President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, assured his counterparts from various African States that Nigeria was ready to host the Secretariat of the Sahel Climate Fund.
This includes equipping and provision of accommodation to the top management staff of the Fund.
According to a statement signed on Friday by the President’s Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, Buhari spoke at the second Heads of State and Government of SRCC during the 36th African Union Summit.
The statement is titled ,‘Nigeria ready to host secretariat of Sahel Climate Fund – President Buhari’.
The Sahel Climate Fund is the financial body of the Sahel Region Climate Commission.
The body is one of the three climate Commissions for Africa created in Marrakech, Morocco in 2016 at the Summit of African Heads of State and Government, organised at the initiative of King of Morocco, on the sidelines of the 22nd Conference of the Parties, COP22, to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Sahel geo-climatic region comprises 17 countries stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, including Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea Conakry, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Sudan and Chad.
According to Buhari, Nigeria, an active member of the Commission, will support the operationalisation of the secretariat toward effective implementation of climate change activities in the region.
“He expressed concern that the availability and access to funds for implementation of climate change activities, especially adaptation, remain major problems for the African region.
“He, therefore, described the Sahel Climate Fund as an additional financial resource which is adequate and predictable for implementation of the requirements of the Climate Change Convention and the Paris Agreement,” the statement read in part.
Buhari said the Fund would, among others, serve as a gateway to climate finance and investment strategy, finance the implementation of National Determined Contributions of member states and ensure effective participation of the Sahel Region in the global effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The Fund is also expected to mobilise required resources from member states, bilateral and multilateral partners, and private financial institutions, he noted.
Buhari argued that the Sahel Climate Fund would serve as a gateway to climate finance and investment strategy that considers innovative and practical ways to overcome multiple risk impediments and sustainable financial support to Sahelian Countries.
He called for urgent and extensive action as well as broad international participation required to tackle climate change in Africa.
Buhari warned that climate change is an increasing threat to Africa, with Nigeria no least affected.
The President noted that its adverse impact is the underlying cause of many human population stressors and conflicts with the potential of causing regional instability.
