Director/CEO Institute for Partnership, Mrs Ogbanga during the lecture at CSS Amadi Ama
The Centre for
Development And Support Initiative (CTDSI), a non governmental organisation in Nigeria recently called for the domestication of the United Nation’s Climate Action in Nigeria to check perennial flooding in the country.
The climate action as presently captured in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 is targeted at combating flooding across the world.
CEDSI’s calls for the domestication of the policy is coming on the heels of the Nigerian Metrological Agency (NIMET) 2016 prediction of flooding in 26 states of the country this year.
It is also coming at a time when some communities across the state ravaged by flooding last year are yet to fully recover from the disaster.
It would be recalled that, the Rivers State Government under the leadership of Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike had responded to the needs of some of these communities through the donation of relief materials and construction of permanent camps for the displaced persons.
Country Director of CEDSI Dr (Mrs) Mina Ogbanga said that SDG 13 focuses on ways of permanently addressing the problem by empowering flood-prone communities with the skills to tackle the problem.
Ogbanga said this in a paper titled: “Take Urgent Action To Combat Climate Change And Its Impact” delivered at the University of Port Harcourt and Community Secondary School Amadi Ama in the Port Harcourt City Local Government Area respectively.
She said that SDG 13 focuses on the strengthening of the capacities of flood prone communities with a view to enabling them cope with the situation as well as institutionalizing collaborations to checkmate flooding.
According to her, SDG 13 stresses the need for the strengthening of resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.
“Integration of Climate Change measures into national policies, strategies and planning “improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate mitigation, adaptation impact reduction and early warning”.
She said that by these strategies countries are committed to “implement the commitment undertaken by developed country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalise the Green climate fund through its capitalization as soon as possible”.
Ogbanga also said that SDG13 also promotes mechanism for raising capacity for effective climate change related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing states, including focusing on women, youth and local and margialised communities.
She said that as a foremost development-focused group CEDSI is creating awareness on the value of the SDG to local communities both in Rivers State and beyond.
The Development Expert said that the visit to-some schools in the state was part of the awareness creation programme, adding that at the end of the awareness creation programme, SDG clubs would be set up in all schools across the state.
She said that CEDSI is presently focusing on Health Education, Environment and partnership (HEAP) stressing that this aspect of the programme stresses the need for collaborative measures by the government, non governmental organizations and the communities in the eradication of climate and health-related problems from communities in the state.
Ogbanga also said that incidence of climate change could be checked in Nigeria if the international oil corporations (IOCs) are willing to adopt a people-oriented approach to their operations.
According to her, both the government and the multination oil companies must work out a framework for addressing the problem of gas flaring and other problems associated with the fossil fuel industry.
Also speaking on last years flood disaster in parts of the state Ogbanga commend the efforts so far made by the government to address the problem, but stressed the need for the communities to be sufficiently supported to overcome the problem.
“Short term measures cannot be used to address long term problem.
“Long term plan should be done in collaboration with the communities to see how to strengthen the potentials of communities to protect themselves.
“Necessary things have to be done, a Jetty can help to prevent an upsurge in flooding” she said. CEDS is one of the numerous Environmental Right Groups in the Niger Delta.
The collaborations of all the groups would go a long way to mitigating the impact of flooding in the state.