Partnerships in combating climate change impact

Experts say that vulnerability to hazards induced by climate variability can be reduced considerably, with an understanding of the most vulnerable to the impacts and how the interaction between nature and society shape the essential factors that contribute to vulnerability. These factors can be brought under check through appropriate climate change adaptation and behavioral change.

In times past, farmers, who are arguably the most vulnerable group to climate variability, had fixed periods of the year that signaled the farming season. These seasons were usually determined by the onset of the rains. Unfortunately, today, this time-honoured practice has been eroded by climate change. Currently, smallholder farmers wait for the ministry of agriculture and agricultural extension workers for guidance on when to begin a planting season. Evidently, precarious wet season as well as prolonged and incessant droughts has made it impossible to keep to a particular farming timetable all year round.     

OxFam GB researchers, Jennings and McGrath, in their critical review of the impact of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, What Happened to the Seasons?, said this vulnerability, which is usually experienced by the smallholder farming sector in the sub-region, “is particularly exacerbated by overdependence of existing farming systems on rain-fed agriculture, compounded by factors such as widespread poverty and weak financial and structural capacity.”

Aware of the challenges that climate change poses and the need to mitigate them, governments in the sub-region, with support from multilateral agencies, are increasingly becoming conscious of the need to lessen the predicament of farmers who have had to contend with climate variability with the most devastating impact in recent years being frequent drought. Interestingly, a handsome initiative through which effective adaptation and mitigation strategy plans can be evolved for climate change (crisis) is contained in the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD Programme).

In this regard, the Lagos State government, through the Ministry of Environment, has in the last seven years organised a climate change summit. This year’s summit, held recently in Lagos, was entitled “Celebrating Success Stories, Reviewing Challenges and Setting Future Agenda.”

Notably, while there have been laudable efforts by government in this direction, development-inclined private sector players have also been involved in the climate change adaptation and mitigation schemes. One such organisation is the British American Tobacco Company Nigeria Foundation (BATNF). Keeping with its tradition of partnering government in the empowerment of smallholder farmers, BATNF co-sponsored this year’s climate change summit. The second day of the summit, with the theme “Seven Years of Public Private Partnership in Climate Change Governance”, presented a unique opportunity for BATNF to make a strong case for its agriculture-oriented corporate social investments. Chidi Ibe, a member of the technical  committee, BATNF, while making a presentation on “Building Resilience to Climate Change Impact: BATNF and Small Scale Farmers at the Frontline”, reiterated the commitment of the Foundation to the alleviation of poverty in Nigeria by equipping small holder farmers with technical skills to withstand the hazards of climate change.

Ibe said that the threat of climate change to national security, social stability and economic prosperity was evident. “Anywhere you go, you see signs of effect of climate change or climate variability. There is need for national action to tackle the risk that climate change poses,” he added.

But what becomes of the fate of small scale farmers who are most at risk of climate change? In addressing this, Ibe observed that “despite any ambition for mechanization in the foreseeable future, food production will be guaranteed by smallholder farmers” who contribute 90 per cent of food production in the country. Hence, the need to “provide opportunities to enhance the wellbeing of smallholder farmers is a veritable route to the eradication of food shortage and poverty on a grand scale. It is a viable recipe for sustainable economic development.”

He highlighted the reduction of vulnerability, building of resilience and institution of adaptation measures as “obvious things to do when your food production sources are under threat.”

Ibe also highlighted the initiatives of BATNF in the agricultural sector and its resolve to partner government in fighting poverty, noting that BATNF’s effort “is designed to impact positively on the wellbeing of the society in general.”

Suffice to say that not only smallholder farmers are vulnerable to climate variability but also the ecology and the entire ecosystem. This fact was emphasised in the lead paper presented by the Managing Director, Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency (LASPARK), Titi Anibaba. In her paper titled “Seven Years of Carbon Sequestration: The Story of Tree Planting in Lagos State”, she highlighted the efforts that have been made by the Lagos State government over the years to restore the state’s ecological purity and environmental beauty, which she said had been polluted by decades of industrialization and urbanization. She specifically identified reforestation and tree planting, which, according to her, are being aggressively pursued by the state through its greening programme, as a major strategy for carbon reduction.

The platform also provided an opportunity for Lagos State to learn from the success story of similar efforts on climate change management in a sister state.  Odigha Odigha, Chairman, Cross Rivers State Forestry Commission and state coordinator, Nigeria UN-REDD, was on hand to inform participants on such initiatives. Odigha said that “Cross Rivers State has been pressurizing the Federal Government to join the UN-REDD Programme.”

Abimbola Okoya, General Manager, BATNF, said that focusing on climate change and its impact on the most vulnerable groups in the society has the potential to lead to scalable solutions.

The three-day Climate Change summit was declared open by the Lagos State former Governor, Babatunde Fashola. In his address, Fashola said although the future holds a grim picture of global environmental adversity, Lagos had put several measures in place to counter any such adversities. He identified the measures as tree planting and greening programme to check erosion, energy conservation through the construction of Independent Power Plants (IPPs) and the Eko Atlantic City Project, which he described as the new wall of Lagos on the Atlantic.

Daniel Obi