Billions of people are still living without safely managed water and sanitation. This is the case in most parts of Africa. Despite the recognition of the human right to water and sanitation by the United Nations (UN) through Resolution 64/292, 3.6 billion people still lacked safely managed sanitation in 2020, including 1.7 billion without basic sanitation facilities.

Evidence from UN-Water indicates that Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) is critical to sustainable development. Safe drinking water and sanitation are human rights. Access to these services, including water and soap for hand washing, is fundamental to human health and well-being. They are essential to improving nutrition, preventing disease and enabling health care, as well as to ensuring the functioning of schools, workplaces and political institutions and the full participation in society of women, girls and marginalized groups.

Our planet is water-stressed. With limited water resources, it is important to fairly balance the water requirements of society, the economy and the environment everywhere, particularly in Ethiopia. A recent UNICEF report shows that water supply and sanitation services are very poor in the country.

Due to this, 60 to 80 percent of communicable diseases are attributed to limited access to safe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene services in Ethiopia. In addition, an estimated 50 percent of the consequences of undernutrition are caused by environmental factors that include poor hygiene and lack of access to water supply and sanitation. There are strong links between sanitation and stunting, and open defecation can lead to fecal-oral diseases such as diarrhea, which can cause and worsen malnutrition.

In order to redress these challenges in urban and rural parts of Ethiopia, a few initiatives are being implemented by governmental, non-governmental and United Nations’ agencies, with funding from the Government of Ethiopia and from global funding organizations/sources.

Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water and Energy, Ministry of Health and their development partners have joined forces to ensure that the Ethiopian population — especially women, children, adolescent girls and vulnerable groups — equitably access safely managed water supply and sanitation services, end open defecation and adopt appropriate hygiene practices, including menstrual health and hygiene, in households, communities and institutions in rural and urban areas. The government also runs collaborative actions with UN agencies (like UNICEF) and international nongovernment organizations (like IWMI) on the ONE WASH National Programme, a sector-wide and multi-sectoral approach to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming.

As a leading international research institute on water, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is also working in Ethiopia to improve urban water and sanitation services, better technical expertise of water system engineers and generate evidence with the Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA) and Addis Ababa University, through the support of the United Kingdom’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).

The IWMI initiative has thus far been extensively carrying out water quality screening in the Akaki River Catchment near Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, with the application of an innovative suitcase laboratory (potable testing laboratory), developed originally by Newcastle University. This is hugely supporting the Addis Ababa City Government in providing safer water to its 5 million population. 

This World Water Day, IWMI reaffirms its commitment to continue building partnerships and enhancing cooperation across all dimensions of sustainable development since these are essential to accelerate progress towards water goals and targets, and human rights to water and sanitation in Ethiopia and beyond.