President Muhammadu Buhari has assumed the presidency of the Great Green Wall in Africa for a period of two years.
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Environment, Mrs Sharon Ikeazor, said at the end of the 4th ordinary session of the Conference of Heads of State and Government (CHSG) of the Pan-African Agency for the Great Green Wall held in Abuja.
The Great Green Wall is an African-led movement with an epic ambition to grow an 8,000km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of Africa.
According to Ikeazor, “at the end of the 4th Ordinary Session of the CHSG, Nigeria took over the Presidency of the PAGGW. So for the next two years, Nigeria and President Buhari will be the President of the Great Green Wall Initiative in Africa.
“This means that within the period, Nigeria will work assiduously towards addressing the problems of land degradation, food security, desertification, climate change, depletion of the forest ecosystems and biodiversity in Africa, among others.”
In a statement on Sunday by the Director of Press, Ministry of Environment, Saghir el-Mohammed, the Minister expressed optimism that with the commitment of Mr President on addressing issues of climate change and desertification, coupled with the immense respect he commands within the international community, a lot would be achieved during his tenure.
She recalled the commitment of President Buhari when last month in Glasgow, Scotland at the Climate Change Summit (COP 26) side event on the Great Green Wall (GGW), where he expressed optimism about Africa’s ambition to restore over 100million hectares of the degraded landscape for productive agriculture.
The President had in his acceptance speech of the PAGGW leadership said: “all things being equal, we shall strengthen our efforts in mobilisation of resources for the accelerated accomplishment of the Decennial Priority Investment Plan (DPIP) 2021-2030 and its concrete implementation action.”
He stressed that the realisation of financial pledges that emerged as outcome of the “One Planet Summit” held on January 11, 2021 in Paris, France would be given utmost priority.
He assured that the restoration of Africa’s degraded ecosystems and ensuring the resilience of our people against climate change effects shall be strengthened.