Environmental activists drawn from the health, water, climate, tobacco control, education, food policy and agriculture sectors, as well as advocates of gender equality have canvassed equity and justice across the sectors as only such a move will guarantee a better, secure and sustainable future in Nigeria and the entire world.
They stated this during a Webinar to mark this year’s World Health Day (WHD with the theme: Our Health, Our Right with specific focus on Effective Health Policies for Gender Justice; Tobacco’s Threat to Health and Human Rights; Enhancing Health Equity Through Improved Water Access; Food Policy: Reinforcing Nigerian’s Right to Health Food; and Climate Change and Health: Connecting the Dots and Shaping Our Decisions.
In his opening remarks, Executive Director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Akinbode Oluwafemi, stressed that only effective policies on health, water, education, tobacco control, climate change and gender balance would ensure a Nigeria and a world that will be free from want of basic necessities and crisis.
He urged the Nigerian government and governments around the world and policy-makers, especially in critical sectors to shun what he called commodification of essential services, especially water, health and education in the name of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and rather embrace the provision of public utility services for the greater good of the people.
Oluwafemi urged media practitioners to interrogate the challenges in the sectors and hold governments and policy makers accountable through effective investigation and information dissemination to members of the public at all times.
In her presentation titled: Enhancing Health Outcomes Through Improved Water Access, Programme Officer Water Project of CAPPA, Sepha Ikpa, described health equity as the state where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest levels of health regardless of their socio-economic status, ethnicity, race, gender or other factors.
She said health equity recognizes that certain groups may face systemic barriers and injustices that impact their health and well-being and seeks to address these disparities to promote fairness and justice in healthcare delivery and outcomes.
“Health equity aims to eliminate avoidable and unfair differences in health status and access to healthcare services among different population groups. In Nigeria, several factors affect health equity like socio-economic status, geographical location, ethno-cultural diversity and gender.
“Access to clean water is not just a matter of convenience; it is a fundamental human right and a critical determinant of public health,” she stated.
She argued that poor hygiene and malnutrition remain the common intersections between public health outcomes and water access, adding: “Lack of access to water for sanitation and hygiene practices can contribute to poor personal hygiene, increasing the likelihood of infections and the spread of diseases.
“Without water for hand-washing, proper sanitation and cleaning of living spaces, individuals may struggle to maintain cleanliness and prevent the transmission of infectious agents.
“Inadequate access to water for agriculture and food production can impact food security and nutrition. Without sufficient water for irrigation, crop growth may be limited, leading to lower crop yields and reduced availability of nutritious foods. This can exacerbate malnutrition and under-nutrition, particularly in communities that rely heavily on agriculture for food and livelihoods.”
In her recommendations, she enjoined governments to embrace public-public partnerships as the most effective solution to water access challenges in Nigeria and across Africa and increase budgetary allocation to the water sector for the development and maintenance of water infrastructure to ensure universal access to clean and safe water sources.
“They should also ensure that healthcare facilities have reliable access to clean water for medical procedures, patient care, and infection control, as well as urgently address the underlying socio-economic factors that contribute to water insecurity, such as poverty, inequality and marginalization,” she added.
On her part, Policy and Research Officer at CAPPA, Zikora Ibeh, whose presentation focused on Effective Health Policies for Gender Justice, maintained that health policies refer to decisions, comprehensive plans, actions and strategies developed by governments and health-focused organisations to achieve specific health care goals.
She said: “Health policies often manifest as initiatives, regulations, and practices aimed at improving public health, ensuring equitable access to healthcare services, and managing healthcare resources efficiently.
Examples are tobacco control policies and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) tax, among others.
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“Gender roles, norms, outlook, and inequalities influence health outcomes, access to healthcare, and health behaviour across gender groups. Some key linkages include biological differences; gender specific health issues; health behaviors and lifestyle; occupational health and gender-based violence.”
She listed the benefits of effective health policies to include improved health outcomes, reduced health disparities, increased Economic productivity, enhanced quality of life, strengthened healthcare systems as well as fostering innovation in design and implementation of health policies.
CAPPA’s Programme Manager, Ogunlade Olamide Martins, whose presentation focused on Climate Change and Health, Connecting the Dots, Shaping Our Decisions, disclosed that empirical findings established that 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change, while over 70 percent of Africans belong to that category.
His words: “Climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths between 2030-20250 because of under-nutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone. Agriculture and water and sanitation is estimated to cover the highest immediate cost put for between $2 billion to $4 billion per year by 2030.
“Humanitarian emergencies are triggered by heat waves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes in scale and quantum with climate chiefly responsible. Africa and the entire global south with least coping capacities and heath infrastructures will struggle to respond.”
Explaining climate change impacts on health, he said the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, which predicts that climate risks are increasing faster than previously expected and will become more serious before the end of the century because of increased global warming, suggests that it is harder for adaptation to take place.
Low-income countries still bear the most severe health impacts, despite a modest contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. Deaths from extreme weather events have increased by 15 times over the last ten years at vulnerable regions, compared to low-risk areas.
He also lamented that climate change is causing massive disruption in food systems, increases in zoonoses and food, water-and vector-borne diseases and continue to escalate mental health issues, adding: “Determinants to good health are equally being undermined by climate change with livelihoods, equality and access to health care and social support structures dwindling at alarming rates across the world with profound threats in Africa.”
To avert catastrophic health impacts and prevent millions of climate change-related deaths, he advised that the world must limit temperature rise to 1.5°C leveraging home grown policies and pro-people Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
He further recommended that international instruments for climate change control must be binding on states and not be mere political statements for global politics, while the government must promote actions that both reduce carbon and methane emissions.
“Healthcare must be mainstream into climate change programming and vice-versa. Government must integrate climate risk and implement climate-informed surveillance and response systems and bridge the financing gap for health adaptation and resilience.
“Members of the public should be more deliberate in tree planting to absorb dangerous gases in the atmosphere and reduce carbon footprint, while investments in reclamation, restoration and environmental reparations must be progressive and result targeted,” he concluded.
