Nasidi Adamu Yahaya
10 October 2008
The Global Environment Facility [GEF] programme has spent US 11.3m and US 5.7m [about N1.53bn] for the mitigation of climate change and biodiversity respectively in Nigeria, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, said in Abuja yesterday.
GEF is a global partnership among 178 countries, international institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector to address global environmental issues while supporting national sustainable development initiatives.
Mr Otaki Oyigbenu said at a one-day GEF sensitisation workshop, that in the near future, there will be more GEF-funded projects in the country, especially as she has been admitted into the Small Grant Programme and arrangement for its operationalisation are being concluded.
He said: "Nigeria has been accommodated in the on-going GEF Resource Allocation Framework[RAF] to the tune of US 11.3m for climate change and US5.7m for biodiversity respectively".
Mr Oyigbenu who was represented by the Ministry's Director of Policy Analysis, Monitoring and Inspectorate, Mr C.E. Ozo, said the main objectives of the workshop were to inform a broad-based national audience about GEF, its mission, strategy, policies and procedures; facilitate national stakeholder input to and information sharing on the principles and programme of GEF for better understanding and provide basic information on how to access GEF resources.
He said the social and economic consequences of environmental degradations are not restricted to any particular country or region, thus the programme is one of the major ways to ensure that these problems with global dimensions are adequately addressed at the country level.
"Presently, there are some on-going projects in the country such as GEF FADAMA II Programme: Critical Ecosystem Management,GEF Local Empowerment and Environmental Management Project[LEEMP]; integrated Ecosystem Management [IEM] of Trans-boundary Areas between Niger and Nigeria,GEF project for the Niger Basin in Nigeria and Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem[GCLME]", he said.
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