorating the World Water Day on 22 March fully aware that availability of water is of paramount importance to sustaining livelihoods on the continent.
The theme for this year’s World Water Day is ’sanitation matters’. It is also coinciding with the United Nations International Year of Sanitation.
2008 was declared the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2006 after concerns on the ”slow and insufficient progress made in achieving the global sanitation target.”
The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, in his Water Day speech, attributed the many deaths of young children around the globe to poor sanitation and the lack of safe drinking water.
“Poor sanitation combines with a lack of safe drinking water and inadequate hygiene to contribute to the terrible global death toll. Those who survive face diminished chances of living a healthy and productive existence,” Mr Ki-Moon said.
Mr Ki-Moon went on to demand action that looks beyond lip service in the ‘spirit of awareness raising.’
He said, “World Water Day offers a chance to spotlight these issues, but this year, let us go beyond raising awareness — let us press for action to make a measurable difference in people’s lives.”
His sentiments were echoed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, Achim Steiner, who called for intelligent decision-making that will safeguard today’s and tomorrow’s generations.
“The sustainability challenges of the 21st century, including those that relate to water and sanitation, demand more intelligent and creative solutions than perhaps have been deployed in the past,” Steiner said.
2005 to 2015 was also declared the International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” by the UN.
The Water for Life decade aims to promote efforts to fulfill international commitments made on water and related issues by 2015, placing special emphasis on the involvement of women in these efforts.
The World Water Day has been commemorated every year since 1993. It is however, hoped that attention is not on commemorating the day only, but going further to bring all heads together and strategizing for a better tomorrow.
In Africa, the World Water Day will subsequently be followed by the inaugural African Water Week from 26 to 28 March under the “Accelerating the Water Security for Socio-Economic Development of Africa” banner.
The African Water Week is jointly organised by the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
