Statistician-General seeks support from households on WASH-NORM Survey

Dr Yemi Kale, the Statistician-General of the Federation, has solicited for the support and collaboration of households in Nigeria to provide requested information on the WASH-NORM Survey.
WASH is acronym for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene while NORM is National Outcome Routine Mapping.
Kale made the call at the inauguration of WASH-NORM Survey on Tuesday in Abuja.
The National Bureau of Statistics is to conduct the survey in collaboration with UNICEF.
The statistician-general said the survey would ensure that the Ministry of Water Resources and UNICEF get reliable information to take good decision.
Kale said: “It is an important study because it covers health and wellbeing of the people and it has micro economic implication on every part of the country.’’
Kale, however, called on Nigerians to cooperate with the NBS staff that would be deployed to the field for the survey.
He said: “We will deploy our staff to the field on April 27 for 16 days, after which we will do our internal data analysis.
“The outcome of the survey will be published by 3rd week in June.’’
The statistician-general said one of the ways of ensuring informed decision was to ensure the production of good and reliable data.
According to him, the NBS has been the eye of policy makers, as the mandate of the bureau is to provide useful data to organisations such as UNICEF and Ministry of Water Resources.
Kale said: “We take our work seriously because getting wrong data can mislead policy makers and harm the people.’’
In his remarks, Zaid Jurgi, the Chief WASH, UNICEF, said the organisation had been collaborating with the Ministry of Water Resources for the past 20 years.
Jurgi said UNICEF had been supporting the ministry to improve WASH coverage and achieve development goals.
He said: “We have observed that Nigeria is facing some challenges relating to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, goal six on water and sanitation coverage.
“Based on already conducted survey with NBS, we have some figures that revealed those challenges.
“Only two third of the population have access to safe water; in sanitation, almost 25 per cent of the population practice open defecation.’’
The official said that the ministry was determined to achieve the SDGs goal six but was faced with a challenge of filling the huge gap.
Jurgi said: “The manner in which to fill the huge gap should be done in a scientific manner based on statistics.’’
Jurgi, however, said the most important thing about NORM was that it would tell the problems the country had been facing in WASH.
He said the aim of NORM was to get data at the state and national level, saying the combination of the figures would tell policy makers how to address those challenges in the sector.
Also speaking, Particia Eweama, Head of Department, Demographic and Social Statistics, NBS, said the survey was designed to provide basic indicators for assessing the status of water facilities and services.
Eweama, also the coordinator said the survey would focus on users’ perception, service level, access to drinking water and sanitation as well as satisfaction and sustainability plans.
She said that the survey was also designed for monitoring the SDGs goals and targets on water and other global WASH commitments.
She said: “The WASH NORM survey has already started with the listing exercise in 36 states and FCT to provide a framework for selecting sampled households to study for the main survey.
“Also, a pilot study has been carried out in two randomly selected states to test and perfect survey instruments and data processing arrangements.’’