Where we work
Why Nigeria?
- Nigeria has relatively more poor people than any other country, with 86.5 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty.
- Over 55 million Nigerian don’t have access to clean drinking water.
- 70,000 children under the age of 5 die annually due to water related diseases and sanitary conditions.
- Nigeria is not on course to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1 & 6 by 2030.
Extreme Water Poverty in Nigeria
An estimated 55 million Nigerians lack access to clean drinking water. Nigeria is the most densely inhabited country in Africa, with a population of more than 197 million people and growing rapidly. As the population increases, remote communities are further cut off and urban facilities become overloaded. Many people in Nigeria, usually women and girls, walk miles every day to collect water for their families. It takes so long to collect the water that they often do not have time for anything else in the day, meaning that girls especially miss out on education, further trapping them into the cycle of poverty. When they finally do collect the water, the only sources are often unhygienic streams and ponds containing dirty, contaminated water. Animals often use the same water to drink and wash in, meaning that the water is full of contaminant. However, when faced with dehydration, people will take the risk and drink.
