UNICEF says presently, no fewer than 120 million people in
Nigeria lack access to improved sanitation facilities, thereby exposing them to
public health hazards.
Mr Kannan Nadar, UNICEF’s Chief Officer in charge of Water
Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), disclosed this in an interview with the News
Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said Nigeria needed an investment of N850 billion for
households to construct 25 million toilets by 2025.
According to him, reaching the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) target on Sanitation requires us to multiply our current efforts by
fifteen.
He said that Nigeria could achieve its target of meeting the
National Roadmap of Ending Open defecation by 2030, “if it puts policies in
place to encourage behavioural change in sanitation and Hygiene.”
Nadar said that the agency had carried out a survey in some
selected communities, and observed that there was a gap between knowledge and
attitude in hygiene promotion practice.
“Such situation could be reduced with proper hygiene
promotion messages,” he said.
He said 14,000 Nigerian communities have attained open
defecation free status within the eight years of its intervention via the
Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) Programme.
He noted that Nigeria was known for having sanitary
inspectors, who carried out enforcement of hygiene practices.
“But the inspectors did not appear to have the needed
encouragement; such practice should be encouraged by all, to reduce possible outbreak
of preventable diseases,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria needs to scale up its hygiene
promotion strategies to enable it become a social norm.
No comments:
Post a Comment