The Availabilityof Safe and Clean Water in Nigeria Essay Example for Free

The Availabilityof Safe and honest Water in Nigeria EssayOne would agree that something so basic and necessary should readily be available but that has non been the case with Africa. Africa is home to most of the wretchedest people in the world. It is a untarnished faced with numerous conflicts, trials and ch in allenges and a severe neediness of access to unhurt irrigate is amongst its biggest. An estimated eight one hundred and eighty-four million people do non have access to safe drinking peeing, time some one and a half million children under five died each year from malady caused by weewee-borne diseases. In Sub-Sahara Africa in general, there is no irrigate shortage, but there is a lack of storage capacity and distribution systems. Nigeria is Africas most populous nation and is home to an estimated one hundred and cardinal million people. It is a country that receives a relatively high level of annual rainfall which is not distributed evenly through with(pred icate) time or space. Because of these variations in time and space, people in different separate of Nigeria use water system in different ways.For example, in the drier northern parts of Nigeria where rainfall is lower berth and less evenly distributed throughout the year, efforts have been made to develop irrigation. Down south, the rainfall is more abundant and supplies the teeming population who use it as a source of portable water. While irrigation is important in a few parts of the country, the vast majority of people use water mainly for casual household activities like cooking, drinking, and washing. In a relatively well-watered country like Nigeria, one would think that acquiring water would not be a problem.Providing safe, abundant supplies of household water, has been an immense challenge however. Unfortunately, access to safe drinking water is far less than thirty percent on the aggregate. In a poor country like Nigeria, gaining access to safe, continuous water supplie s is an ongoing struggle for many. Human wastes and pollution pass on many water supplies unsafe for many people. In adjunct, the state has been unable to provide safe, affordable water. This is oddly true in rural areas. In many rural areas, where the majority of the population live, women and girls are labored to walk long distances to acquire household water.In extreme cases, women and children may spend from two to lead hours per day gathering water. It goes without saying that most rural households do not have their own pipe-borne water make out. In the best of circumstances, smallish villages or neighborhoods will have their own wells. While water provision is somewhat ameliorate in urban areas, major challenges still remain. In cities without a functioning universal water system, individual households and groups of households must either drill their own well or purchase their water. The proliferation of small urban wells and boreholes is not a thorough end to the prob lem, however.There is no guarantee that the water drawn from the wells especially is safe for drinking. Due to a lack of sanitization facilities, household wastes puree into the cities underground water supplies. Furthermore, with an eighty-five percent increase in urban population from 1990 to 2004, the number of urban dwellers unserved with either safe drinking water or basic sanitation doubled from 1990 to 2004. In addition to rapid urbanization, ineffective governance and persistent poverty remain the root cause of water home associated problems.Access to safe water is also a critical factor in Nigerian unexclusive health. The most damaging drinking water-borne illnesses are typhoid, cholera, and diarrhea. Other human diseases are spread merely through contact with contaminated water. Bathing water illnesses include schistosomiasis (formerly known as bilharziasis), dracunculiasis (guinea wrench infection), and roundworm infections. Drinking and bathing are not the only metho ds through which water-borne illnesses are spread. Contaminated water is often used to wash foods like fruits and vegetables.This often provides another channel for diseases to spread. Bad management of the water bodies too has led them to even becoming breeding sites for vectors of parasites that cause diseases such as malaira, river blindness, dengue fevers, quiescence sickness and so on. Nigeria is masked with challenges of coping with failing infrastructures, inadequate finance, poor legislation, lack of appropriate institutional capacity for regulation and control and often the political will to enforce control measures to bring nearly change.The position is complicated by the fact that governments have been at a loss on how to destiny standards to improve the water situation. Consequently, they resort to dependence on adopted standards, policies and guidelines as presented by international organizations. precisely in the midst of these seemingly insurmountable challenges e fforts, are being made to bring about a shift in the status quo but they have not been enough.The theoretical and practical knowledge of water, sanitation and hygiene are of relevance in overcoming this water crisis and providing safe and clean water to Nigerians. The practical opinion may be undertaken in the form of a community development project. Objectives of such water supply projects will involve the following Assessing community needs in relation to water supply. Developing a joint plan of action with the government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and community members for the supply of water and romotion of environmental hygiene and health. To promote the toleration of safe hygienic practices within the project communities in put to limit the occurrence and effects of water and sanitation related diseases. To assist in empowering the communities for behavioral changes through participatory approaches. To establish a compelling net bend with international or ganizations working on water, the environment and health in order to provide expert assistance for the project, especially as regards training of trainers.Establishment of a joint supply committee including all the stakeholders and community members is very necessary for the project. This is important in order to have active participation and a sense of ownership of the project such multisectoral committee will enhance the sustainability of the programme. The second stage of the planning involves the determination of a hierarchy of the project goals, objectives and targets which is to provide clean and safe water to members of the community.Going further, a generation and assessment of the various options available for achieving the set objectives and targets, as there are usually some(prenominal) ways of reaching a target. This will result in preferred options or a conclave of approaches, which will then form part of the plan to bring safe and clean water to Nigerians. The com puter programming stage translates the results of the option appraisal into a series of programmes, each with a budget, over the plan period. The penultima stage involves the implementation of the plan, bearing in mind the various dynamics of the Nigerian poplulation.This involves transforming the broad programmes drafted to conform to the smaller rural communities, into more specific timed and budgeted sets of tasks and activities, and involves the drawing up of a more practicable plan or a work plan to service the bigger cities and the nation at large. The work plan is closely monitored during the implementation stage. This is to see that the corruption so frequently encountered in the system does not hamper the progress being made in providing clean and safe water to Nigerians. Simple behavioural changes have complex repercussions.However, such changes will not occur unless they are appropriate, affordable and acceptable, considering the complex wind vane of socio-cultural and economic factors impacting at the individual and the community level in Nigeria ultimately determining whether or not people are willing or able to make basic changes in their lifestyles in order to help serve them clean and safe water. These changes are geared towards safeguarding public health and delivering a better life to Nigerians, and must involve each and every one of us. Countless lives will be saved, and the aid socio-economic advancement would be rewarding to every Nigerian.