By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The Federal Ministry of Environment has set-up a “Circular Nigeria Committee” to facilitate the implementation of the Circular Economy roadmap.
This follows the recent 2024 Ministerial/top Management Retreat for Directors, Heads of Agencies, programmes and special projects of the Ministry with the theme “Policy Embedment and Synergy of Prioritized Action for a Renewed Hope in Environmental Management” in Kaduna.
The communique of the retreat signed by Mallam Stanley Jonah, Director Planning Research and Statistics of the Ministry said the Committee will be chaired by the Director-General of National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Prof. Aliyu Jauro.
Other decisions reached at the retreat according to the communique are that all Departments, Agencies, Programmes and special projects of the Ministry shall work collaboratively for the actualization of the Ministry’s mandated deliverables derived from the Presidential priorities; To prioritize mentorship, institutional knowledge transfer and effective succession plan; Procurement Plans shall be completed early and submitted to the relevant Agencies of government to ensure timely release of fund.
“The retreat also agreed to discontinue the use of single use plastic within the Federal Ministry of Environment and its Agencies to drive a culture of waste reduction. In addition, staff of the Ministry and its agencies were requested to demonstrate leadership by example by implementing other personal climate actions in their environment; To fast track the issuance of the 3rd Sovereign Green Bond in 2024; To implement programmes for capacity development, staff mobilization, performance tracking and strengthening of relationships between supervising officers and their subordinates as key strategy to enhance performance; and to accelerate the development of the 2024 – 2027 Ministry’s
Strategic Roadmap;
“The retreat culminated in the signing of performance bond with the Ministers and Permanent Secretary by Heads of Departments and Agencies for the delivery of the prioritized mandates of the Ministry.
“The Ministerial Retreat was attended by eighty-three (83) delegates from the Ministry’s Departments, Agencies, Programmes and special projects, critical stakeholders from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF), Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Development Partners as well as seasoned Resource Persons.
The communique said the Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abbas Lawal delivered the Opening Speech where he highlighted the link between security challenges and climate change, the need for synergy between all Departments and agencies of the Ministry and illegal activities of bandits in our forest reserves.
“The Minister emphasized the need for reinforcement of the forest guards in line with the vision of Mr. President to rid our forests of bandits.
It said the Minister of State for Environment, Dr. Iziaq Salako delivered a paper titled “Going Greener in 2024-2027: Mobilizing collective actions to Green the Renewed Hope Agenda.”
“The paper identified the adequacy of the 1999 constitution, the Renewed hope Agenda and other extant legislations to drive the mandate of the ministry. The paper also identified the need for personal actions from all Nigerians to drive the climate agenda of the country.”
