AFRICAN Development Bank (AfDB) has expressed satisfaction on Tanzania’s implementation of water and sanitation projects, promising to continue working closely with the government towards the target of availing water and sanitation services to more citizens.
AfDB
Director of Water and Sanitation Department Mohamed El Azizi said in
Dar es Salaam yesterday that the bank has financed a number of water and
sanitation projects in Tanzania and in Africa in general.
Mr El Azizi was speaking at sixth Africa
Water Week, which started on July 18 through July 22, under the theme
of achieving Sustainable Development Goals on Water Security and
Sanitation.
The continent’s development financier
has since 2001 approved nine water and sanitation operations in
Tanzania
mainland and Zanzibar at a total cost of about 700 million US dollars
(over 1.5trn/-).
The director advised the government and
development partners to increase funding for water and sanitation
projects to address the problem of access to reliable water and
sanitation services facing a number of African countries.
The bank indicated that for Africa to
achieve the Sustainable Development Goals there must be political
commitment, prioritisation of water and sanitation issues, as well as
more budget allocation to the water and sanitation sector.
Mr El Azizi challenged the government and development partners to set sufficient budgets for water interventions.
“At the African Development Bank we are
already supporting large scale water and sanitation projects like the
Arusha Sustainable Urban Water and Sanitation Project which will cost
over 200 million US dollars,” he said.
The AfDB recently agreed to focus on
five priority actions and goals which will help to transform the African
continent. The five priority goals, which AfDB calls the “High 5s for
Africa” are: Light Up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialise
Africa; Integrate Africa and Improve the Quality of Life for Africans
which will directly contribute to the development of the water
infrastructure and the water security.
According to the director, water and
sanitation will remain one of the key development challenges facing
communities and nations of Africa since it will have direct impacts on
the economic growth and on the attainment of most other Sustainable
Development Goals, the international targets that replaced the
Millennium Development Goals in 2015.
Africa is one of the developing regions
which have not met the drinking water and sanitation targets. More than
50 per cent of Africa’s population currently does not have access to
safe and reliable water and sanitation services.
Also an estimated one million Africans die every year from lack of adequate sanitation, hygiene or from water borne diseases.
