On Monday, October 29, Deputy President William Ruto opened the 2019 Kenya Sanitation Conference at KICC, Nairobi, during which he issued an unexpected executive directive.
While stressing on the importance of water conservation, Ruto ordered Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha to immediately introduce a curriculum on water and sanitation in schools.
"Children in primary and secondary schools need an early introduction to the best practice of water usage to avoid instances of water wastage.
In this regard, I direct the Ministry of Education to introduce a compulsory curriculum on water and sanitation in all our schools," Ruto directed.
The DP argued that future generations need to be taught how to conserve natural resources at an early age.
In his speech, Ruto highlighted irrigation, a key topic of discussion in the conference, as one of the big enablers of President Uhuru Kenyatta's Big 4 Agenda.
He added that food security could be achieved through strengthening the Ministry of Water in its efforts to promote irrigation farming.
In the conference attended by Water CS Simon Chelugui and his East African Affairs counterpart Adan Mohammed, the DP also argued that the provision of improved and quality sanitation services would go a long way in the attainment of Universal Health Coverage.
Kareke Mbiuki, the chair of the National Assembly Committee on Water and Sanitation, asked the government to allocate more funds to the Ministry of Water.
Kareke argued that the ministry needed heavy financial and technical assistance from the government in its efforts to advance irrigation, sanitation, and recycling of water, which were key items of discussion at the conference.
The four-day event aims at providing solutions towards containment, collection, transport, treatment, disposal, resource recovery and reuse of wastewater and sludge in both rural and urban settings, and in both domestic and industrial wastewater contexts.
