{"id":24545,"date":"2025-04-14T07:02:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T07:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/?p=24545"},"modified":"2025-04-14T07:02:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T07:02:50","slug":"fg-unesco-partner-to-enhance-groundwater-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/?p=24545","title":{"rendered":"FG, UNESCO Partner to Enhance Groundwater Management"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>By Muhammad Muntazar<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Federal Government and UNESCO, in collaboration with other partners, have pledged to support advanced groundwater management for water security in Nigeria. This commitment was made during a two-day validation and capacity-building workshop in Abuja, themed &#8220;Improving Groundwater Governance towards Achieving Sustainable Water Security for Human Settlements in Nigeria.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The workshop is part of the UNESCO Korean Fund-in-Trust project, &#8220;Water Security for Human Settlements in Developing Countries under Climate Change,&#8221; aimed at enhancing knowledge-based management and governance of groundwater resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Joseph Utsev, Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, emphasized the need for creativity, new scientific knowledge, and innovation in sustainable water solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Sustainable water solutions at the local, regional and global levels required creativity, new scientific knowledge, discoveries and innovation,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Utsev, represented by Permanent Secretary Dr. Richard Pheelangwah, assured that the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation would support efforts to deliver modern approaches for sustainably managing Nigeria&#8217;s vast groundwater resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mr. Albert Mendy, Head of UNESCO Abuja Office, stressed the importance of prioritizing effective groundwater management through enhanced governance. &#8220;Most rural and urban human settlements in Africa and indeed in Nigeria are dependent on groundwater because it is locally available, drought resilient and has quality requiring minimal treatment,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The workshop highlighted groundwater&#8217;s significance, with the UN World Water Development report for 2022 revealing that groundwater makes up 99% of the world&#8217;s liquid freshwater. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Idowu Lateef, Secretary-General of Nigerian National Commission for UNESCO, noted that despite groundwater&#8217;s importance, it remains &#8220;invisible and less permanent&#8221; due to climate change impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The project aims to improve groundwater governance, ensuring sustainable water security and aligning with Sustainable Development Goal 6: &#8220;Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The implementation of the project started in the last quarter of 2023, with stakeholders committed to enhancing groundwater management for Nigeria&#8217;s economic and social development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Muhammad Muntazar The Federal Government and UNESCO, in collaboration with other partners, have pledged to support advanced groundwater management for water security in Nigeria. This commitment was made during a two-day validation and capacity-building workshop in Abuja, themed &#8220;Improving Groundwater Governance towards Achieving Sustainable Water Security for Human Settlements in Nigeria.&#8221; The workshop is part of the UNESCO Korean Fund-in-Trust project, &#8220;Water Security for Human Settlements in Developing Countries under Climate Change,&#8221; aimed at enhancing knowledge-based management and governance of groundwater resources. Prof. Joseph Utsev, Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, emphasized the need for creativity, new scientific knowledge, and innovation in sustainable water solutions. &#8220;Sustainable water solutions at the local, regional and global levels required creativity, new scientific knowledge, discoveries and innovation,&#8221; he said. Utsev, represented by Permanent Secretary Dr. Richard Pheelangwah, assured that the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation would support efforts to deliver modern approaches for sustainably managing Nigeria&#8217;s vast groundwater resources. Mr. Albert Mendy, Head of UNESCO Abuja Office, stressed the importance of prioritizing effective groundwater management through enhanced governance. &#8220;Most rural and urban human settlements in Africa and indeed in Nigeria are dependent on groundwater because it is locally available, drought resilient and has quality requiring minimal treatment,&#8221; he said. The workshop highlighted groundwater&#8217;s significance, with the UN World Water Development report for 2022 revealing that groundwater makes up 99% of the world&#8217;s liquid freshwater. Dr. Idowu Lateef, Secretary-General of Nigerian National Commission for UNESCO, noted that despite groundwater&#8217;s importance, it remains &#8220;invisible and less permanent&#8221; due to climate change impacts. The project aims to improve groundwater governance, ensuring sustainable water security and aligning with Sustainable Development Goal 6: &#8220;Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.&#8221; The implementation of the project started in the last quarter of 2023, with stakeholders committed to enhancing groundwater management for Nigeria&#8217;s economic and social development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24547,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24545\/revisions\/24547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}