By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
Renevlyn Development Initiative, RDI, and Citizens Free Service Forum, CFSF, has trained journalists on climate change and the water sector reporting.
The one day virtual training on September 17, was attended by over 30 journalists from various parts of the country.
In his welcome address the Executive Director of Citizens Free Service Forum (CFSF) Sani Baba, said, CFSF realizes that the media is key not only in keeping the public informed as part of its watchdog role, but also in eliciting robust discourse that ultimately translate into policy responses and actions.
“The indispensability of the media in addressing the climate crisis and its impacts on other sectors is exemplified in the prioritization of education and training in Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Education and training are useful resource for governments, civil society and of course, the media as they encourage people to take the lead and cooperate in creative climate change actions.
“Realizing that Nigeria, like most African countries and countries of the Global South carry the biggest burdens of the climate change impacts, we conceived this training to capacitate the media to report the issues from informed perspectives.
“We deliberately linked the climate crisis to water stress because this issue is often overlooked in the climate discourse in Nigeria. Yes, the situation in coastal communities facing inundation is dire. Yes, the deforestation issue is alarming but the mother of all crisis is one that affects water that we all consume and depend on for survival.
“We are all witnesses to the downward march of the Sahara which has led to scramble for the few available areas where water is available. The Lake Chad which was over 25,000 square kilometers in the 1960s is less than 1,500 square kilometers as we speak and it is still shrinking. Along with this disaster is the migration of locals and pastorists who depend on the lake to other regions along with its fallouts in form of land owner –settler crisis. “The floods that have ravaged Maiduguri and now spreading to other parts of the country will leave behind a trail of further stress on water because the flood waters have polluted the few available wells and other sources of water that our people depend on.”
Also speaking, Philip Jakpor,
Executive Director, Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), said media reports criticizing the current industrial models must go in tandem with recommended and proven solutions.
“It must expose drivers of the
climate and water stress. It must muster civil society, communities on the frontlines to take their destinies in their own hands by demanding climate justice. It must urge policy makers to make just and climate-friendly laws.
It must urge delegates to Climate talks to uphold the demands of their people.
Also, Hauwa Mustafa, Executive Director, Tubali Development Initiative, said climate change is currently the biggest existential threat to humanity, saying strategic mitigation and adaptation program and policies are available to enable government, businesses and citizens overcome the challenges of climate change and make the world a safer place.
“Therefore, it is important to engage global climate and development action, to ensure that one policy is not taking away what another policy is giving e.g. How does privatization of water, a very natural resource help the poor who is already stressed from the excessive heat, whose source of livelihood has been impacted by drought, flood, erosion or sea rise?
On her part, Vickie Uremma Onyekuru of Child Health Organization (CHO) Lagos, said investing in women as part of the climate change response leads to environmental gains and greater returns across the SDGs and broader development objectives.
