WaterAid says Nigeria and other developing countries’ economies like Nigeria struggle to develop due to a lack of toilets and other hygienic provisions.

The organisation noted that Nigeria’s economy and that of other developing countries would be boosted by trillions of dollars over the next two decades if clean water, toilets, and hygiene are available to everyone.

WaterAid, an international aid agency, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.

Its report, ‘Mission Critical, Invest in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for a Healthy and Green Economic Recovery,’ showed that reaching the levels of access defined by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals could unlock huge sums.

“Ensuring everyone has a toilet where waste is safely managed can yield $86 billion per year in greater productivity and reduced health costs amongst other benefits.

”Ensuring everyone has somewhere to wash their hands with soap and water can yield $45 billion per year. Ensuring everyone has a tap at home can yield $37 billion per year,” stated WaterAid.

It said the report came after the UK government faced wide criticism for revealing plans to slash aid spending on life-saving clean water, hygiene, and sanitation programmes in developing countries by 80 per cent earlier this year.

The report noted that protecting water and sanitation infrastructure from worsening flooding was one of the best ways to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from the impacts of climate change.

It said for every U.S. dollar spent on strategic flood upgrades, $62 in flood restoration costs could be avoided, as well as preventing life-threatening contamination of drinking water sources.

The report explained that providing a community water pump or well can give women and girls the equivalent of 77 million working days per year that they currently spend collecting water.

It added that upgrading to a tap in every house would free up 122 million working days annually stolen from women and girls.

“The impact on the lives, prospects, and freedom of women and girls, as well as a country’s economic success, would be transformative.

“Achieving the UN targets on sanitation could prevent up to six billion cases of diarrhoea and 12 billion cases of parasitic worms between 2021 and 2040.

“Diarrhoea kills more than 70,000 children each year, and hookworm – just one type of parasitic worms, affects 500 million people each year. Meaning that every year four million years are lost to people through ill-health or shortened lives,” the report said.

(NAN)