Almost a quarter of the land area comes from a volcano. The majority of Cabo Verde's population is a mix of Europa and Africa. Portuguese is the official language, but 90% of the population speaks in Crioulo, one of the oldest Portuguese creole languages
- 1. Cabo Verde Compact II was a project that finished in 2017. The project cost 41.1$ million, the project aimed to improve the services that delivered water to Cabo Verde houses. The project also increased access to piped water and sanitation, creating a new water utility. The project creation started with a theory that said that increasing access to piped water would increase household productivity, especially for low-income families
- 2. Women are a vulnerable group, and they are particularly affected by the shortcomings of the water and sanitation sector in developing countries like Cabo Verde. Women are most likely not to have access to water than men. According to the United Nations Children's Fund, women worldwide spend more than 200 million hours daily collecting water for their families.
- 3. There have been many improvements in the water and sanitation sector over the last two decades in Cabo Verde. But Cabo Verde still faces significant challenges. Cabo Verde relies on the energy-intensive process of desalinization
- for clean water. Only 59 percent of people have access to clean water in their homes or on their property. Just 20 percent of the population has access to a sewer, and 27 percent of the population has to resort to open defecation
- 4. In 2012 the government of Cabo Verde started making reforms in the sanitation sector. The government created a Social Access Fund to help families access more easily to clean water. The Social Access Fund has provided more than 3,000 new connections to the water network and more than 2,000 sanitation facilities. The government believes than more than 600,000 people would benefit from this program. The government also believes that if they keep making progress in the next 20 years, more than 80% of the population would have access to clean water.
- 5. The government launched a National Agency for Water and Sanitation with an Office of Environment and Gender and Social Integration. The Office works with departments to support data to improve access to clean water and affordability. The new department started working in 2013, and since them, the country has made a lot of progress
- 6. Aguas de Santiago is a new corporation installed on the island of Santiago in 2017. On the island of Santiago lives almost half of Cabo Verde's population. With this new corporation, the Office of Information, Education, and Communication has the data they need to know the number of families that do not have access to clean water. With this new corporation, the government is receiving real and making changes in the country's sanitation program.
- 7. Sal is the nine inhabited island tan make up Cabo Verde. Sal is the driest island of Cavo Verde. Sal receives less than 9 inches of rain on average each year and has one of the highest water prices for consumption in Africa.
- 8. Fifty-four percent of people in the country's rural areas and sixteen percent of those in urban areas don't have access to flushing toilets or other sanitation improvements. The government does not have enough money to assure everyone access to clean water. Twenty percent of the population does not have access to a shower, and they have to use rivers and lakes to take baths.
- 9. Carlos Jorge Santos, the Director-General of Oasis Atlantic Group's hotel operations in Cabo Verde, hopes that sooner than later, Cabo Verde's beaches will earn the prestigious Blue Flag certification. This certification would bring more tourists to Cavo Verde, and the government would follow the improvements in the sanitation program.
- 10. Water consumption was deficient in the city of Santiago. The average families consumed 40 liters per person per day in 2018. Low-income families, who are less likely to be connected to the piped water network, consumed less water than non-poor households, 24 liters per person per day. In Cavo Verde, 30% of the population lives in poverty, so the families' majority consume 24 liters per day.
Cavo Verde is making a lot of progress providing clean water to the population, but there is a lot to be done. More than half of the people do not have access to clean water in their homes and have to walk miles to the nearest place with access to clean water. These ten facts about sanitation in Cavo Verde show improvement and the reality of Cavo Verde.
