By Fatmata Jengbe
The World Vision has on the 14th October,2021 unveiled its 2021-2025 Strategic WASH Plan during a well attended event that was held at the Bintumani Conference Centre in Freetown.
In his statement, the Country Director of World Vision, Sagane Thiaw stated that the goal the organization is aiming at is to increase the number of individuals to have access to safe drinking water and improve sanitation in rural and urban areas by 2030.
He furthered that the design of the five-year plan includes resource mobilization geared towards supporting programmes that will contribute to the global movement of providing water to everyone and collaborate with other stakeholders for positive outcomes that are aligned to the institution’s mandate.
According to him, the country must act swiftly to fulfill the commitment made by the world, six years ago, when the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals was developed. He furthered that investment in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene is critical in preventing the outbreak of a pandemic or local outbreak of diseases maintaining that its absence leaves us exposed .
The Country Director underscored that the first line of defense against COVID-19 and so many other diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, malnutrition, influenza pneumonia is WASH maintaining that without it we are all vulnerable.
He therefore called on all relevant actors and stakeholders to increase investments and scale up actions emphasizing the need to prioritize sustainable access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene as fundamental services for people.
On his part, the Minister of Water Resource, Philip K Lansana, stated that Government is poised to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal Six adding how by 2030 every Sierra Leonean will have access to adequate WASH facilities.
The Minister stated that such a determination is manifested in both the SLPP New Direction Manifesto and Sierra Leone’s National Mid-Term Development Plan.
He furthered how his Ministry and other departments as well as agencies are working relentlessly to achieve that goal through several WASH projects using internally mobilized revenue and donor funds.
The Water Resource Minister explained that the Government has developed a WASH policy and now developing an implementation plan of that policy which the World Vision International has consented to fund.
WASH-Net Founder and Executive Coordination, Musa Ansumana Soko, explained that reports on the country’s access to WASH facilities show an abysmal picture .
“World Vision is taking a bold step to have a strategy that will more specifically address issues of health, of survival and Women Empowerment,” he stated adding how the strategy is not only right but timely and therefore called on its partners, particularly those in the WASH sector, to support the drive in ensuring that one district could be reached at a time.
“I am sure with more hands on deck, we will be able to address some of the anomalies,” he said with determination.
Various representatives of institutions made salient contributions on the importance of improving WASH facilities in communities and raising awareness on cleanliness and maintaining facilities that will contribute to healthy living.
