TOWARD REALIZING THE TARGET 7 OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN NIGERIA

B.S. Waziri

Department of Civil and Water Resources Engineering

University of Maiduguri, Nigeria

Email: shehuwaziri@yahoo.co.uk

ABSTRACT

Access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are part of the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty by the year 2015. Existing literatures have revealed that large population of the world have a low level of access to safe water. Several reports have also indicated that Africa is the region that suffers most from this lack of access to sustainable water supply. The paper explored the importance of sustainable urban water supply toward realising the target 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015. From the results of the case study the supply from functioning boreholes was found to be inadequate based on the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Reference Centre for Community Water Supply. This further indicated that unless serious measures are undertaken by concerned authorities in ensuring sustainable water supply, realizing the MDGs would be a difficult task.