Assessment of Programs and Progress in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Case Study of Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation in Goma township in Democratic Republic of Congo).

Abstract

Safe and adequate water has a crucial role in the economy, the health of populations as well as the maintenance of a healthy environment. Indivisible from sanitation and hygiene, together these three words constitute the three pillars of Sustainable Development Goal 6. The goal aims to ensure access to water and sanitation for all the world's population by 2030. According to the United Nation report, in 2019, more than 2.1 billion of the world's population did not have access to safe drinking water services and 2.3 billion lacked basic sanitation facilities, of which 892 million people still practice open defecation. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2018, the rate of access to safe water and basic sanitation was 59% and 22% respectively.This study constitutes an assessment of the Water Sanitation and Hygiene sector in the DRC, of the programmes and actions undertaken in the framework of the achievement of SDG 6, as well as the assessment of the level of achievement of indicators 6.1.1, 6.2.1. and 6.3.1. in the city of Goma, more precisely in the Ndosho district. In order to do this, we proceeded through a literature review of documents and reports, interviews with officials in the ministries, agencies and non Ggovernment organizations working in the sector, and a survey conducted in the Ndosho district. A total of 317 households participated in the survey. For indicator 6.1.1, the results revealed that although 100% of households have access to safe drinking water, 90.22% of households still use unimproved water supply services compared to 5.36% and 4.42% that use basic and limited services respectively. The breakdown of indicator 6.2.1 revealed that, on one hand, 67.5% of households use unimproved sanitation services, 29.34% use basic services, 1.58% have no toilets and the remaining 1.58% use limited services. On the other hand, 61.20% do not have handwashing facilities, 34.70% use basic facilities and 4.10% use limited facilities. For indicator 6.3.1, the results revealed that no households, or 0.00% of households, treat their wastewater. Compared to the national averages for 2018, these results show a positive but slow trend towards the achievement of SDG 6 by 2030.