 I bring you the very warm greetings of our president, President Mohamed Abu-Hari, on whose behalf I have the special pleasure and privilege of joining you today at this World Toilet Summit 2022. May I join in very warmly welcoming our distinguished participants, especially our foreign guests, and I must mention in particular Professor Jack Seem. Thank you very much for coming. Nigeria is committed, and I think that this has been repeated already, to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal, target 6.2 for sanitation, which seeks to achieve by 2030 access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all, and to end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations. Our commitment is motivated by the realization that meeting other development, meeting our sanitation targets, also means meeting our other very important development goals, including the enhancement of social inclusion, poverty reduction, expanding access to quality education, quality healthcare, expanding business growth even, and entrepreneurship, but progress on achieving the global SDG sanitation target of safely managed services is regrettably among those that are furthest behind, especially with the high disparities in access across wealth, quintals, and locations. Globally, an estimated 2 thirds of people who lack basic access to sanitation services live in rural areas with nearly half of them in sub-Saharan Africa, while 92% of the world's population practicing open defecation live in these areas. It is estimated that it will require the quadrupling of the current rate of progress to meet up with our 2030 targets, and that's a global 2030 target. For Nigeria, we will need to triple current investments in the sector to meet our targets by 2030. But with the current financial constraints and current fiscal constraints, this additional expenditure cannot be accommodated by government budgeting alone. So we will need to have the contribution of our partners and, of course, of all stakeholders, which is why I think that the theme of this summit, which is Sanitation Innovations for Economic Development, speaks to the issues of partnership and the need for collaboration in overcoming this global sanitation crisis. While governments must acknowledge their role in providing the needed leadership to rally all other stakeholders in contributing to improved and sustainable access to sanitation services, the development sector, the private sector, civil society, research institutions, media, and other stakeholders must also play their roles, especially to bring in technical expertise, finance, advocacy, and also by promoting innovative and scalable approaches towards strengthening systems for accelerated progress. The government of Nigeria has consistently affirmed its commitment to the development of water sanitation and hygiene sector, which the acronym for which is WASH, and has demonstrated all of these, especially all our aspirations, through the many initiatives that it has championed. And some of them are the declaration of the state of emergency and implementation of the National Action Plan for the revitalization of the sector, the implementation of the partnership for expanded water sanitation and hygiene P-WASH, the P-WASH program, and the launch of the Clean Nigeria Use the Toilet campaign to end open defecation, which is backed by presidential executive order. A coordination platform for private sector organizations working in the WASH sector, known as the organized private sector in WASH, the OPWASH was also established to ensure effective coordination of the private sector interventions. In addition, the National Outcome Routine Mapping Survey, WASHNOM, was instituted to monitor progress on the achievement of SDG 6.1 and 6.2 targets. The annual WASHNOM report informs planning intervention, profiling and evidence-based advocacy. A capacity building and research program was also established to strengthen the workforce for improved sanitation service delivery in the country. And this has been done in partnership with educational institutions for the training of artisans of technical, middle, and senior level manpower. The drive to end open defecation through the Clean Nigeria Use the Toilet campaign is progressively gaining traction and accelerating access to sanitation services in the country. With a total now of 85 local governments who already have open defecation-free status recorded, 85. We recently achieved, we recently achieved as you've heard today, one statewide open defecation-free status, and that is Jigawa State. And of course, Jigawa State has been very openly commended for that achievement. And we hope that this will encourage other states, encourage action and swift action from other states to achieve that same status. And of course, also other thousands of certified ODF communities across the country. While the demand for sanitation services is being generated through the social and behavioral changes communications approach of the campaign, we also recognize the need to strengthen the supply side of the value chain and maximize sanitation, the sanitation economy potentials in the country. A 2020 report on Nigeria's sanitation economy says that, and I think this is what the MC had cited earlier, says that there exists a 15.5 billion sanitation economy with prospects of rising, and that's billion dollars, with prospects of rising to 26.1 billion US dollars by 2030. And this is broken down to 22.5 billion for toilet economy, one billion, and all of this is in dollars, for circular sanitation economy, and 2.6 billion for the smart sanitation economy. However, only a few, only a few, very few of these potentials are currently being exploited and there is need to identify scalable approaches for their realization. Is therefore important that we bring in innovation and new solutions to actualize this. That of course means providing an enabling environment that would incentivize the private sector and promote sustainability. It is this search for new ideas that informed our launch of a national sanitation innovations challenge that is tagged sonic competition, the sonic competition. The challenge is geared towards harnessing creative ideas and solutions towards ending open defecation, improving access to sustainable sanitation and building the sanitation economy. This challenge is open to all states of the federation and will help us to identify scalable approaches that can be supported and projected. Winners of the challenge will be awarded prizes and we call on all stakeholders to support this initiative. The 2022 World Toilet Day holds tomorrow and the theme as you're already aware is sanitation, the sanitation ground and groundwater, sanitation and groundwater. Now this calls for us to consider sanitation systems, innovations that protect our groundwater. Being a major source of water for many of us, we need to promote resilient and sustainable solutions across the sanitation service chain without negatively impacting on the environment. This year, Nigeria witnessed as you already know, flooding across many communities and this of course caused havoc on lives and properties, including our sanitation systems and has already demonstrated to us the urgent need to expeditiously address our sanitation challenge. And recently, Mr. President inaugurated the Presidential Committee on a Plan of Action for Preventing Flood Disasters in Nigeria. The committee is mandated to come up with sustainable solutions to address the perennial flooding in Nigeria. In the next two days, this conference will consider several of the important and critical issues, some of which have already been raised and I'm told that even before this formal opening ceremony, a lot of discussions have already gone on. And it's our belief that this gathering of distinguished stakeholders will come up with outcomes that will certainly begin changes and will move us significantly forward in our search for the kinds of solutions that will require that will significantly improve sustainable access to sanitation services. We look forward to your recommendations. It is now my very special pleasure and privilege to officially declare open the 2022 World Toilet Summit. Thank you all very much.