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Saturday, June 15, 2013

National Mirror: Environmental hazards: World Bank now to the rescue … votes $2.07bn to Vision 20:2020

National Mirror
All the Facts | All the Sides
Environmental hazards: World Bank now to the rescue … votes $2.07bn to Vision 20:2020
Jun 15th 2013, 23:04

Several years after the Koko toxic waste dump and other environmental hazards that occurred subsequently, including the floods that swept through the national landscape with devastating impact on lives and property in 2012, the issue of environmental protection in Nigeria may have been more of political sloganeering than deliberate and sincere efforts by governments to protect the people and guarantee a safer environment for future generations.

Yes, Nigeria is a signatory to the 1972 Stockholm Declaration and several other international and local environmentspecific legal agreements, treaties, conventions and policy instruments locally and internationally the brutal fact is that the country remains lagging in making these legal instruments to bear positively on the environment still.

This is particularly even worrisome when analysed within the context of the climatic and nature-triggered as well as man-made environmental risky adventures in business and the domestic spaces that today the potential threats of such unguided productive engagements are more real in the country than the situation was about 20 years ago.

In spite of the provisions of Section 20 of the 1999 Constitution, the Water Resources Act 101 of 1973, the Oil Spillage Regulations 2009, the Associated Gas Re-Injection Act 1969 and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency's (NESREA's) Act 2007, the tell tales signs are that Nigeria's climatic conditions have continued to give stakeholders serious concern in view of the tons of hazardous toxic wastes that are discharged through industrial and domestic activities on a daily basis.

Apart from the unquantifiable life expectancy damages the mindless discharge of harmful wastes mainly from anthropogenic source are causing Nigerians, it has also been established by researchers and productivity experts that Nigeria is losing up to 2.5 per cent of her GDP growth potentials to the problems of pollution on a yearly basis.

It is, therefore, against the worrisome background and future threats to the socio-economic wellbeing of the country that the World Bank, in furtherance of its Country Partnership Strategy programmes in Nigeria, has offered to provide knowledge-based instruments in the area of climate-resilient, low-carbon development of the country.

Arguably the biggest donor partner to Nigeria with over N320 billion ($2.07bn) committed to Sustainable Development programmes under its current 2010-2013 Country Partnership Strategy alone, the multilateral financial institution published two Reports which ordinarily should serve as a navigational guide to the country in the journey through increasingly dangerous climatic altitude to sustainable national development.

Edited by Oxford trained environmental economist, Dr. Raffaelo Cervigini, the two books, namely 'Toward Climate- Resilient Development in Nigeria' and 'Low Carbon Development' catalogued the environmental and climatic conditions of Nigeria and the implications for attainment of the much cherished and well crafted broad policy objectives of the Vision 20:2020 Blueprint.

Drawing from country' historical climate records in water, land, air and other environmental bodies and the level of preparation by Nigeria to mitigate climate change impacts, the books listed three reasons why the country should act now on the climate-resilient development imperative, in view of the prevailing climate conditions, in order to ensure the realisation of the Vision's goals.

Specifically, the Bank listed actions that will reinforce long-term climate resilience and reduce vulnerability to current climate swings, investment decisions on long-lived infrastructure and building the knowledge, capacity, institutions and policies to deal with the climate of the future as key to guaranteeing a sustainable, well managed climate for Nigerians. Similarly, the Bank also identified 10 ways Nigeria can explore to enhance climate resilience by 2020.

These include, defining priority adaptation actions; harmonisation of policies and legislation related to water resources; Nweke Jnr launching a dedicated programme of applied research on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and defining and Action Plan for strengthening extension services to farmers. Others are, preparation of planning tools for CSA; defining Action Plan for strengthening the hydrometeorological system; and preparation of guidelines for designing climate-smart water infrastructure.

On the investments and resource mobilisation measures, the World Bank canvassed the inclusion in government's Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) as a programme of CSA demonstration projects; piloting the use of robust decision making techniques in the feasibility studies of irrigation and hydropower projects; and putting in place in a few states integrated watershed management and monitoring plans.

In addition, the Bank, while noting that a number of challenges, including inadequate information needs, technologies, institutions/regulations and financing could serve as barriers to Nigeria's efforts aimed at making lowcarbon development a reality, also sets 16 short and medium term cross-sector and sector-specific recommendations for the government to implement in order to remove the hurdles.

The cross-sector recommendations include, elevation of decision making on low carbon strategies to the Economic Management Team (EMT) level, completion of Nigeria's National Appropriate Mitigation Plans; improving data collection and analysis by NBS in collaboration with relevant MDAs; increasing awareness on the benefits of low carbon development and formulation of Nigeria's position paper on the reforms of carbon markets and its presentation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

Briefing the media on the importance of the projects at the book launch in Abuja, the Bank's Country Director for Nigeria, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, said the books were amongst other initiatives of the Bank to complement government's efforts aimed at reducing to the barest minimum, the risks of green house gas emission and other pollutants to Nigeria's productivity and life sustainability.

She said: "The World Bank is privileged to have a strong partnership with the Government of Nigeria, and I am pleased that our latest collaborative effort takes a close look at climate change and its potential impacts on Nigeria, Africa's second largest economy "You heard the National Minister of Planning when he spoke that Nigeria has set its vision, the Vision 20:2020, as we call it, which is aimed at making the country among the top 20 developing countries by year 2020. It is a vision and not a prediction.

"I think that what we try to do with these two books is to see how climate change could affect this government ambition and secondly, how this aspiration could be materialised within a climate change environment that is positive and also by reducing green house gas emissions", Marie-Nelly said.

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Federal Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the 2012 floods in Nigeria were stark reminder of the vulnerability of the country's communities, infrastructure and economy to climate-induced natural disasters, adding that the books will help inform decision-making across key sectors and levels of governments so that the economy becomes not only more productive but also more climate-resilient.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Dr, Frank Nweke Jnr, described the World Bank projects as timely and a welcomed development to collective efforts to creating cleaner environment for people and businesses, adding that the organised private sector (OPS) is doing its best in the implementation of laws and regulations on effective control emission of effluents and other wastes.

The question however is. Will Nigeria take advantage of the two resourceful navigational tools for effective climate change to improve the development of her e

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