State to invest in water sector

Mines, Energy and Water Development Minister Christopher Yaluma said it was for this reason that his ministry was working with cooperating partners in implementing various projects on small and medium dam rehabilitation and maintaining hydrometric stations and
networks for improved water resources management information systems.
Mr Yaluma said this in a speech read on his behalf by Mines, Energy and Water Development Deputy Minister Charles Zulu at the official opening of the third Zambia Water Forum and Exhibition in Lusaka yesterday.
Mr Yaluma said Government was committed to providing sustainable and equitable access to safe water supply and adequate sanitation through infrastructure development.
“Government is committed to providing sustainable and equitable access to safe water supply and adequate sanitation through infrastructure development, promote rural development, improve health and alleviate poverty,” he said.
Mr Yaluma said Government’s objective was to achieve 85 per cent access to reliable and safe water and 70 per cent access to adequate sanitation by 2016 in order to improve quality of life and productivity.
He said his ministry was implementing the ground water management programme which would soon be rolled out throughout the country to sensitise people on protection of water from pollution and depletion.
Mr Yaluma urged stakeholders to develop sustainable solutions and technologies that would be an answer to the challenges that the water sector was facing particularly appropriate technologies that could be used especially in peri-urban areas.
And cooperating partners Assistance to the Water Sector in Zambia’s sustainable development sector, team leader Robin Mearns said cooperating partners were happy to note that cooperation in the area of the policy development had yielded positive results.
He said the two parties had worked together in the area of policy strategy and capacity development particularly in the area of water supply and sanitation where they would continue to support Government in realising its policy objective.
Mr Mearns said the partners believed that the addressing of infrastructure deficit in the water sector had a central role to play in Zambia’s social and economic development agenda and was critical to poverty reduction.