The Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS), on Thursday noted that water and sanitation issues were slipping back on the agenda of the African Union and reminded governments to keep the promises they made last year to the sector.
Mr Patrick Apoya, Coordinator of CONIWAS recalled that, last year the African Union summit focused on water and sanitation issues and leaders, who attended the summit, made commitments to accelerate progress towards water and sanitation goals, however, little or no action had been taken to ensure that African countries implement the commitments.
The 13th African Union Summit, which started July 1, 2009 in Sirte, Libya is expected to end on July 3, 2009. It is being organised on the theme: "Investing in Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security."
Mr Apoya expressed the concerns at a meeting jointly organised by his organisation and Water Aid, a non-governmental organisation to brief the media on the progress made in the water and sanitation sector since the commitment were made at the summit last year.
"Access to safe water and sanitation topped the summit's agenda last year when African leaders made a historic pledge to turn around dismal progress, however, it seems the reality and the rhetoric do not match," he said.
Mr Stephen Ntow, WaterAid Country Representative, admitted that there had been little action since the last AU summit and said about 780,000 children have died of diarrhoea in Africa since the last summit.
He said about 546 million people in Africa, which constituted about two-thirds of Africa's population do not have access to safe sanitation and 221 million people defecate in the open.
"About 328 million people do not have access to safe source of water," he said stressing that in Ghana there were 9,900 child deaths from diarrhoea according to the 2009 UNICEF statistics.
Mr Ntow noted that failure to achieve the Millennium Development Goals on Water and Sanitation would have serious economic cost to the tune of about 15 billion dollars a year as well as a tragic human cost looking at the high diarrhoea mortality rate in children under age five.
Mr Ibrahim Musah, Policy and Research Officer at WaterAid Ghana, emphasised the need for governments to fully implement and monitor commitments on water and sanitation.
He said: "African governments must work closely with international counterparts like the Group of Eight (G8) countries to strengthen the global framework for action on water and sanitation."