Agency, Lagos seal deal to enhance water entry

The Lagos State authorities has sealed a cope with Resilient Water Accelerator (RWA) to enhance residents’ entry to water and construct local weather resilience.

Although Lagos is essentially an island with giant our bodies of water, entry to pipe-borne water within the state is so low that, in accordance with out there data, solely 10 p.c of the state’s estimated 22 million residents have entry to piped water.

The partnership gave beginning to the Lagos Water Partnership (LWP) which was inaugurated on Tuesday and is predicted to mobilise non-public and public finance for water tasks that can improve local weather resilience in weak communities.

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RWA is a programme designed to enhance funding, water safety and local weather resilience in locations like Lagos, by bringing collectively the private and non-private sectors, by catalysing finance round tangible options, and displaying what might be executed.

“In the present day is a vital second for me and the Resilient Water Accelerator as now we have helped to provoke the Lagos Water Partnership. Additionally it is an essential second for Lagos – a metropolis of water – with large water alternatives. In the present day marks a big milestone in our collective journey in the direction of securing a sustainable water future for Lagos,” Kate Hughes, CEO, Resilient Water Accelerator, famous.

Hughes famous additional that local weather change might generally sound like a distant menace, however its results are felt day by day in cities like Lagos. In keeping with her, local weather change is just what’s skilled by folks, firms and ecosystems by way of flooding, drought, saline intrusion into consuming water, air pollution of water from sewage, and sea stage rise.

Local weather change, she added, impacts productiveness, well being, transport, jobs, ecosystems, livelihoods, property, and the lives of ladies and women, declaring nonetheless that there are large alternatives too, particularly in a thriving, entrepreneurial metropolis like Lagos which is stuffed with innovation, funding and inspiration. “It is a metropolis the place everybody understands the worth of water,” she stated.

Hughes stated that Lagos is a metropolis the place $4 billion price per yr is incurred by the bodily injury, lack of financial productiveness and mortality from flooding, including that 30 p.c of Lagos is at excessive danger of flooding whereas $3 billion is required to fulfill potable water infrastructure funding hole in 5 years

She stated that persons are paying for water and it’s such that these getting water from a tanker might be paying 500 p.c greater than these getting piped water from the Lagos Water Company (LWC).

“Solely 10 p.c of the inhabitants has piped water. And the poorest are sometimes paying essentially the most for his or her water which is usually as much as half of their day by day revenue, she stated, stressing that “the Lagos Water Partnership is about how we rise to this large alternative to construct the resilience of Lagos, to enhance folks’s lives, and to point out the world what might be executed.”

Tokunbo Wahab, the state’s commissioner for surroundings and water sources, described the water partnership as a big milestone within the state’s mission to reinforce the surroundings and the water sources sector within the state.

Justifying the partnership, the commissioner stated that metropolis authorities globally usually face useful resource constraints in addressing city wants, making partnerships, collaborations and alliances necessities for drawing resourcefulness and offering important metropolis companies.

“To help our efforts at reworking the surroundings and water sources sector, the ministry has created an enabling surroundings to draw companions and construct strategic alliances.

In December 2019, underneath the directive of Mr. Governor, the ministry established the Technical Advisory Committee on the Inexperienced Local weather Fund bid,” he stated.