ABUJA – The Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) programme of the Water Supply Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) Geneva, may be expanded to accommodate more states of the country.
Mr Samuel Ome, the Director, Water Quality and Sanitation Control, Federal Ministry of Water Resources, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
The WSSCC donated five million dollars under their GSF programme to boost sanitation in Nigeria.
The director said that the fund was currently being utilised in Benue and Cross River, while Nigeria had contributed 950,000 dollars to the programme.
He said that the programme, which is being implemented in three local government areas in each of the benefiting states, was being managed by an international organisation known as Concerned Universal, in collaboration with the states and local governments.
Ome said the expansion would be determined by the outcome of the ongoing project in Benue and Cross River and in states that indicated interest and met the required criteria.
“There would be scaling up, but the ongoing ones in Benue and Cross River would give us an opportunity to evaluate how to expand the project to other states.’’
The director said that all chairmen of the benefiting local governments were part of the Programme Coordination Mechanism, to ensure sustainability and promote development.
He said that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was recently signed between the Ministry of Water Resources, implementing state government and WSSCC.
The MoU, he said, was to cement their partnership and allow commitments of executing agencies to achieve the set goals.
In a separate interview, Mr Chris Williams, the Executive Director, WSSCC, told NAN that the programme in Benue and Cross River was for a period of five years.
He said that in the next two years, the plan to extend to other states would be concluded depending on the outcome of the ongoing project.
“There is hope for expansion; it’s a five-year programme; so we will look at the next two years to see how the two states are performing; not just on the funding that we provide, but also on the funding that the government provides.’’
NAN reports that WSSCC is a global multi-stakeholder partnership and membership organisation with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
The organisation works to save and improve livelihoods the the operation of the Global Sanitation Fund programme in 17 countries. (NAN)
