Islamabad: (Parliament Times) Terming depleting water resources as a major challenge for the country, speakers at the inaugural session of the three-day National Convention on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) here on Friday said, “It was eminent that every drop of water is consumed with utmost care so that our future generations do not face water scarcity”.
The convention brings together policy makers, practitioners and development partners working to come up with solutions to the issues related to the WASH sector in Pakistan. The participants will discuss in detail how to deal with the bottlenecks being faced by the country in meeting its targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to the water sector.
Speakers at the inaugural ceremony elaborated that if behaviours towards the conservation of water were not changed and the laws and policies were not firmly put into effect the country would soon face food insecurity, droughts and a lack of clean drinking water.
Speakers at the convention included Khurram Arsalan Deputy Programme Director WASH Sindh Local Government Department, Shahid Sohail former Member Engineering CDA, Dr. AG Sajnani Head of SDG Unit Sindh Planning and Development department, Saman Bakhtiar, Economist and Sector Analyst SDG unit Balochistan, Shahzad Khalil Project manager SDG Unit Punjab and Muhammad Ali Raza SDG Unit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Expers shared their experiences and lessons learnt in working towards improvement of situation with regards to water and sanitation through targeted policy making and governance reforms to achieve the SDG targets.
Water and Sanitation in Pakistan has become one of the most pressing modern-day challenge for the country. Pakistan’s water profile has changed drastically from being a water abundant country to one experiencing water stress.
There are many factors that have amplified the water issue including rapid urbanization, improved living standards, sharp increase in demand, weather patterns and climatic changes. As a result, the country is faced with serious challenges in fulfilling its international commitments for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Various session will be held to present and share statistics and experiences from the provinces about water access, budget and investment needs as well as sector issues. Sector experts present at the convention will critically review the data through the scope of achieving the SDG target and to gauge the progress and performance on the path.
On the first day, the first session focused on the role of Local Governments who have the onus to deliver municipal services in urban and rural areas of Pakistan. Another session critically reviewed the link between large infrastructures i.e. construction of dams and impact of water accessibility.
The second day will focus on issues related to Menstrual Health Management (MHM), including mainstreaming in educational institutions through policy making.
On the third and final day, the convention will host a debate on the issues related to sanitation and waste management through focused policy reforms. Presenters at the conference will review national and provincial sanitation policies and issues related to institutional design for management of sanitation. A technical session will also discuss the approaches towards financing of sanitation.
Government official, sector experts and other stakeholders are taking part in the WASH convention with the objective to bring the most pertinent topics to the discussion table and generate policy level recommendation for the future.
