The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that Africa is facing a water crisis and that with climate and water crises escalating around the world, nowhere else are the risks to children more acute.
A new analysis from this institution, released on the eve of the Water Conference, examines household access to valuable fluids, sanitation and hygiene services, the burden of death attributed to this resource, sanitation and hygiene in young children as young as five and the burden by climate and environmental threats.
The report identified where children are most at risk and where urgent investment in solutions is needed to prevent unnecessary deaths.
UNICEF Program Director Sanjay Wijesekera asserted that devastating storms, floods and historic droughts are destroying facilities and homes, polluting water resources, triggering hunger crises and spreading disease.
“But as difficult as the current conditions are, without urgent action, the future could be much bleaker,” he warned.
The triple threat is most severe in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Somalia, making west and central Africa one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change, they say in the report.
He stressed that many of the hardest-hit countries, particularly in the Sahel, are also facing instability and armed conflict, further complicating children’s access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
In the 10 hardest-hit countries, nearly a third of infants do not have these services at home and two-thirds do not have disinfection systems, while a quarter are forced to void outdoors.
Hand hygiene is also limited, as three quarters of the children cannot wash their hands because there is a lack of soap and water at home.
As a result, UNICEF said, these countries bear the heaviest burden of child deaths from diseases caused by poor sanitation such as diarrhea, while six of the 10 worst-hit nations suffered from cholera outbreaks last year.
Globally, more than 1,000 children under five die every day from diseases related to water, sanitation and hygiene, and about two in five are concentrated in these 10 African countries alone.
jcm/crc