In partnership with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and the Cross River State Government, Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) hosted a legal drafting workshop in Calabar, bringing together key stakeholders to review existing frameworks and draft provisions of the Cross River State Public Health Security Bill and the Animal Health Bill.
As part of our Subnational Public Health Legal Reform Initiative, RTSL provides technical support to ensure the health security bills are evidence-based, actionable, and enforceable, defining clear roles and responsibilities for government agencies while enhancing collaboration across sectors.
Emem Udoh, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, RTSL Nigeria, noted that the bills will provide a strong legal foundation for a coordinated, One Health approach that bridges human, animal, and environmental health: “Robust public health laws are essential to saving lives. RTSL is committed to working with state governments like Cross River to strengthen the legal foundations for health security. These bills will ensure the state can act swiftly, coordinate effectively, and protect its most vulnerable during public health emergencies, while safeguarding economic and social stability.”
Once passed, the bills will:
- Establish a state public health laboratory;
- Strengthen integrated surveillance, early warning, and rapid response systems;
- Improve animal health regulation to prevent outbreaks;
- Define clear roles for Ministries, Departments, and Agencies; and
- Secure sustainable financing and accountability for health security.
This workshop built on Nigeria’s broader health security law reform agenda and followed the example of states like Kaduna, Kano, and Jigawa, which have already updated their legal frameworks.
Strengthening state-level public health legal frameworks is especially important in Nigeria, where NCDC found that many state public health laws were outdated and inadequate, and a Joint External Evaluation recommended updating subnational public health laws to align with the International Health Regulations (2005).