Nigeria, July 23 -- At the Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary School, Dagiri, a community in the university town of Gwagwalada on the outskirts of Abuja, pupils sit on wooden chairs inside a classroom. When the pupils look up, they see that parts of the inner ceiling of their classroom have fallen off, and the rest hang loosely, threatening to collapse. It is not the school environment you expect to find in one of the six area councils of the Nigerian capital.

However, the damaged ceiling is arguably one of the Abuja school's smallest problems. The school has no toilet, so the pupils use the open ground behind the classroom blocks when nature calls, putting the health of pupils and staff at risk. Also, because they also have no func...