From Our Correspondent in Makurdi
Women Environmental Programme (WEP) on Friday trained 60 staff of the Ministry of Water Resources, Environment and Climate Change in Benue on Mainstreaming Climate Change as well as Gender in Programmes and Projects.
In her address, during the capacity building workshop in Makurdi, the Executive Director, WEP-Nigeria, Anne-Marie Abaagu, disclosed that the organisation applied and received grants from Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF), through its Ecofeminist Movement Building Fund to strengthen women organisations to advocate for climate policies.
"This grant aims to strengthen women organizations to advocate for climate policies and advance sustainable initiatives.
"This grant focuses on three areas namely capacity strengthening on gender, climate and sustainable initiative; advocacy for inclusive climate change policies; and awareness raising on gender and climate change issues, Abaagu said.
Abaagu who was represented by the Deputy Executive Director, Mr John Baaki, further stated that it was based on the above and to ensure that government agencies integrate climate change and gender issues in their work that WEP had organised the workshop for staff of the ministry.
She stressed that the workshop was expected to equip the staff with the required capacity to ensure that the ministry delivers its mandate in a sustainable and inclusive manner.
The Commissioner for the ministry, Mr Ugwu Odoh, who was represented by the covering Permanent Secretary, Dr Dominic Achioko, said that it was also the desire of Gov. Hyacinth Alia to train the staff to enable them discharge their duties creditably, stating that the opportunity grant the ministry by WEP cannot be taken for granted.
Odoh further encouraged the participants to pay rapt attention in order to achieve 100 per cent result from the workshop to enhance their work schedules.
A Resource Person, Dr Johnson Mage, in his presentation on the topic 'How climate change is impacting socioeconomic development of Benue', said that drought and dry spells were negatively impacting agriculture in Benue.
Mage added that there was increasing vulnerability of populations and infrastructure to flooding and flood related hazards in the state due largely to climate change.
The Executive Director, Gender and Environmental Risk Reduction Initiative (GERI), Mrs Elizabeth Jeiyol, disclosed that climate change had displaced millions of people leading to informal settlements with poor access to services.
Jeiyol who was also a resource person, in her presentation on 'How climate change exacerbates inequalities', further said that women often lack access to land, education and credit thereby limiting their adaptation to climate change.
