WaterAid Nigeria, an NGO, has advised government at all levels to prioritise the provision of potable water as it can improve the economic wellbeing of Nigerians.
The Country Representative of the organisation, Dr Michael Ojo, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
“Having access to water, and in terms of right the quality and quantity, is important to not just individual wellbeing, but the nation’s economic wellbeing.
“Government is the main duty bearer to ensure that water is provided and people can access it without too much of a problem.
“But also, we have to bring a range of other stakeholders together to ensure that we are thinking the same way and we are trying to pull in the same direction in terms of the solutions that we need to see to move the situation up.’’
Ojo further said that the process of harnessing sources of water in the country was capable of providing job opportunities for Nigerians and diversifying the economy.
“Across the world, 1.5 billion – that’s half of all jobs – are directly related to water or the water industry and virtually every other job is actually linked to water in some way or the other.
“So when you think about the impact or the implications of lack of access to water, you think about the impact on productivity for countries or nations.
“Apart from those, who work directly in providing water, getting the water to people, you have industries that use large amount of water – energy generation for example, agriculture, health, and so on.
“So the impact of water on jobs is phenomenal.
“When we look at the country like Nigeria where we have very high levels of unemployment and with those high levels of unemployment actually more within are youth populations.
“And within that population, exactly 70 per cent of employment rate is amongst our youths – between 13 to 35 per cent or there abouts.’’
NAN reports that Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) fall under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which is to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.