Africa: Corruption in Water Sector Hinders Development

23 JULY 2016, Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam). By Lydia Shekighenda German - based Water Integrity Network (WIN) has called upon African governments to tackle corruption in water sector to ensure that the resources allocated are efficiently utilised to transform it. WIN Executive Director, Mr Frank van der Valk told the Daily News in Dar es Salaam yesterday on the sideline of the 6th Africa Water Week that a lot of resources are lost in the sector or used for wrong purposes due to corruption. "If Africa wants to achieve the SDGs, particularly goal number six, it is crucial to reduce corruption in the water sector," Mr Valk said. He observed that if efficiency in the water sector increases by reducing corruption, it will be much easier for African countries to achieve the SDGs. Mr Valk however noted that there were many other factors which needed to be addressed in order to transform the water sector, such as improvement of governance and management of water sector which needs much improvement since it has been a bottleneck in transforming the sector. Mr Valk also stressed the need of building sufficient capacity throughout institutions and civil societies which is essential for better work on water. Expounding further, he said for African countries to address water problems which have been facing its people for a long time, it was crucial to involve communities to express their needs and wishes and present them to the government. Commenting on the support by development partners, he said African countries have been getting a lot of support from donors for water sector. He however challenged Africa to consider how it can generate sufficient financial resources to cover the water needs. "The solution to water problems in Africa will only be sustainable if the continent will find its own sustainable financing mechanisms," Mr Valk said. On his part, Sokoine University of Agriculture Lecturer from the Environmental Department, Mr Makarius Lalika said that access to water and sanitation is still the biggest challenge in Africa. Mr Lalika said that the situation is highly contributed by poverty and lack of awareness among the communities. He said if Africa wants to achieve SDGs particularly number six, it should address poverty from the household level. "Water and sanitation is still the biggest challenge in Africa, thus the governments need to allocate more resources to address the problems. He however called upon the Tanzanian government to address poverty from the household level to enable people to have access to clean water. "Some people in our country use unsafe water, not because of lack of awareness but because of poverty, thus if this problem is addressed, even the number of people using unsafe water will decrease," he said. Commenting on the support by development partners, he said African countries should find its own financial sources to fund water projects. "The support by donors is crucial, but it should be supplement to the efforts done by our governments," he said

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