The Society for Water and Sanitation (NEWSAN) says it will partner with the Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet awareness campaign for the country to become Open Defection Free (ODF) by 2025.
Mr Benson Attah, the NEWSAN National Coordinator said this during a courtesy call at the Clean Nigeria Secretariat on Friday in Abuja.
NEWSAN is a network of Civil Societies and Non Governmental Organisations under the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).
“We are here to commend the government and the former Minister of Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu for launching the Clean Nigeria campaign also fixing a deadline to attain Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2025.
“We are sure that the attainment is possible and we also know that it is doable and we know this can be achieved here in Nigeria before 2025.’’
He said that if India could achieve the feat of planning to be open defecation free with its huge population of over 550 million people within five years, Nigeria could do better with less than 200 million population.
“So, we are here to declare our willingness to support the Clean Nigeria campaign and give our commitment to the Federal Government and state governments in attaining ODF with other development partners.
“We also want to share our new strategy of obtaining ODF with which we have come up with in NEWSAN because we noticed that the old strategy that we have adopted over the years has been ineffective.
“So, we have put up a new strategy in which we want to use in supporting the different states and local government areas in attaining ODF,” he said.
Attah said that strategy had been put in place by the network to quicken the attainment of the ODF in the country.
He, however, said two strategies were involved which include the communities that had started receiving intervention and communities that had never received intervention.
He said NEWSAN would mobilise all its members across the county and prepare them to work with state and local government to attain the ODF.
He said that NEWSAN would also work with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to identify the ministry’s challenges and areas where support were needed, particularly in the areas of advocacy and policy engagement with different concerned stakeholders.
He said that NEWSAN had declared it commitment to work with the private sector once they were properly organised and ready to provide reliable services for the citizens.
Mrs Chizoma Opara, the Acting Coordinator, Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet said the call for collaboration was apt.
Opara said the Federal Ministry of Water Resources valued the partnership with the network.
According to her, this explains why five members of NEWSAN were trained in the just concluded training of validators for open defecation free in Keffi, Nasarawa State as part of the effort to further enhance the success of the campaign.
“This will also provide quality assurance to the achievements of the Clean Nigeria campaign,” she added.
Opara assured the network that the members would always be included in the implementation of their activities to ensure that NEWSAN played its role and contribute to the achievements of the Federal Government’s ODF goal by 2025.
