The Nigerian government says it is leaving no stone unturned in achieving sustainable procurement that complies with global environmental and social standards.
The government made the pledge at the 2025 International Conference on Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards, (SPESSCE), held in Sheraton hotel, Lagos State, South West, Nigeria.
The Senior Technical Adviser to the Secretary to the government of the
Federation, Professor Bolaji Babatunde explained government efforts in ensuring sustainable procurements.
Professor Babatunde said; “Nigeria is behind in environmental standard implementation for a long time. The environmental impact assessment came only as an act in 1992, so Nigeria is still young in implementing environmental standard, especially to the point of litigation”.
He said that “the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is ensuring that the environmental standard is incorporated right now in projects before they are carried out to ensure they don’t affect people, and that affected persons are properly and duly resettled.”
The Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun said all hands must be on deck to ensure Nigeria achieves sustainability in its procurement exercises.
Dr Adedokun said, “As regards environmental and social implications, procurements are now being done in consideration to environmental and social issues unlike before that procurement are just done without acknowledging these realities. If we are building a road, we have to make sure that the people that own that land originally are well compensated, we want to be sure that we are not using minors to do construction jobs. We are now working policies into our procurement document to take care of these issues and more importantly get value for money.
According to him “This conference is aimed at opening our eyes to take best practices globally, by so doing we would be able to improve our own documentation to bring it to par with the global practices so Nigeria can be respected more. We also want to showcase what we have done as a nation for other countries to learn from, that’s why this conference is very critical to the development of our national procurement strategy for the Federal, State and Local governments.”
The Director of University of Lagos Sustainable Procurement Environmental and Social Enhancement Centre of Excellence, (SPESSCE), Professor James Akanmu spoke on bridging the gap between the academia and experts in the field to ensure the environment is safe despite developmental constructions.
Akanmu said “We are bridging the gap between academia and the real world, where expertise come together to produce a communique that would enhance the environment, labour and other social issues.
“The intention is when you look at the country and look at procurement, and when we look at environmental issues, one of the achievements for us is for us all to be conscious of the environment itself and the human factors as well as for us here to brainstorm, coming out with communique that would help not only our country but also Africa.
“The public procurement is a global phenomenon that drives development across the world and public procurement has evolved from just processes but now to governance. It is now a strong governance tool for all forms of administration and for fostering development in the society.
“The strategy for procurement is making sure it has strong legal backing that will direct the processes and procedures that will ensure the administration of procurement” he explained.
“Sustainable procurement is at the margin field of the procurement landscape and this conference is a major milestone in pushing forward the issues around sustainable procurement, environmental and social standards that are required in the implementation of procurement projects. So the initiators of this conference are raising awareness and bringing together intellectuals, educators and practitioners that will be implementing procurement processes within state level, at federal level and at local government level within Nigeria” he said.
With the theme: ‘Enhancing Sustainable Development Impact Through Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards‘ the conference is designed to facilitate dialogue between global and national stakeholders on Procurement, Environment and Social Standards (PES); strengthen institutional capacity across government, private sector, and academia; Encourage knowledge exchange on integrating sustainability and equity in project delivery.
At the end of the five days conference from 17th to 21st of November, 2025, the conference is expected to have come up with a communiqué on PES reforms and harmonization, a national PES action plan and training framework, ensure academic white paper on PES curriculum integration, strengthen PES community of practice across Africa and globally, MoUs between institutions for capacity-building, research, and peer learning.
The 2025 International Conference on Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards is organised by the University of Lagos, Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement Centre of Excellence.
A first of its kind, the international Conference on sustainable procurement, environmental and social standards is expected to hold annually to ensure Nigeria achieves its goal of having Sustainable Procurement.
Olusola Akintonde