The World Water Day is commemorated every 22nd of March since 1993. The day is set apart to celebrate the significance of water and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. It is about taking action to tackle the global water crisis.
According to the United Nations, the World Water Day’s core focus is to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.
Clean water is vital for a healthy human life. According to World WildLife, 1.1 billion people lack access to water and 2.7 billion experience water scarcity at least one month a year. The estimates project that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may be facing water shortages, and consequently “when water runs dry, people can’t get enough to drink, wash, or feed crops, and economic decline may occur.”
The Conserve Energy Future cites distance as a cause of water scarcity, as several remote areas deal with water scarcity because they just are not close to anywhere with water. Dataphyte’s and REA’s analysis show some of these data points in Nigeria. REA data shows that as we go North East, the water points become less saturated.
Implications of these Water Statistics for Nigeria
United Nations water data shows that Nigeria ranks least among peers in the region with regards to the proportion of water bodies with good water quality that it possesses. Besides Uganda which presented no data, Nigeria ranked least with 12% quality water compared to Benin Republic and Niger Republic with 89% and 60% respectively.
A World Health Organisation post on drinking water notes that when water comes from improved and more accessible sources, people spend less time and effort physically collecting it, meaning they can be productive in other ways. This also results in greater personal safety by reducing the need to make long or risky journeys to collect water. Better water sources also mean less expenditure on health, as people are less likely to fall ill and incur medical costs and are better able to remain economically productive.
Relying on the United Nations estimates, Seametrics projects that areas of high water stress will be populated by half of the world’s population by the year 2030. Noting that a thriving economy requires fresh water for industrial use, farming, and individual use, the Seametrics article posits that a lack of freshwater resources will limit water-intensive goods like cars, food, and clothing.
Besides these, lack of freshwater can also affect workers’ productivity by causing illnesses, and higher water costs for individuals can reduce household disposable income, resulting in an economic slowdown.
The Conserve Energy Future says water scarcity makes it difficult for people to get the education that they need or that they deserve mainly because those children are either too sick to go to school or they are working to help get water to the home and the family.
With a global population racing to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, shrinking water resources will make it difficult to match food production with demand. The United Nations warns that political turmoil, social unrest, civil war, and terrorism could result from food shortages unless food production is increased by 60% by 2050.
These grave consequences of water shortages on the environment, economy and indeed every facet of human life calls for the Nigerian government to take the country’s water crisis seriously, at least as much as the sustainable development goals demand.