The evolution of access to drinking water and sanitation coverage in urban centers of selected African countries

Abstract

The lack of adequate provision of drinking water and sanitation coverage is one of the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. Natural constraints, demographic pressures and managerial deficiencies such as sporadic precipitations, population explosion, rapid urbanization, and poor management of available resources were respectively main contributing factors to this undesirable situation across the globe. Taking these factors into consideration, this study found that urban centers of countries with abundant physical water supplies but poor water policy like Cameroon and Nigeria achieved low levels of access to drinking water and improved sanitation coverage compared to urban areas of countries endowed with limited water resources but sound water policy like Egypt and South Africa. Hence, it recommends the development of good water policy in countries that are fortunate to have copious amount of water resources.