Bissau, March 19, 2025 (Lusa) - Less than a quarter of Guinea-Bissau's nearly two million inhabitants has access to drinking water and even fewer have a toilet or basic sanitation, according to the United Nations.
The data was presented on Wednesday by the UN special rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, at the conclusion of a ten-day official visit to Guinea-Bissau.
In the report on this visit, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2025, the expert calls on the Government of Guinea-Bissau to "urgently prioritise water and sanitation services if it wants to improve the lives of its population, especially women and children".
According to the data provided, "only 24% of the population has access to safely managed drinking water, 15% has safely managed sanitation and only 20% has hygiene facilities with soap at home".
The report also points out that "water supply networks are limited to parts of Bissau (the country's capital) and some regional capitals".
"In addition, there are no sewage networks, not even in urban areas," it adds.
The rapporteur said that, during the visit, he was able to "put a face to these figures and listen to the life experiences behind them".
"The lack of access to drinking water disproportionately affects the lives and health of women and children, who are usually responsible for fetching water," said Arrojo-Agudo.
"I met with women and girls who started queuing at five in the morning to get water. In the dry season, they walk several kilometres to reach remote wells," he shared.
For the expert, "being a less developed country does not justify the failure to make drinking water a priority, especially when women in the most vulnerable situations, despite their difficulties, consistently make water a top priority."
In addition to the ‘’huge effort associated with the search for water‘’, the rapporteur noted that ‘’the water itself is generally unsafe, without adequate chlorination or disinfection‘’.
Arrojo-Agudo also pointed to "the lack of access to drinking water and sanitary facilities in schools, health centres, hospitals and detention centres".
"Throughout the country, I heard testimonies about the spread of malaria, especially in the rainy season, and frequent diarrhoea affecting children due to inadequate sanitation and unsafe potable water," he added.
The UN expert asks "the government to conduct a public awareness campaign on the importance of chlorination and even provide the product free of charge".
In the report on his visit, he argues that "Guinea-Bissau must protect its aquifers, which are at risk due to poor sanitation".
The rapporteur encourages the Guinea-Bissau government to develop a ‘well-designed’ water policy, create institutions dedicated to the issue and specialists supported by international co-operation.
Arrojo-Agudo believes that the absence of local municipal institutions for drinking water and sanitation contributes to the problem.
He also argued that the country should continue its efforts to avoid problems such as the Bidigor River, which is drying up "due to an upstream dam, or the alleged toxic pollution of the Corubal River by mining," which he said he had witnessed in Pirada and Tchethé.
With as much as 80% of the population living in coastal areas, the rapporteur considers it urgent to address salinisation of aquifers due to rising sea levels.
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