Coalition calls for action on commitments on key development sectors

A coalition of women-led Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), has urged the Nigerian government to put in place an inclusive and effective mechanism for the swift implementation of the nation’s resolutions made at the just concluded COP28.

The Women Economic Empowerment CSO coalition (WEE-COL) under the auspices of the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), also applauds the government for recognising the severe and disproportionate impacts of climate change on women’s health, well-being and livelihoods.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the coalition’s coordinator, Ruth Agbor, said the COP28 declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action, presents a critical framework for addressing the intersectionality between climate action and women-facing sectors.

Mrs Agbor said the women-facing sectors include health, education, agriculture, and food security.

She noted that women’s CSOs are ready to play a vital role in realising the government’s COP28 commitments at all levels.

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“Women’s groups are prepared to share live experiences about the impact of the climate crisis,” she said.

“They are indispensable to processes of formulation, implementation and evaluation of climate action policies and projects in key sectors such as health and agriculture.”

She appealed to the government to actively engage and collaborate with women’s CSOs in the planning, implementing, and monitoring of climate action policies, programmes and projects.

Mrs Agbor also called on Nigerians to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that the policy and political value accrued from the just concluded COP28 is utilised effectively.

About COP28

The Conference of the Parties, dubbed COP, is the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

States (countries) that are parties to the convention send representatives to COP, where they review the implementation of the convention and any other legal instruments adopted at COP meetings, and make decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements.

One such decision is the legally binding international treaty on climate change — the Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 parties in 2015.

The agreement’s primary goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

Based on this, a major task at COP is to review the national communications and emission inventories submitted by all parties. The meeting presents a platform to assess the effects of the measures taken by parties and the progress made in achieving the ultimate objective of the convention. The parties meet every year unless they decide otherwise.

This year, the COP28 agenda was anchored on four key pillars: fast-tracking a just and orderly energy transition; fixing climate finance; focusing on people, lives and livelihoods (loss and damage); and underpinning everything at COP with full inclusivity.