Stakeholders key to Green Wall success

Mallam who was represented by Mr. Saminu Ado, Coordinator, Afforestation Progamme Coordinating Unit (APCU), stated this during a one-day stakeholders’ forum on the Great Green Wall programme in Bauchi State, North-Eastern of Nigeria.
She said investments in sustainable development should themselves be sustainable; a condition not easily fulfilled without full beneficiary participation. This, she said, was in tandem with the “Right of Environment” which was declared and adopted at the 1972 conference in Stockham that linked human rights and the environment.
She said that the Great Green Wall programme was incepted at the highest political level in Africa as a response to a major concern, namely the combined effects of the degradation of the natural rural environment and drought in the Sahel-Saharan region.
She further said that in order to strengthen the implementation of the initiative in Nigeria, the National Council on Great Green Wall under the chairmanship of the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, approved the establishment of the Agency for Great Green Wall which commenced in 2013 and was able to construct 92 solar and wind powered boreholes in the 11 affected frontline states to provide water both for the people and their livestock, established 80ha community orchard, 267km shelterbelt and 228 youths trained and engaged as forest guards and over1000 people engaged in tree planting.
Also speaking, National Coordinator/CEO, National Agency for Great Green Wall, Mr. Goni Ahmed, who was represented by Mr. Babatunde Akinola, Head of Afforestation Unit in the agency, said the stakeholders’ conference was meant to address the status and prospects of the National Agency for Great Green Wall, and to also contribute towards sustainable development, income generation and poverty reduction.