We the undersigned civil society organisations welcome today the commitment by the Nigerian Government to finally begin a clean-up of oil pollution in the Niger Delta, and urge the Government and the oil industry to ensure that this translates into meaningful action on the ground to tackle the impacts of decades of oil spills in the region... Shell must match the Government’s commitment to tackle pollution by properly cleaning up previous oil spills, and by overhauling its practices for remediating future spills in line with UNEP’s recommendations...

As a first priority, the Government must now take immediate action to fully implement the emergency measures which UNEP outlined to address urgent public health concerns... The Government must also strengthen regulation of the oil industry.. The role of the oil companies should be limited to providing the resources for the clean-up, so that they are not in the position to decide how the clean-up is managed... Crucial to...success...will be the continued and active engagement of communities and civil society...