Tonia Uduimoh, Head, Oando Foundation
As Africa’s most populous nation and one of its largest economies, Nigeria is facing increasingly visible and alarming consequences of environmental crisis: rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall patterns, devastating floods, prolonged droughts in the northern regions, and waste mismanagement—all of which threaten the country’s natural resources and public health.
According to a recent report by NESG, Nigeria produces approximately 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, ranking ninth globally among the highest contributors to plastic pollution. Alarmingly, over 88% of this plastic waste goes unrecycled. Similarly, an estimated 110 million Nigerians lack access to safe drinking water, and only 26.5% of the population use improved water and sanitation facilities. These are not just abstract statistics; these are real challenges that directly threaten food security, public health, child survival rates, and school attendance, especially in vulnerable communities.
Traditionally, conversations about the country’s environmental crisis often focus on rapid urbanization, economic growth and inadequate waste-management infrastructure. However, there is a deeper, often overlooked root cause: a pervasive lack of environmental awareness and education at the foundational and basic level. It is crucial to recognize that Education is an essential element of the global response to environmental sustainability. It helps young people understand and address environmental issues, encourages changes in their attitudes and behaviour, and helps them adapt to climate change-related trends. When environmental education is integrated into the curriculum, pupils are more enthusiastic and engaged in learning, which improves learner achievement in core academic areas.
As such, organizations such as UNESCO have set targets: to make environmental education a core curriculum component in all countries by 2025. Many countries have also taken steps to integrate environmental education into their curricula. For example, Indonesia revised its national curriculum in 2013 to include climate change as a core subject for elementary students. Similarly, South Africa’s Education for Sustainable Development program focuses on training teachers, providing learning materials, and building community capacity to promote environmental education.
Yet, despite over 43% of the Nigerian population being under the age of 15, there is no standardized curriculum to teach children about the environment or climate change—an urgent missed opportunity to shape lifelong habits and values. It is with this global momentum and urgency in mind that the Oando Foundation is committed to advancing environmental education in Nigeria.
How Oando Foundation is Leading the Way
At Oando Foundation, our current LEARNOVATE strategy includes a key component, ‘PLANET,’ which focuses on promoting environmental education, green skills development, and sustainable waste management at the basic education level. One of the initiatives under this component is the Clean Our World project—our flagship environmental education initiative to bridge the Agap between education and climate action. The project trains teachers and education managers in the use of ‘edutainment’ methods—blending education with interactive, engaging formats—to make environmental learning accessible and exciting for pupils. Most significantly, we introduced a climate action syllabus with structured lesson plans across 1,020 public primary schools in Lagos State, with full-scale implementation in 70 schools across Lagos and Plateau States. This curriculum development marks a critical step toward institutionalizing environmental education in the public school system. To date, the Clean Our World project has impacted over 95,500 beneficiaries and trained over 435 education stakeholders to ensure effective delivery and use of the teaching materials and interactive learning tools.
As part of a collective movement toward sustainability and educational reform, it is critical for more stakeholders—government, civil society, private sector, and development partners—to recognize the power of environmental literacy and its role in building a more resilient future for Nigeria.
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