Sustainable sanitation promotion in Nigeria: a mix of approaches.

UNICEF is in partnership with the government of Nigeria through a program titled “FGN/UNICEF Water and sanitation program” which supports government and civil society partners at the National, State, LGA and Community levels to “contribute to the achievement of MDGs related to W&S (halving by 2015 the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation-MDG 7; Target 10)” At the National level, the program supports activities in policy and systems development while intervening in thirty six states and the Federal Capital, Abuja. It aims at improving the quality of life through provision of water and sanitation services

Integrating infant and young child feeding with community-led total sanitation: a case study of strategic partnership to fight stunting in Jigawa and Katsina states of Nigeria

Jigawa and Katsina States have population of 3.5 million and 2.8 million and stunting rate of 57.7% and 56.2% respectively (MICS, 2010). The Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) is a strategic intervention for promoting exclusive breastfeeding with emphasis on the community level intervention. Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) motivates communities to stop open defecation and become environments where all households use latrines. Combining the two strategies is an offshoot of partnership between UNICEF WASH and Nutrition sections playing very important role in the Child Survival and Development cluster. This intervention promotes messages of exclusive breastfeeding; safe defecation and hand washing with the aim of preventing malnutrition from the onset. Area of synergy between the two sections could be summarized as: good hygiene is crucial to avoid diarrhoea and other illnesses. In communities targeted, all households now use latrines while practice of hand washing after defecation has increased

Sustaining the gains of community-led total sanitation (CLTS) through latrine demonstration centre: a case study of rural communities' challenge of constructing latrines on loose soil formation in Jigawa state, Nigeria

Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) remains a very effective sanitation strategy to help rural communities to stop open defecation. It is a Strategy that has had unprecedented outcomes in motivating rural communities to transform from a haven of open defecation to clean environments where all households now have and use latrines. This is the experience in rural communities of Birniwa Local government of Jigawa State where open defecation was a norm and was never connected to the prevalent cases of diarrhea especially among children. Even though, there had been several health enforcement interventions by the sanitary Inspectors of the LGA for people to build latrines, yet the practice of open defecation persisted. This situation remained until CLTS was introduced and implemented through UNICEF/DFID supported Sanitation, Hygiene and Water in Nigeria (SHAWN) aimed at promoting mass safe excreta disposal campaign, first among households and then to communities taking charge of their sanitation. Introduction of CLTS helped so many communities to construct latrines and open defecation was gradually becoming history. Suddenly, latrines began to collapse and open defecation crawled its back into nerve center of communities especially communities with loose soil formation. The onus was now on us to find lasting solution to this challenge. A forum of local artisans was organized by the affected communities from which various local latrine options emerged for demonstration and adaptation. A demonstration center was supported by UNICEF for all communities to visit and borrow the most affordable option for their communities. Once again, this initiative has brought back smiles into faces of householders who were disappointed at the negative experience of collapsing latrines. Now, CLTS is back on its track

Promoting entrepreneurship and affordable financing for uptake of improved toilets in Nigeria

Meeting the SDG targets on Sanitation in Nigeria requires households to construct over 2.4 million improved toilets every year up to 2030, which is a 15-fold increase in the current rate of latrine uptake. Hence business as usual is not an option for the country in the run up to 2030. Markets forces must be mobilized. The two-pronged strategy deployed in Nigeria addresses the issue of markets as well as affordable finances. Toilet Business Owners (TBOs) are trained and mobilized as successful for-profit enterprises by the existing public-sector enterprise development agencies while cheaper financing is being mobilized from both Public and private/commercial sources through local MFIs and community saving groups. This approach has led to the construction of 4650 improved toilets in 06 Local Government Areas of Nigeria and holds promise for the future