Surge Africa Engages Stakeholders On Climate Change Policies

In a bid to design pathways to address the risks of climate change in the country, an NGO, Surge Africa, has engaged critical stakeholders in the climate sector.

The organisation also urged the government to collaborate with youth on climate change policies, saying youth perspective is extremely important in climate change mitigation.

The Founder, Surge Africa, Nasreen Al-Amin, who spoke at a one-day policy dialogue organised by the organisation in Abuja, noted that climate change is a global problem, but it is also a local problem, and it affects young people the most.

She, therefore, stressed the need for engagement, saying that young people have a voice in the decisions that affect their future.

In her word: “Youth perspective in this whole issue is extremely important, so we want to tie it to climate governance. Though Civil Society Organisations are doing a lot, they are not as powerful as the government. Whatever you want to do as long as you want it to be long term and impactful, definitely there needs to be that government buy-in.

“So, we needed this gathering to be for interrogation of ideas to drive climate change and to also say that we want all of us to be on the same page: these are the needs, these are the gaps and this is where we want to be. We also want to hear directly from these public office holders on what the government is doing at both state and federal level.”

Speaking further, Al-Amin stated that very few politicians look at politics from an environmental perspective, saying “We are really trying to see at this very critical time that whoever we are electing at this critical time will understand that there is a threat. So whether you are in the office now or whether you are thinking about continuing to be in this position, we want you to continue to know that we are ready to be engaged.

“This is the agenda that we want to put forward. We want youth deliberation. We brought people from over 10 states, we want youth deliberation, we want the youth driving change and this is a youth like organisation, we try to bring people from different parts of the country,” she added.

On his part, the acting director, Resource Mobilisation and Partnership building, National Agency for the Great Green Walls (NAGGW), Mr Isah Abubakar Sadiq, noted that there is the need to strengthen partnership, which he said was crucial to bridging the huge existing gap.

He said “There is a huge gap, no doubt about it. We need to strengthen our partnership. We are engaging with the state government in various aspects. For instance, the Federal Ministry of Environment has contributed a lot in establishing climate change desk offices to the extent that some states now have desk offices and the Federal Ministry of Environment now has a full department of climate change.”

Also, the head, Vulnerability and Adaptation Division, Department of Climate Change, Federal Ministry of Environment, Jonah Barde, said the ministry, through the Department of Climate Change, was able to come up with policies and framework that will assist in actualising for combating climate change.