YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Women in Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde who deal in water dependent businesses and school going girls are paying a heavy cost, losing out in their business and sacrificing school hours due to harsh weather conditions.

Prolonged absence of rain, which experts attribute to climate change and a swelling urban population in the nation’s capital has caused scarcity of portable water, significantly affecting water related business activities that are a major source of income for mostly women as well as well as impaction on the education of the girl children who sacrifice school hours, navigating long distances in search of scarce drinking water.

College and primary school authorities in the nation’s capital say water scarcity brings its own set of complications on the education of girl children who traditionally accompany their mothers early in the morning to far distances in search of drinking water that has become scarce because of prolonged drought. As a consequence many do either come very late to school or register regular absences that impact on their studies.

“Girls are notorious for coming late to school with a record high absentee rate especially during the dry season periods. We found out this is the result of their early morning duty to accompany their mothers in search of scarce drinking water,” says Moka Charles, Principal of Esperance Bilingual secondary school in Yaounde.

Women who run water dependent businesses or economic activity like restaurant, local beer production, laundry services etc in the capital also attest that they suffer a steep decline in their income during the water crisis due total absence or lateness in accessing portable water.

“ We are obliged to travel long distances in search of water costing us time and money. This reduces our income because we prepare our food late and so lose most of our customers,” attest Monique Nzogo who runs a restaurant at Obili, a neighbourhood in Yaounde.

On the occasion of the celebration of the 2017 World Water Day in Yaounde, school authorities and women involved in water related economic activities have called on government to invest in waste water recycling projects as solution pathway to the crisis.

In line with the theme of this year’s celebrations 'Water and Wastewater’, experts say investing in the safe collection, treatment, transportation, and re-use of waste water can provide huge opportunities to improve the quality of life of the poor in urban areas like the city of Yaounde.
Women activists and business groups in the nation’s capital are calling on the government to make potable water accessible to them in order to reduce the pain and brunt they bear in accessing water, as well as to check the spread of water-borne diseases and related illnesses threatening lives and livelihood due to scarcity.

“ There is an urgent need for government and other stakeholders to take interest in investing in waste water recycling especially during prolonged water scarcity periods . This will greatly help in reducing the water shortage gap in Yaounde,” says Alice Eko vice president of the Mendong Market  Vegetable Womens  group in Yaounde.

The women say acute water scarcity has become a way of life, so much so that money spent in purchasing processed bottle water for drinking can be equated with major expenses like house rents and education.

The population of Yaounde has also increased in the last ten years to over 3.5 million according to government statistics. Residents need a daily supply of about 300,000 cubic meters of pipe-borne water but barely 35 percent of it is supplied. Poor residents have thus resorted to unsafe sources to get the precious liquid exposing them to water related diseases, experts say.

Cameroon government says it plans to increase Yaounde’s water supply to 500,000 cubic meters in two years by tapping into the  River Sanaga where most of the waste water from the city empties itself. The move should increase potable water supply from more than 30 percent to 60 percent of the population, according to the minister of water and energy, Basil Atangana Kouna.
Government is also inviting the private sector in a partnership collaboration in waste water management to ensure sustainability of the resource in cities.

According to a report by Jennifer Blanke, Vice-President, Agriculture, Human and Social Development, AfDB on the occasion of the celebration of the 2017 World water day, the urban population of Africa is projected to reach 654 million by 2030 up from 320 million people in 2010. Wastewater management infrastructure in urban areas is largely insufficient and investment is not keeping pace with rapid urbanization. The annual global shortfall in funds (between 2002 and 2025) for municipal wastewater treatment is estimated at US $56 billion.

“Climate change, slow uptake of innovation and technologies and limited capacities of institutions further exacerbate the problem. If urban sanitation challenges are not tackled urgently, it will put urban residents, especially 200 million inhabitants of marginalized and informal settlements at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid, polio, and other waterborne diseases,” the report said.