World Water Day celebrated tomorrow STAFF REPORTERWINDHOEK
The commemoration of World Wetlands Day and World Water Day is scheduled from tomorrow to Friday at the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre in Windhoek.
The theme of this year’s commemoration is ‘How valuable is water to you?’
World Water Day is commemorated to celebrate water and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water.
It also provides an opportunity to role players in the water and sanitation sector to learn more about water-related issues.
Progress
Namibia, according to the National Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) progress update for 2021, has made modest, yet encouraging progress over the past three decades.
Indeed, according to the latest update from the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and sanitation by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, access to drinking water has increased from 80% to 83% since 2010.
While urban water coverage decreased slightly from 97% to 96% due to rural-urban migration and the growth of informal settlements, rural coverage increased from 68% to 69% in the same period.
On the other hand, access to sanitation still lags behind. Namibia is one of the countries with the lowest sanitation coverage in Eastern and Southern Africa.
According to the latest available JMP data, access to basic sanitation improved slightly from 32% to 35% in 2020. While basic sanitation coverage in urban areas decreased from 55% to 51% since 2010, access in rural areas increased slightly from 16% to 18%.