National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Policy.

This Policy provides a framework for Government leadership and coordinated and integrated action in the supply of safe, adequate as well as technically and environmentally sustainable water services and the promotion of appropriate sanitation services and hygiene practices to the people of the Republic of Nauru. The purposes of this policy are to declare the Government’s commitment to provide reliable, safe, affordable, secure and sustainable water supply and to facilitate appropriate sanitation systems to meet health and socio-economic development needs of all Nauruans and to provide direction to Government Departments, agencies and corporations. The Policy, at the outset, identifies major concerns of the water supply and sanitation sector in Nauru. These concerns form the justification for this Policy. The Policy also incorporates the three goals of the 2005-2025 Nauru National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS revised in 2009) 1. Provide a reliable, safe, affordable, secure and sustainable water supply to meet socio-economic development needs. 2. Effective management of waste and pollution that minimizes negative impacts on public health and the environment. 3. Sustainable use and management of the environment and natural resources for present and future generations. It also sets out basic principles of integrated water resource management (based on the Dublin Principles).
Key Policy Areas Addressed in the IWRM approach are: climate variability and change and water resource vulnerability, water quality and supply, sanitation and environment, demand, governance, capacity, and community awareness and participation. For each key policy areas, specific issues that require government intervention are specified. These issues include, among other things, drought, seawater intrusion into groundwater, local flooding and groundwater pollution, water quality standards, insufficient water delivery to priority users such as schools and hospitals, maintenance o sanitation systems, no data on water demand and use from different sources and by different sectors, no system for controlling equitable water use from community water storages, no control of groundwater use, refugee sanitation and water supply, o water legislation or national policy for water, sanitation and hygiene sectors, no clear roles and responsibilities for water management, limited community participation in the planning, protection and conservation of water resources and in promoting improved sanitation systems.
For each policy goal, policy objectives are defined. In order to implement, manage and monitor this policy the following are required: establishment of a Water Unit in the Department of Commerce, Industry and Environment (CIE), formalising the Water Technical Committee. The Policy includes in Annex I the Terms of Reference of the Water Unit, which shall coordinate implementation of the goals and objectives of the National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Policy and carry out and supervise activities in the National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Policy Implementation Plan. In Annex II the TORs of the Water Technical Committee, which is composed of representatives from all Government Departments, Agencies and Sate-Owned Enterprises with responsibility for supplying, monitoring, analysing, planning, managing, and reporting on the quality, safety, production, storage, losses, protection and uses of the nation’s water resources and sanitation systems. There shall also be a CIE Project Steering Committee as a SubCommittee of the National Development Committee the TORs of which are set out in Annex III.