The environmental health council is promoting business models to support the economic diversification drive, writes Bashir Hassan
Environmental Health Council of Nigeria is one such organization. It’s not as if the practice of environmental health is a recent development, having been introduced into the country by the British colonial masters – it was largely through this that such public health problems, like yaws that was hyper endemic, were contained. It however remained as a mere occupation until the law establishing it as a profession was passed in 2002 which established EHCON as the professional regulatory body.
Very significantly, according to Dr. Yakubu Mohammed Baba, the Registrar of the Council, these areas are open for private sector participation. “We have issued guidelines where people can come and invest,” he says. It is interesting to note that investment in such areas are avenues for rapid return on investment as the practice areas are basic life supporting services owing to their preventive and promotive attributes.
In 2021, the Council hosted the first National Environmental Health Summit, which brought together stakeholders in environmental health from across, which exposed a lot of people to knowledge and global best practices in the profession and industry. One of the outcomes of that Summit was a roadmap for environmental health practice.