Article Details

Environmental health bears heavily on the health of the people. For too long environmental policies in Nigeria seemingly compromised the ecosystem and by implication, human health. However, historical research on the environmental policy development to address these health challenges, and how these policies have evolved over time into One Health policy in Nigeria is thin and this paper fills that gap. Situated in the context of Nigeria’s first environmental policy, this paper attempts to trace the evolution of environmental policy and its integration with human and animal health into a single policy framework between 1988 to 2019. The paper adopts a multidisciplinary approach with data gleaned from environmental, zoonotic and human health disciplines, with government policy documents serving as the primary sources of data and published papers as secondary data sources. With a history policy analysis approach the paper uses the policy networks theory to study the evolution from narrow environmental policies to a more robust one health policy in Nigeria. The findings of this paper show that the Nigerian Government's approach to environmental policies gradually evolved after a disastrous environmental experience in Koko Town towards a coherent and progressive approach that considered other factors like zoonosis, climate change and environmental conservation. The paper concludes that to guarantee good health and wellbeing, there must be a seamless synergy between human and animal health with the environment as the link which will necessitate a One Health approach and a dedicated budget line. (Word count: 200)

Environmental policy, One Health, Zoonoses, Policy evolution, Nigeria,