Water Management Research Set to Enhance Investment in Circular Economy

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and its partners involved in the West and Central African Food Systems Transformation (TAFS-WCA) Initiative have carried out a study to assess the investment climate for circular economy (CE) businesses in Nigeria.

Circular economy (CE) is increasingly recognised as a crucial pathway for sustainable economic growth. It seeks to meet the growing global demand for food, water, and energy while preserving the environment and protecting natural resources.

 

In low-income countries, there is a rising trend to recover nutrients, water, and energy from domestic and agro-industrial waste streams.

This shift in sanitation and waste management strategies moves from a disposal-oriented approach to one that focuses on creating value and generating revenue.

The study, which covered eight states across the six geopolitical zones of the country, aimed to collect empirical data on the challenges faced by circular economy businesses and to provide policy recommendations.

A Dissemination Workshop on the Investment Climate for Circular Economy Enterprises in Nigeria was held in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

The workshop brought together private, government and international partners with the objective to present the critical conclusions of the study with key stakeholders.

Also to elicit their support for implementing the study’s recommendations, identify bold, actionable commitments from diverse stakeholders to enhance the ease of doing circular economy business within the water, sanitation, environment, agriculture, and climate change sectors in Nigeria.

It also seeks to introduce a decision support tool to assist decision-makers and practitioners in selecting appropriate and sustainable circular economy business models in the country.

The lead consultant to IWMI, a professor of practice at the Centre for Cyber-Physical Food, Energy and Water Systems, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Dr. Boluwaji Onabolu said the study was necessitated by the growing demand for food, water, and energy, that needs to be met.

“The reason that IWMI felt that this project, this study should be carried out in Nigeria and 14 other countries, to date they’ve done it in 15 other countries, is that firstly, there is a growing demand that is not even met for food, for water, for energy, globally and particularly in Nigeria. Globally, over 22% of children are malnourished. You can see that there’s increasing water scarcity.

“So if you put all of this together, you will then see the value of using what we used to think was waste, using it as the raw materials to actually recover nutrients in terms of what you know as composting from agro-waste. Energy, whether energy to cook in terms of briquettes or also energy to cook in terms of biogas, gas, you know, that’s all that is.”

Dr. Onabolu said the study is simply to assess the challenges and the entire business infrastructure around the waste to wealth business industry.

“So the issue is that if someone even starts this business, what is the environment? Is the environment conducive? These people, they are, how do you say it now, employers of labour, but can they continue, can they grow? And so we assess this using a very systematic way, using 55 indicators to look at business infrastructure.”

 

She further explained how the study could further help project the needs of the business.

“You need electricity, you need water, and you need telecoms. Then business infrastructure, licensing, how much does it cost to get your license? How long does it take to get your license? Access to finance, even if you start small, you want to grow; you want to get money from the banks or financing institutions. How easy is that? What are the requirements? Access to markets, international, domestic, you know data. Will people really like to use these products? So this is what we looked at.”

Speaking on the impact of the assessment, Dr. Olufunke Cofie from IWMI said the study is expected to bring about improvement on how Circular Economy is done and to also scale up as there is opportunity in it.

“So, people are doing it all over the world in different sectors. But what we are trying to see is that when we analyze what has been done all over the world, they are more done in pilots, in informal settlement structures and all that”

 

“What we try to do is to understand this type of innovation and to see what kind of improvement is necessary so that it can go to scale. It can be done by more people to cover more ground because there is opportunity in it.”

According to Dr. Cofie, the study also helped provide a business module for entrepreneurs that would want to venture into a particular area of the Circular Economy in Nigeria.

“How should they settle? What should be the decision arrangement and all that? We try to understand all that and make the information, the knowledge available for whosoever that needs it. So, in this particular case in Nigeria.”

The expected outcome of the workshop is to bring about actionable commitments to enhance circular economy business implementation.

 

 

 

 

Hauwa Abu