EU, WaterAid complete water, other facilities for Borno residents
Tada JUTHA, Maiduguri
The European Union (EU) in partnership with WaterAid has provided water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities to 222,331 Borno residents.
According to WaterAid, the sustained use of facilities will change people’s behaviours towards personal hygiene against water-borne diseases.
These were unfolded, yesterday, in the 2021 Borno Package Coordination and Progress Report, released exclusively to The Guardian in Maiduguri.
The report disclosed that residents constructed 3, 000 latrines to sustain their personal hygiene in five Local Government Areas, including Maiduguri metropolis, the state capital.
“Besides the latrines, 30 water points were also constructed and rehabilitated in about three dozen communities affected in the 12-year insurgency,” said the report.
It added that eight health centres were connected with electricity to supply and complement healthcare delivery services and hygiene among residents.
“No less than 36, 000 residents have direct access to potable water to sustain WASH in the state,” stating that residents respectively comprise 60 and 40 per cent of females and males.
“Twenty-one schools have gender mainstream WASH services provided to reduce and end open defecation by 2025 in the state,” said Dare Oduluyi in the report.
He added that 10 health facilities have also gender mainstream WASH services in the targeted six councils.
The Ministry of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (MRRR) Commissioner, Mustapha Gubio, represented by Bitrus Mshelia call on development partners to ensure that all handed over EU projects are utilized to sustain services deliveries to the people.
According to him, all partners to complete their interventions to speed up their handovers for services deliveries in the water supply, health and education sectors.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr Mohammed Ghuluze, commended the EU for the intervention projects in the health and WASH sectors.
“The WASH facilities are not only to improve personal hygiene but check further spread of water and airborne diseases,” he said.