With the estimation that up to 70 per cent of the population of Africa could be vulnerable to drought and other climatic risks by 2030, countries of the continent have risen up to restore 100 million hectares of deforested and degraded land within the time frame.
Speaking at the Regional Steering Committee meeting of the Great Green Wall (GGW) for Sahara and Sahel Initiative in Abuja, the representative of EU delegation to Africa, Mr Pietro Nardi, said climate change and its impact on land degradation is a common challenge as such the EU has committed to spend 20 per cent of its budget for 2014 to 2020 on climate change-related actions and double its expenditure on biodiversity.
Approximately 14 billion euro from the budget will be spent in developing countries, he said.
Nardi said, “The EU as one of Africa’s main partners for climate change and land degradation is therefore framing its actions with the specific aims to enhance the role of climate smart development programmes and to strengthen the accompanying regulatory and policy frameworks,”
In his remark, the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, said African countries have taken it upon themselves to address teething global environmental concerns and challenges orchestrated by climate change.
Represented by the Director of General Services, Dr Emmanuel Asuqwo, the minister said Nigeria is experiencing the social consequences of land degradation, which have fused into a serious security challenge in the north- east, thereby making it imperative for government to support the EU initiative.
“The GGW programme is one that continuously requires the injection of fund for restoration and building the resilience of the people of the dry lands of Africa,” he said.
He explained that the implementation of the GGW programme since 2013 has impacted positively on income generation activities and job creation for women and youths, while maintaining the Federal Government’s commitment to the implementation process and addressing all the environmental challenges facing the country.
The Director General of NAGGW, Mr. Goni Ahmed speaking at the event, said climate change phenomenon has aggregated the problems of land degradation, drought and desertification leading to natural resources depletion and scarcity as can be seen in the drastic reduction of the Lake Chads by about 93.9 per cent.
“This has brought extreme poverty upon the people in the affected areas, rendering the population vulnerable to all kinds of conflict, including herdsmen and farmers conflicts,” he said.
“We all are witnesses to the recent reported cases of slave trade in migrants. What this tells us is that, together we must do whatever is required to restore the dry lands of Africa and build the resilience of the people of the area to withstand the vagaries of climate change,” the DG said.
