Over 48 million Nigerians practice open defecation. With a population of over 200 million spread across 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs including the Area Councils in the FCT), only one State (Jigawa) and less than two hundred (200) LGAs are open-defecation-free, Nigeria is in a sanitation crisis. The Abuja Sanitation Conference 2024 signifies the beginning of a paradigm shift for the Federal Capital Territory in its efforts towards becoming open-defecation free. This inaugural conference will bring together government, local and international sanitation experts, practitioners, social entrepreneurs, and policymakers, development partners, in the water, sanitation and hygiene fields, toilet business owners and the youths to discuss partnerships and pathways towards ensuring that the Federal Capital Territory becomes open defecation free in the nearest future.
The Abuja Sanitation Conference addressed the critical challenges of sanitation, waste management, and environmental sustainability, while promoting innovative solutions to improve public health and create sustainable jobs through sanitation for youths by featuring two lead presentations, plenary sessions.
The event was participatory as the attendees engaged in a survey that tested their knowledge on sanitation and expressed their innermost thoughts about the Toilet on a canvas with inscription “What Does Toilet Mean to you?”
The Conference highlights the urgent need for collective action to combat open defecation and improve sanitation in Nigeria. It underscores the importance of collaboration, innovation, and youth involvement in driving sustainable change. The conference’s outcomes hold the potential to inspire similar initiatives across the country, offering a roadmap for achieving a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future for all Nigerians.
Also, it yielded significant outcomes that mark a critical step forward in addressing Nigeria’s sanitation challenges. This maiden event inspired a collective commitment to eradicating open defecation in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and fostering a sustainable approach to sanitation, public health, and environmental management. The outcomes of the conference reflect its multidimensional impact, encompassing policy development, stakeholder collaboration, and actionable strategies for achieving an open-defecation-free FCT.
Building on the momentum from the Abuja Sanitation Conference 2024, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) must now translate the insights, collaborations, and commitments from the event into actionable steps. These next steps are critical to ensuring that the goals of eradicating open defecation and improving sanitation in the FCT are realized. A strategic, multi-sectoral approach will be key to sustaining the progress initiated by the conference. They include: Public awareness campaigns will play a crucial role in changing behaviors around sanitation and hygiene; Youth engagement, a prominent theme of the conference, must be further developed through targeted initiatives; Securing funding for sanitation initiatives; Monitoring and evaluation systems must be established to track progress toward an open-defecation-free FCT.
With the successes recorded at the Abuja Sanitation Conference 2024, the journey towards the Abuja Sanitation Conference 2025 has begun. Safe to say “See you at the Abuja Sanitation Conference 2025”.
