Nigerian govt approves new environment policy

The Nigerian government has approved a Revised National Policy on Environment which seeks to capture some of the emerging issues in environment matters. This was revealed, Wednesday, by the Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, presided by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja

“We took a memo to the council for the Revised National Policy on Environment which was first formulated in 1991 and last revised in 1999,” she said.

“It has become imperative that we have this new policy framework because what we really wanted to do is to capture some of the emerging issues that have come since then as regards to the environment.

“These concerns such as climate change, coastal erosion, desertification, erosion, pollution and insecurity which have been exacerbated by the struggles for environment resources. We see this in the country at all levels,” she said.

Ms. Mohammed, who was recently appointed Deputy Secretary-General at the United Nations, UN, said the policy would look at all the different inter-sectoral issues that are in Nigeria in order to “have a multi-sectoral response.” She also said her ministry consulted widely before coming up with the new policy.

“It went into an extensive stakeholder consultation; a greater part of the new policy on environment sees a partnership with the private sector and with the communities as absolutely essential to the sustainability of our environment.

“We also had looked at the importance of funding for many of the issues that have come out. So the policy itself seeks to find many ways looking at innovative ways for a financial framework to bring resources to the different aspect, that is talking about power; renewable energy is a big opportunity for us as we exit out of fossil fuels.

“However, the cost is usually not reachable for the majority of people; so we looked at new ways of bringing that to fruition and making sure that the policy takes care of it.

“This new policy framework that was approved today puts in place a much better opportunity to engage with states, local governments, and communities and execute the priorities of the Change agenda,” she said.