Monrovia- Liberia Civil Society Organization’s Committee on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene signed a resolution to improve water, sanitation and hygiene and raise awareness on crippling effects of climate change in Liberia.
The group in collaboration with Water for All (SWA), a global organization that coordinates the WASH sector reached the decision on Friday at the end of a two-day workshop aimed at mobilizing the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to raise awareness on WASH and climate change progress in Liberia.
The workshop facilitated by Timothy Kpeh, Executive Director of the United Youth and SWA CSOs Focal person in Liberia, said the two-day workshop was part of SWA initiative towards Liberia’s water, sanitation and hygiene development.
According to him, the training was intended to increase the CSOs’ understanding of Human rights based approach, identify entry-points for rights-based advocacy and the implementation of SWA’s mutual accountability mechanism for effective engagement.
He said the meeting was meant to build a consolidated WASH sector with civil society recommendations for Liberia compact 2.0.
He further said the climate change crisis is a water and sanitation crisis and it threatens existing systems and natural resources to increase services for 3.6 billion people who lack safely managed sanitation, and two billion people who lack access to manage water services.
“Climate Action and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene must go hand in hand despite the link between that combats Climate change and ensuring the universal access to water and sanitation which still show weak link in national climate commitments and policies Mr. Kpeh said.”
“Climate Change impacts people’s rights to water and sanitation by causing floods droughts, changes in precipitation, and temperature show result in scarcity, contamination of drinking water, damaged facilitates and increase the spread of disease.”
According to Kpeh, in line with the Climate solutions and human rights to water and sanitation, Liberia needs to promote inclusive governance mechanisms and human rights institutional arrangements to support community-led context analysis through CSOs designing innovation of WASH solutions where communities and local leadership will play strategic roles towards the improvement of water and sanitation in Liberia.
Meanwhile, the group called on the government to recognize the role and adequacy to safe water and sanitation including its human rights dimensions in climate change adaptation and risk mitigation measures towards the resilience building in achieving sustainable development.
For his part, Satia Kamara, Executive Director, Liberia-WASH Commission, lauded the CSOs and reaffirmed government’s support in working with CSOs to ensure a vibrant WASH sector in Liberia.
“We from the government of Liberia value your effort and reaffirmed the government support to working with you to ensure that we can have a vibrant WASH sector in Liberia”, he pledged.