The government together with partners has developed an ambitious road map to improve access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030.
This was revealed by Pal Mai Deng, the Minister of Water and Irrigation during the closing of the South Sudan Second Joint Sector Review on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) attended by key national and state ministries and development partners in Juba.
“The conference developed a clear roadmap to transition from humanitarian dependency to sustainable development in all sectors, especially the WASH sector, to achieve sustainable development. Also, this served as a precedent towards a clear, concise, and implementable WASH policy, hinged on a transparent delivery system based on a well-defined institutional framework for the WASH sector,” Mai said.
He said that the government and development partners remain committed to achieving sector targets in the WASH sector.
Hamida Lasseko, UN Children Fund (UNICEF) Representative in South Sudan said that UNICEF’s key priority is to support and strengthen the WASH sector across the country to achieve sustainable WASH services and accelerate improvement in particular, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.1 on water supply and SD6.2 for sanitation and hygiene.
“Our support to the government in conducting this WASH joint sector review is an effort to bring together key actors from all the subnational governments and other stakeholders to strengthen WASH systems and mobilize support and resources to fill the gaps and address the challenges in water and sanitation affecting the children of South Sudan,” she said.
Bouwe-Jan Smeding, the Deputy Head of Mission in the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Sudan, said that major donors such as the U.S, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands remain committed to supporting the people of South Sudan to attain healthy, productive and prosperous communities where everyone has access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services.
“To achieve the WASH targets, the government of South Sudan needs to take the lead in coordinating partner activities, increase funding to the sector and create one vision for WASH in South Sudan,” he said.
The 2023 data from the World Health Organization (WHO) /UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, revealed that access to basic water supply has fallen from 41percent in 2010 to 39 percent in 2020.
It added in the same period basic sanitation has fallen slightly from 16 percent to 14 percent, while open defecation has risen from 60 percent to 63 percent.
It also noted that only 22 percent of the populations have hand washing facilities with soap and water in their homes.
The specific objectives of the conference were to review water and sanitation sector service delivery and governance at all levels, strengthen water and sanitation sector coordination addressing gaps, harmonising approaches and partnerships and finance for the sector, provide clarity on institutional arrangements for the provision of water supply and sanitation in urban, emerging towns and rural areas, address gender equity and social inclusion in water and sanitation service delivery, and foster local and private sector WASH services providers.
