Earth Day: Nigeria, Liberia, Others Gain Access To Safe Drinking Water

The Special Coordinator for Water Resources at the U.S. State Department Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science, Mr Aaron Salzberg, has disclosed that the U.S Government on Friday, gave Nigeria, Kenya, Liberia, South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia access to drinking water and sanitation, under it’s foreign assistance initiative in a teleconference.

Salzberg spoke on the occasion to mark this year’s `Earth Day’ with the theme, ‘’Water for the World Act and Water Issues in Africa’’. He said that the U.S. Congress had recently passed the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act, making the government’s foreign assistance to include access to drinking water and sanitation.

‘’The United States Congress recently passed the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act, which made access to drinking water and sanitation a priority for U.S. foreign assistance.

The Act requires the President to identify a set of priority countries for U.S. foreign assistance targeted towards drinking water and sanitation, and many African countries are on that list. “We have identified that list of priority countries, and again, many African countries are on this list. These include Nigeria, Kenya, Liberia, South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia,’’ he said.

Salzerberg said that the lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene was responsible for ‘’leading causes’’ of death among children under five years. The U.S. official said that his government was working globally to improve water security, to ensure that people had access to sustainable supplies of water.