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0 On February 17th 2022, EnvironFocus ran a webinar that focused on SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. The one-day webinar consisted of three brilliant speakers, Tobias Omufwoko, Nonso Orefo, and Bob Bongomin, who all presented informative presentations on the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector (WASH).
The purpose of SDG 6 is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. The main topic discussed in this webinar regarding SDG 6 was the WASH sector, the current situation, its challenges and its opportunities. To view the webinar preview, visit our youtube. To pay for the full video, visit our webinar recordings page on our website.
Speaker 1: Tobias Omufwoko
A Public Health/ WASH Specialist with experience in diverse challenging roles in the Public sector, UN, AU, and CSOs. He spoke about WASH, the current situation on the ground, the solutions, and the opportunities.
Some highlights of the discussion points that Tobias’s presentation focused on include why we should focus on WASH. Building and sustaining political will to eliminate inequalities in WASH, championing multi-stakeholder approaches towards achieving universal access to services, the need for integrity, accountability, transparency, and participation to eliminate corruption in WASH. Enhancing human rights to water and sanitation. And the need for more research and data because “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”.
Some memorable quotes from Tobias that sum up his presentation are that in delivering WASH services, “we must look at the key aspects of human rights in water and sanitation and that also involves equality and non discrimination”. And also that we must “focus on the key issues that are challenges and then look at what opportunities that we have in moving forward in WASH pertaining to achieving sdg 6”. (Tobias Omufwoko)
Speaker 2: Nonso Orefo
A Procurement Analyst and Service Center Team Lead for United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nigeria. He spoke about the business of WASH: how companies can participate; what is required; who makes up the WASH supply chain, and opportunities.
His presentation focused on explaining how client focused procurement can be a part of the solution to speed up the progression and implementation of sdg 6. Nonso stated that “from [his] perspective if we do client focused procurement we can push or speed up the sdg’s but, there are a few challenges”. Some of the challenges that he discussed included a weak infrastructure, a weak financing capacity, lack of awareness, weak quality control, and public procurement corruption. Along with discussing challenges, Nonso also spoke about enablers and coordination of actors being a means to push sdg 6 closer to its goal faster.
A memorable quote from Nonso that summarized his presentation is that “with the three enablers, smart procurement/ responsible procurement, being aware of the market/ being market focused, and coordination of all the actors, I think it will be faster to push SDG 6 closer to the goal post which is to make sure that all the developing country indicators are addressed by 2030” (Nonso Orefo).
Speaker 3: Bob Bongomin
A UNICEF WASH Sector Coordinator in Nigeria. He spoke about the current public health issues concerning WASH in IDP camps in North-Eastern Nigeria and the opportunities.
Highlighted discussion points from Bob’s presentation include the statistics of the current public health issues concerning WASH in IDP camps, and the key challenges such as the average walking distance and time to fetch water. Additionally, he spoke about opportunities for WASH in IDP camps and a few examples of these opportunities include opportunities in public private partnerships especially with the humanitarian development nexus, opportunities with the rural water and sanitation agencies (RUWASA), and waste management agencies (BOSEPA). Also opportunities in increased capacity in the state emergency agency for camp management and emergency response.
A memorable quote from Bob is “how do we link WASH responses to the health out camps, how do we build a stronger case so that we attract resources but we also highlight some of the challenges and gaps that exist linking this to the health indicators and out camps of illnesses, diseases, outbreaks, and deaths in order to continuously highlight the need to have wash supported across the globe?” (Bob Bongomin).
This webinar provided insightful knowledge on this topic through not only the presentation but also the engaging Q&A.
We want to thank our speakers for sharing their knowledge with us and creating an atmosphere of learning and thoughtful discussions. It was a pleasure having Tobias Omufwoko, Nonso Orefo, and Bob Bongomin speak at this event and deliver such enlightening presentations both individually and as a collective on the topic of WASH.
We are grateful to those who attended the webinar, and we want to make this knowledge accessible to those who could not attend, below you will find information on how to access the webinar recording.
Webinar Preview
To pay for the full video, visit our webinar recordings page on our website.
Next Webinar Coming Up
Our next webinar “Creating Bridges to Affordable Reliable and Clean Energy in Africa”, will cover SDG 7, affordable and clean energy and will be held on March 17th 2022. You can stay updated and be ready to save your spot by following us on our social media and subscribing to our mailing list here
You can also let us know what topics you are interested in for future webinars by emailing us at programs@environbuzz.com. We hope that you can attend our next webinar in March. To stay updated on our next webinar, you can follow us on our social media and subscribe to our mailing list here
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