By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The National Agency for the Great Green Wall and Technical Stakeholders has emphasized need for Harmonised indicators for monitoring key performance within the GGW operational areas.
The Director General, Great Green Wall Dr Bukar Hassan, said the move is towards ameliorating drought, land degradation, desertification and effects of climate change.
Dr Hassan stated this at National Stakeholders Workshop on Prioritization of Indicators for Monitoring Sustainable Land Management within the Great Green Wall Operational Areas in Nigeria in Abuja recently.
He said the International Union for the Conservation of nature through the Global Dryland Initiative as part of it’s contribution designed “Closing the gaps in Great Green Wall: linking Sectors and stakeholders for increased synergy and scaling up”
He said the project has developed a sizeable human capacity across the sector with the sole purpose of “closing gaps that could impinge on effective implementation of the Great Green Wall programme in participating countries”.
He said “Investments as a consequence of linking the private, public sectors and other actors require seamless tracking of progress of such investments. The haphazard nature of gathering data and reporting in the diverse initiatives especially as it affects the GGW Initiative needs to be Harmonised to guide effective implementation process across the African sub-region.
“To this effect, this technical workshop shall review the document put together from diverse initiatives and interventions under the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative (GGWSSI) and come out with Harmonised and validated Indicators from several result frameworks taking into consideration peculiarities within the national context to facilitate effective monitoring or tracking sustainable land management initiatives”
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment Mr Abel Olumuyiwa Enitan, said the effects of desertification have increased in the Sahel region due to anthropogenic activities particularly inappropriate land use.
“There is therefore,the need to establish a systematic way and structured approach through smart indicators for tracking and reporting on the progress made towards achieving sustainable land management in the GGW implementation process.
In a good will message, the Programme Officer, Global Drylands Initiative, Mr Chris Mageroa said about 25 percent of the Sahel region is facing adverse effects of climate change.
He added that climate change in the same vein is affecting biodiversity hence,the need to come up with key indicators to measure performance.
