STAFF TRAINING ON THE PROJECT OF COMMUNITY

WELCOME ADDRESS BY DR. OTIVE IGBUZOR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE AFRICAN CENTRE FOR LEADERSHIP, STRATEGY & DEVELOPMENT (CENTRE LSD) AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE STAFF TRAINING ON THE PROJECT OF COMMUNITY LED TOTAL SANITATION AND WASTE MANEGEMENT ADVOCACY IN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY (FCT) ON 19TH NOVEMBER, 2010.Protocols

 

On behalf of the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), I welcome you to the opening ceremony of the training of staff and commencement of our project on Community Led Total Sanitation and Waste Management Advocacy in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).The goal of the project is to contribute to improved environmental health by addressing behaviour change related to sanitation and waste management through promotion of community participation. The target area is Durumi, a slum in the Federal Capital Territory. Please permit me to share with you the focus of our organization and the project.The African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation established under Nigerian laws to build strategic leadership for sustainable development in Africa. The vision of Centre LSD is an African society where there is dynamic, strategic and visionary leadership committed to sustainable development. The Centres mission is to work with forces of positive change to transform society through appropriate leadership, strategy and development approaches. The centre is guided by the values of transparency and accountability; integrity; transformative change; feminism; diversity; dignity of the human person and Pan-Africanism.The major focus of work is in the giant of Africa “Nigeria but the centre works across Africa with a Pan-African perspective with partners in all the sub-regions in Africa. The Centres strategy, programme and actions focus on Africa with the operations being run from Nigeria partnering with organisations across Africa.The area of focus of this project is environmental health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines environmental health as those aspects of human health and disease that are determined by factors in the environment.[i] Environmental health concerns include among other things air quality, climate change and its effect on health, disaster preparedness and response, food safety, housing, waste management, noise pollution control, occupational health and industrial hygiene, safe drinking water etc. Environmental health therefore addresses all the physical, chemical and biological factors external to a person and all the related factors impacting behaviour. It has been proven that environmental health issues are major risk factors in global burden of disease and good environmental health improves the life expectancy of people.[ii]The importance of environmental health is reflected in its inclusion in the Millennium Development Goals (Goal 7). The goal of MDG 7 is to ensure environmental sustainability. There are three main targets namely to integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources; halve by 2015, the proportion of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation and by 2020 to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.Globally, there are challenges to meeting goal 7. Five years to the MDG deadline, the world is still a long way from meeting the sanitation target. 884 million people were not using improved drinking water sources in 2008. At current trend, 672 million people will still lack access to drinking water and 2.7 billion without basic sanitation in 2015.[iii]In Nigeria, the proportion of the population with access to safe drinking water dropped from 54% in 1990 to 49 % in 2007.[iv] Similarly, the proportion of the population with access to basic sanitation is also very low at 43%. It was 39 % in 1990.[v] The Nigerian government asserts that œwith better implementation of various policy frameworks and plans for water, sanitation, environment and slum upgrading, Nigeria will be on track to achieve MDG 7.[vi]In this project, the focus is on sanitation and waste management. The project intends to address problem of sanitation and waste management in the selected community of Durumi in the FCT through advocacy for Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and Waste Management.We are committed to clinical implementation of this project so as to achieve its objectives. We want to thank the staff of Centre LSD and consultants for their hard work and commitment towards the take off of the project. We appreciate our guests and partners in the media for honouring our invitation. We hope that you will respond to us as we continue the implementation of the project with concrete outputs and outcomes.Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for supporting this project through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI). ENDNOTES[i] www.wikipedia[ii] Endres, Paul (2008), The Importance of Environmental Health in improving the life Expectancy of indigenous peoples. www,hreoc.gov.au)[iii] Progress on sanitation and drinking water 2010 Update www.worldwaterweek.org[iv] Office of Special Assistant to the President on MDGs (2010) Nigeria and MDGs.[v] ibid[vi] Ibid