Nigeria’s foremost environment NGO, FADE has called on the United Nations, Governments, Multilateral Environment Agreements and Business to improve support to Civil Society groups active in the field of environment, in the quest for a greener world, pollution free planet and Sustainable development.
The Vice Chairman of FADE, Ambassador Ayo Olukanni retired diplomat and former High Commissioner of Nigeria to Australia who led a two person delegation to the Conference made this call at the recently concluded Third Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly(UNEA3) held in Nairobi Kenya from 4-6 December 2017.
The meeting was held against the background of revelations, that 9 out of 10 people breathe air that exceeds WHO guidelines for air quality and more than 17,000 people will die prematurely because of it; and the world dumps 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastics in our oceans causing damage to ecosystems live hood and human health.
In his statements at various forums at UNEA 3 Ambassador Olukanni, drew attention to contributions of NGOs to a greener world through advocacy and practical activities in form of tree plantings and sustainable agricultural activities such as FADE’s desert agriculture projects under which economic trees are planted to serve as raw materials for small and medium scale industries, in dry sehalian parts of Nigeria.
He advocated that NGOs should be considered as close partner in the quest to popularize policies and use of technology that would advance the goal of sustainable production and consumption as well as raising awareness to rethink, reuse, recycle, recover and remake any products, to reduce waste generation in the drive to overcome challenges of the environment.
Ambassador Olukanni also spoke of the connection between environment, conflicts and terrorism drawing attention to the need for genuine policies to promote the achievements of the Agenda 2030 as envisioned in the UN Sustainable Developments Goals, Agenda 2030.
UNEA is the highest global decision making body on environment issues. The thematic focus of UNEA3 which was “A pollution Free Planet”. The session also considered and took decision on pollution mitigation to improve air quality globally; and broad range of other environment related issues such as protection of Biodiversity, management of land and ecosystem, climate change, environmentally sound management of chemicals and wastes.
Others were Promotion of Science based education and policy to link trade, investment and innovation opportunities as well as expansion of of partnership between governments, the private sector, academia, UN Agencies and programmes, indigenous people and local communities. Civil Society and individuals.
The Fourth Session of UNEA is scheduled to be held in 2019 at the same venue, the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi.
