Kate Eleyi Obande, Reporter, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Independence Avenue, Central Business District, Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria, West Africa.

What water-themed work have you been working on (reporting, editing research)?

I have worked persistently on reporting news stories on radio and print on the need for increased water access in Nigeria being the most populous black nation in Africa with a population of over 100 million out of the 170 million people lacking clean, safe water.

Nigeria ranks third as the world’s highest populations without water after India and China. We have one of the highest infant mortality rates due to increasing water-borne diseases hence my focus in triggering government policies and activities on providing water for its citizenry.

In many rural communities, unwholesome dirty water is consumed thereby producing stunted growth in millions of Nigeria’s children. Many streams and ponds are utilized by both humans and animals alike. Rivers are infected with open defecation upstream and drunk by many communities downstream.

My stories therefore focus on the dangers of lack of safe water and the need to increase access to clean safe water everywhere in Nigeria.

What areas of your work in water have generated the most significant public response?

The area of water infrastructure: In Nigeria, pipe-borne water facilities have aged and most are dysfunctional. The water sector has the highest number of abandoned and dysfunctional projects across the country. Most individuals in a bid to get water have constructed their own boreholes thereby posing a great threat to the country’s underground water and aquifer.

This threat further exposes us as a country to likely earthquakes and landslides as many experts warn. Therefore my work has generated controversial response in that many private individuals who continue to dig boreholes claim they have the right to do so since the federal and state governments have refused to provide water structures to service the whole country. The government on the other hand is trying to charge heavy tariffs on boreholes in a bid to create revenue sources for political gains.

What barriers are there to reporting on environment and sustainable development issues in your region (eg. lack of public interest, censorship, pressure from advertisers etc)?

The main barriers are political will, funding and partial press freedom.

As a government journalist, I have to be extremely careful on how I paint the government to the public and the world. I stand a chance of losing my job if I continuously condemn and criticize government on its policies and programmes. So it is a major challenge having the needs of the Nigerian people on the one hand and presenting them objectively to the government on the other hand.

Secondly, Nigeria is signatory to many conventions, the MDGs, Kyoto protocol and the like but the government lacks the political will to actually implement these programmes for instance, Nigeria promised that by 2015, 75 percent of its citizenry would have access to safe water while 65 would have basic sanitation as at now, barely a year to go, the Nigerian Ministry of Water Resources is claiming that 65 per cent population have improved water but third-party monitoring of water activities from foreign and local non-governmental organizations are contesting the figures saying it is still less than 40 percent, a figure it attained in 2000.

Funding seems to be a major problem. Funds are diverted to many different sectors apart from water and recently, with the insurgency in the country, lots of funds are diverted to protecting the country from terrorists therefore, water seems to take a back seat all the time.

What is tough to sell to editors in water/sustainable development/environment? Why do you think this is the case? Please detail with specific examples from your experience.

Water is very tough to sell to editors. Water stories are not ‘juicy’ political issues seem to take over the newspapers, television and radio stations. Water stories lack the drama to make headlines like other sectors do.

Editors are indeed tired of publishing water stories without seeing the attendant results.

What do you feel has been successful and unsuccessful in your work in this area? Please detail with specific examples from your experience.

Stories done on water have brought more awareness on government’s role and citizens advocacy rights that I can say is a success story.

The unsuccessful part is that much talk has not yielded as much action as needed in my country.

Please present your proposals for communications and media projects. This is your chance to pitch the UN.

Water –Energy-Food Nexus: Catalyst for economic development

http://sundiatapost.com/2014/08/water-energy-food-nexus-catalyst-for-economic-development/

You are expected to produce some work at the conference. What do you plan to do?

I intend to work on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), its challenges on why the target was not attained and how the post-2015 Development Goals would be met.