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NAIROBI: President Uhuru Kenyatta has challenged professionals to provide practical solutions to enhance access to clean water and sanitation.
Speaking yesterday while opening the 18th African Water Association International Congress and Exhibition in Nairobi, the President said innovative solutions were needed urgently.
He called for sustainable management of resources, reliable distribution, prudent infrastructure development and better operation and maintenance.
“There could hardly be a more important matter for Kenya and Africa than the state of our water and its management. Like you, I try to keep a careful eye on the state of research into the matter,” he said.
The President said availability of fresh water will be increasingly strained in the near future as the local and global demand for it rises.
“As population rises, and livelihoods are threatened by the unsustainable consumption of water, productivity decreases and the potential for conflict over the scarce resource, increases. This may be particularly important in the Horn of Africa where water security has real economic, social, ecological and political value,” he said.
He said Kenya needed urgent intervention since it is a water-scarce country with less than 1,000 cubic metres per capita of renewable fresh-water resources while 80 per cent of the land is arid and semi-arid. The bulk of Kenya’s renewable water resources derive from rainfall and ground water.
The President said Kenya will continue to promote the integrated water resources management approach.
This, he said, will ensure adequate sources, protect our catchments and safeguard biodiversity by promoting wider participation including involving local communities in water conservation activities.
Water Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa called for more funding for water and sanitation research in Africa, saying water and sanitation have to be prioritised in the country and Africa at large.
“They have to be prioritised at the national and county level,” the CS told the forum for experts.
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