By Dele Ogbodo
The Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Environment over the weekend charged implementing Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure proper supervision and monitoring of the $700 million projects fund to achieve delivery of their mandate especially on the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL), associated ecological and land degraded challenges in the region.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment who is the Chairman, Federal Technical Committee of the ACRESAL Project, Mr. Ibrahim Idris made the disclosure in Abuja.
He gave the charge on Friday at the presentation of eleven (11) operational vehicles to some of the lead implementing MDAs on the ACReSAL Project.
Meanwhile, the National Project Coordinator, Mr. Umar Abdulhamid in his remark disclosed that ACReSAl has an investment portfolio of $700 million to intervene and address issues surrounding landscapes degradation arising from desertification, deforestation that has been brought about by climate change, challenges, natural causes and human activities.
The presentation of the vehicles according to the Permanent Secretary, is to enable the project realize it’s cardinal components of increasing landscapes restoration and enhance livelihoods in the participating states.
Idris said: “Even at personal level, if you invest your money, and do not supervise what is happening. You will lose. So, you must move around to see what is happening. Where you have problems, you address these problems.
In his welcome address, Mr. Umar Abdulhamid, the National Project Coordinator disclosed that ACReSAl has an investment portfolio of 700 million US dollars to intervene and address issues surrounding landscapes degradation arising from desertification, deforestation that has been brought about by climate change, challenges, natural causes and human activities.
Abdulhamid however added that the impact has been enormous, explaining that the project is a 6-year lifespan project that just started a year ago. Our team has started actual implementation.
“Restoration of landscapes have started immensely. At the last count, we have actually been able to restore over 2,000 degraded landscapes.
“We have over 96,529 beneficiaries directly and the list is ongoing. Our expectation is that by mid-term review, we would have been able to deliver more than 60% of the goals and achievements at the land and ecosystem restoration level and the beneficiaries in total.
Some of the recipients of the operational vehicles are representatives from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, Nigeria Integrated Water Resources Management Commission, department of Climate Change-Federal Ministry of Environment, others are department of Forestry-Federal Ministry of Environment, National Space Research and Development Agency, department of Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought Management among others.