By Mohammed Usman
The Minister of Water Resources and member of African Ministers’ Council on Water(AMCOW), Engr. Suleiman H. Adamu, has called on African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) to strengthen their intergovernmental co-operation in order to halt and reverse the water crisis and sanitation challenges of the continent.
In a statement signed by the Ministry of Water Resources’ Press Director, Mrs. Margaret E. Umoh, the minister made this call during the 15th anniversary celebration of AMCOW in Abuja.
While delivering his welcome address, the Minister said that the celebration of AMCOW’s 15th anniversary will be guided by the theme: “Towards Water Security and Safe Sanitation for Africa”. He explained that the theme has been chosen because water security and safe sanitation are crucial components for the development of all sectors.
“Therefore, there is the need for Africa to renew its commitments and move forward in coherent and coordinated manner towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 6 targets on universal access to water and sanitation services”, he said.
He also called on member countries of AMCOW to note that the vision of the organization is still far from actualization because of the incoherent and uncoordinated approach to water and sanitation issues in Africa. “It is therefore important that we continuously join hands for actions to make African Water Vision 2025, the SDGs and other commitments we subscribed to a reality”.
The Minister for Water and Irrigation, Arab Republic of Egypt and AMCOW Vice President, Mohamed Abdel Atty called on member countries to pay up their arrears in order to realize AMCOW’s potentials. He said: “If all member countries pay up the contributions and arrears, it would fund not less than 60% of the AMCOW strategy. It is indeed true that no country in Africa is so poor that it cannot pay the contributions that we all agreed”.
On his part, the former Minister of Water Resources and the first Chairman of AMCOW, His Excellency Muktari Shehu Shagari, CFR said that AMCOW is a regional body of ministers responsible for water in the management of trans-boundary water resources, eliminate water as a key source of regional instability and use cooperation on water as a basis for bringing nations together on mutually beneficial issues.
