Nigeria is not on track to reach the MDG target of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water and basic sanitation. To meet the target, tens of millions of Nigerians must gain access to facilities by 2015. And because Nigeria has such a large population, if the target is not met in Nigeria it will also not be met in Africa as a whole.

Efforts by the Nigerian government, civil society and other sectoral stakeholders to tackle this are ongoing on many fronts. Financial disbursements have been increased, sectoral reforms are being put into place, and new methodologies for accelerating coverage are being developed and implemented.

Improving sectoral monitoring is part of this effort. Without harmonized, robust and transparent monitoring systems it will be impossible to measure real progress on the ground. More importantly, without good monitoring information it will be impossible to make decisions on where best to allocate resources – on how to truly meet the needs of Nigerians who currently are underserved.

This is where the Nigeria WSMP comes in. We are an independent monitoring platform that produces, analyzes, synthesises and disseminates a wide range of sectoral data to help improve decision making in the sector and better allocate resources to serve Nigerians.