Maputo, 16 Jul (AIM) – More than 20.7 million Mozambicans now have access to clean drinking water, safe for consumption, according to the Minister of Public Works, Carlos Mesquita.
Speaking on Monday in Maputo at the annual meeting of the water supply sector, Mesquita said that, since 2020, a further three million people have gained access to clean drinking water, and over the same period 2.6 million people obtained safe sanitation services.
“The population now covered by the supply of safe drinking water stands at more than 20.7 million, while about 13 million have access to decent sanitation”, he said. These gains have reduced the number of Mozambican who are obliged to walk for kilometres every day to fetch water.
“We note with satisfaction”, added Mesquita, “that with the expansion of water supply services, there is a growing trend in rural areas to opt for piped water in the home, which significantly reduces the distances people must walk to obtain this precious liquid”.
Mesquita promised that the government will invest in systems to retain water in semi-arid area, in order to reduce the impact of drought.
The representative in Mozambique of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Maria Luisa Fornara, told the meeting that, according to the 2022/23 issue of the Demographics and Health Survey, 42 per cent of the rural and 82 per cent of the urban population now have access to clean drinking water (which gives an overall national average of 55 per cent).
Although this is an improvement on the 53 per cent of the total population with access to safe water in 2011, Fornara noted the considerable disparity between urban and rural areas, and stressed “We need to mobilise more investment, so that more households have access to water supply services”.
The results achieved so far are “encouraging”, she said, but not sufficient to meet the target of universal access to water services by 2030.
Access to sanitation also showed a sharp disparity between the towns and the countryside. 68 per cent of the urban population has access to decent sanitation, but only 21 per cent of the rural population.
(AIM)
Pf/ (360)
