The Federal Government on Monday called for private sector partnership in order to meet the sustainable development goal in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) targets by 2030.
Suleiman Adamu, Minister of Water Resources speaking at a workshop on private sector forum on sanitation, said the effort to ensure a healthier environment was a business for all, as Nigeria, having been ranked the number one among countries practising open defecation in Africa, was on the brink of being ranked first globally.
The minister lamented that approximately 47 million people currently do not have access to sanitation services in its most basic form, adding that besides the exposure to diseases, open defecation also promotes lack of dignity particularly with regard to women and girls.
“Only minimal progress has been achieved in our implementation of the open defecation-free (ODF) roadmap, with only 14 local governments across the country so far being certified as open defecation-free, according to the national ODF protocol,” he said.
“Access to basic sanitation in institutions and public places are not encouraging with the statistics sitting at a meagre 35.7 percent, only 34 percent of schools have access to basic water supply and sanitation facilities,” he said.
The minister further stressed that the role of the private sector in the revitalisation of the WASH campaign cannot be overlooked, adding that the private sector remained the engine for economic growth and creating innovative structures relating to the financing of hygiene services.
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