Government policies are those principles, guidelines and laws adopted by any government to address issues of concern in a bid to achieve specific goals in areas of health, economy, education, etc. It commences with problem identification, formulation of plan, and thereafter, taking firm steps of action via an appropriate process or official statements to influencing decisions and actions within the jurisdictional power. However, in the implementation of water, sanitation and hygiene in secondary schools in the Riverine Areas of River State, a wide gap appears to exist between government policies implementation, and the actual implementation practices necessitated by the need assessment. This paper is a narrative policy review that x rayed some of the implementation deficiencies in WASH as it affects the riverine communities to include lack of awareness, inadequate funding, paucity of governmental intervention, poor maintenance culture, lack of community engagement, deviant management culture, among several others. The paper suggests ways of bridging the gaps to include encouraging community participation; increase funding; establishing of monitoring and evaluation unit(s) at the local government areas (councils) to interface with the schools and make same report to the concern agencies at the state and national levels, and to encourage management accountability and responsiveness.

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