The minister of environment, Barr. Muhammed Abdullahi has lamented the yet-to-be-released 2% of the proposed West African Coastal Areas (WACA) project aimed at providing safer water bodies in the countries.
Abdullahi said the fund for the coastal intervention amounting to USD4,200,000 sought since 2018, for the Project Preparatory fund (PPF) was responsible for the inability of the federal government to record any significant intervention in the coastal areas.
Stakeholders, who were composed of commissioners of environment, from the eight coastal states in Nigeria, were among those who assembled in Abuja, on Thursday, with various environmental non-government organisations to discuss the way forward on safer water bodies in Nigeria. The meeting was declared open by the Minister of Environment, represented by Abbas Suleiman.
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Abdullahi stated: ‘’In addition to the 1st World Bank/federal government site identification mission, the national stakeholders technical committee has had several meetings during which various components of the project preparatory activities were outlined.
‘’But, unfortunately, the PPF is yet to be made available and as such, we have not been able to record any reasonable milestone in terms of project implementation.’’
The minister who underscored the importance of the meeting said ‘’it will hold all stakeholders accountable to further support government’s drive in improving the livelihoods of coastal communities in Nigeria by reducing the vulnerability of its coastal areas and promoting climate-resilient integrated coastal management, within the framework of sustainable environmental management.’’
He said the benefits of the WACA are quite immense; as it would help Nigeria obtain financing and expertise to sustainably manage her coastal areas, and enhance industrial competitiveness, market access, innovation, and investment promotion.
‘’This is to, therefore, request all the stakeholders especially, World Bank and its partners to double their efforts at developing our coastal landscape especially now that WACA is already being implemented in other West African Countries, the minister stated.
Representative of the World Bank, Pier Montovani, said the bank was already funding a study of three states; Lagos, Delta, and Cross Rivers states for coastal area degradation and risk involved as well as the potential options or mitigating measures.
He pointed out that the partnership between the World Bank and the federal government was to identify the needs and agree on the financing of the project. These he said are yet concluded, but when completed the issues would be sorted out.
He cited examples of the commitment of the bank to other water and environment-related projects which have been taken to higher levels.
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