The Nigerian government has unveiled report on the Gap Analysis of the Solid Waste Management, Database User Guide Manual and the National Roadmap on Solid Waste Management in Nigeria.
Minister of Environment Mr Muhammed Abdullahi at the unveiling in Abuja the nation’s capital said the report would be used by all sectors and stakeholders in Solid Waste Management in the country.
He also noted that Nigeria, with a population of about 200 million people generates about 1.5million tones of plastic wastes every year of which less than 10% is recycled.
Indiscriminate dumping “The problem of pollution in the country is exacerbated by inadequate waste management infrastructure, poor behavioral attitude, unskilled waste collection workforce, indiscriminate dumping and burning of plastic wastes, poor awareness, inadequate funding etc,” he said.
He further said that the Nigerian government would continue to partner with the Government of France to ensure sustainable development in the country.
“We appreciate and thank the Government of France for supporting this Technical Assistance, The representatives of Agence Francaise De Developpment (AFD) present here, is a testimony to the importance, the AFD attaches to this Technical Assistance and the level of partnership between the AFD and Federal Ministry of Environment, It is against this background that we welcome this Technical Assistance to support the Federal Management Framework on Solid Waste. ” The Minister stated.
The French Ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs Emmanuella Blatmann said that Nigeria and France have a long-standing partnership and France would continue supporting the Ministry of Environment to achieve a green environment.
Raise awareness
She commended the Federal Ministry of Environment for playing a key role in implementing the programme and also taking the initiative of organising the outreach session to raise awareness on solid waste management strategy.
“I’m always very happy and delighted actually to be part of such events because it highlights the long standing partnership between Nigeria and France. And in this particular programme, financed by the French changes to the development was implemented by a consortium of both French and Nigerian consultants.
Consultants are here today and I salute them together closely to support the Federal Ministry of Environment in this solid waste management strategy.” She stated.
The French ambassador to Nigeria, also stressed the need to implement a progressive policy to ensure that key steps such as sustainable waste collection and robust Solid Waste Treatment Units are a priority before any large scale infrastructure investment project is considered.
“The AfD has been very pleased to support this project and I think it demonstrates once again, our commitment to support and accompany Nigeria in its efforts towards a green trajectory in line with Nigeria’s national determined contributions and the Paris agreement on climate. The implementation of a robust solid waste management framework will have many positive impacts whether it is on health, on greenhouse gas emissions, reduction on biodiversity and environment as a whole. Indeed, waste sector is the third contributor leading to methane emission,”Mrs Emmanuella said.
Reducing gas emissions
French Development Agency Country’ Director Nigeria, Mr Xavier Muron, said that project finance, by AFD are fully in compliant with the Paris Agreement, fighting climate change effects, in preserving biodiversity and reducing gas emission.
“we are indeed very pleased to be here for the unveiling of this excellent work that was a collaborative one, as you mentioned, a French and a Nigerian consultant team. I think that’s also the way we would develop capacity building by engaging not only our sales of French capacity, but also make sure that Nigerian peers are also leveraged to this kind of a collaboration that’s very important and sustainable for the future.” He said.
Managing Consultant WEIRCAPACITY LTD Mr Nyananso Ekanem who commended the AFD for supporting the protect said that the report came at the right time with adverse impact of climate change.
“We had three objectives to achieve and the first one was to ensure that we understand the state of play in the environment sector of Nigeria, particularly solid waste and so that led to the production of the first report which is the gap analysis and it looks at the legal regulatory to statistician, financial and more importantly the operational framework, Second objective was to identify key performance indicators and that focus mainly with the sub nationals.
And for that, we were able to produce a database that identified key performance indicators for all the solid waste regions across the country. And this second report is a user guide for all the states, and the third objective was for us to prepare a direction for the country, federal government or state government working together to improve solid waste management in Nigeria.” He explained.
Provided recommendations
He said the third report, which was the National roadmap on solid waste management in Nigeria captured all the gaps, identified from the first report, which is the gap analysis and provided recommendations for the federal government and all the state governments in Nigeria to look at legal regulatory, financing framework, but also look at operational framework to improve waste management in Nigeria.
Effective solid waste management
The Technical Assistance project which commenced in 2020, has attained all expected deliverables, including the engagement of National and Sub-National stakeholders for effective Solid Waste Management in Nigeria.
It is part of a series of actions being undertaken by the Nigerian government to address the challenges of Solid Waste in the country in its quest for alternatives to drive investment in the right direction and support sustainable development objectives.
Lateefah Ibrahim
