Kenya on track towards achieving SDG6 on water and sanitation

Unfortunately, achieving clean water and sanitation by 2030 will require a "miracle," according to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS).

Kenya is making efforts at her own pace to meet SDG 6 on water and sanitation.

According to Dr.Charles Otieno K'Onyango, Kenya's Director for Urban Development, urban areas have been divided into 59 municipalities for ease of management in order to implement proper sanitation practices.

”The 59 municipalities, part of their functions is the management of sanitation in the areas in order for us to achieve quality of life for our own residents," said K'Onyango, who was speaking with Citizen Digital at the recently concluded 21st Congress of the African Water and Sanitation Association (AFWASA) and the 7th Conference on Faecal Sludge Management held in Abijan, Ivory Coast.

Sanitation is a set of public health conditions, particularly the provision of safe drinking water and adequate sewage disposal.

Because industrial wastewater contains a wide range of impurities, it necessitates a unique, tailored solution.

According to Mr.Hezekiah Otieno Pireh, team leader for water and sanitation at UNHABITAT in Nairobi, Kenya, linking sanitation management issues to agriculture is critical to ensuring that sludge management products are used in agriculture.

“When you use water, you end up with waste water, so what is the most sustainable way of managing the waste water? That brings up the issue of sludge management and how the sludge can be managed in a way that the byproduct can be used in agriculture,” he painted a picture.

Sludge, also known as biosolids, is the accumulated residue, slurry residual, or semisolid material in sewage treatment plants.

High-value sludge recovery in various production processes and the recycling of treated effluent water are gaining traction in various sewerage treatment plants in some African countries as an increasing priority among manufacturing and production establishments, and Kenya is making efforts to catch up.

Athi Water Works Development Agency, a Kenyan state corporation under the Ministry of Water, Sanitation, and Irrigation that covers Nairobi, Kiambu, and Murang'a counties, announced in February 2023 a major sanitation intervention for Nairobi City in 2023.

“Our sanitation interventions for Nairobi City are underway! Through the Nairobi Rivers Sewerage Improvement Project Phase 2, we aim to increase sewerage coverage from 48% to 55%, provide over 20K household connections, and expand the Dandora-Ruai Waste Water Treatment Plant,” read an Athi Water Works verified Twitter handle.

The intervention will assist more than 400K residents, including those in Kahawa West, Kahawa Sukari, Mwiki, Githurai 44 and 45, Kasarani, Karen, Uthiru, Kangemi, Roysambu, Zimmerman, Ruaka, Eastleigh, Huruma, Mathare, and Utawala.

Kenyan state cooperation also pledged to ensure that informal settlements are not left out of the effort, as they will benefit from new sanitation interventions such as biocentrism, ablution blocks, and fecal sludge disposal facilities.

As of February 2023, WHO and UNICEF in a joint report from July 2021 still maintained that by 2030, billions of people around the world will not have access to safely managed safe water, sanitation, and hygiene services unless the current rate of progress is multiplied four times, resulting in endless engagements for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) experts.

According to a joint WHO/UNICEF report, 2.1 billion people worldwide still do not have access to domestic drinking water services, and 4.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation services, a concern for governments.