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• Urges government to triple its investment on WASH
• Nigeria emerges first open defector in the world
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has warned that Nigeria may miss the 2025 National and 2030 Global open defecation-free targets if it continues business as usual.
Meanwhile, Nigeria has emerged the first open defector in the world with the eradication of open defecation in India in 2019.
Consequently, the organization called the government to triple its investment on WASH through increased budgetary allocation.
UNICEF Chief of WASH in Nigeria, Dr Jame Bevan, who stated this at a two-day media dialogue on open defecation organised by UNICEF in collaboration with the Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, yesterday, in Biu, Borno State, observed that 48 million Nigerians practice open defecation out of which 18 million are children, while 95 million Nigerians are without access to basic sanitation services.
She lamented that 88 per cent of healthcare facilities in the country are without access to basic sanitation, 70 per cent of schools in the country without access to basic sanitation services and 80 per cent of markets and motor parks without access to basic sanitation.
Bevan, who was represented by the WASH Specialist, UNICEF Nigeria, Chisom Adimorah, stated that young children are forced to defecate in the open adding that 18 per cent of health facilities lack toilets and sick people have to defecate in the open or are discouraged from seeking medical aid.
She said Nigeria has been on the list of top five open defecator in the world for the past 15 years, moving from 5th place in 2003, second place in 2015 and now first place in 2023 with the eradication of open defecation in India in 2019.
“There is need to strengthen and scale up proven strategies to reach the country’s goals low financing, commitment and investment interest in sanitation, currently affecting capacities to respond to the multiple demands for sanitation across the country,” she said.
Also speaking, UNICEF Chief of Field Office in the Northeast, Phuong Nguyen, noted that open defecation is a threat to child survival, particularly those who live in communities affected by conflict.
She noted that only 14 per cent of schools, 12 per cent of health care facilities and 0.4 per cent of public places in Borno State have access to basic WASH services (2021 WASHNORM Report) adding that government and stakeholders must collaborate to improve on the situation.
Nguyen noted that the designation of Biu and Shani as open defecation free is a gift to vulnerable children and families and stressed the need to extend what has worked here to other communities in Borno. Indeed, if it is possible in Biu and Shani, it is possible for other communities too.
She observed that becoming open defecation-free is a journey, and not a destination adding that there are key elements of this journey that we must maintain which include a sustained access to safely managed water and improved toilets both at the household and institutional levels.
According to her, a child who has access to improved toilet services at school is at risk when she or he visits their parents at a market without an improved toilet and access to water while a mother who gives birth in a healthcare facility without a water facility is, along with her newborn, at risk of infection and even death.
Also speaking, the Transitional Chairman of Biu Local Government Area, Sule Ali Abubakar, said local government has passed a by-law for the sustenance of the ODF status in Biu.
According to him, partners are supporting the establishment of a microfinance institution to give loans to households to construct improved toilets and ultimately sustain ODF status in Biu.
He thanked the Netherlands Government, Bank of Germany and the British Government, for putting smiles on the face of the entire people of Biu Local Government through support for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) activities.
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