By Tamunosiki Akpuh (National Point Newspaper)
The Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, with support from Global Green Fund grants held a multi-stakeholders dialogue on localizing gender action plan on climate change in the Niger Delta on Monday 29, April 2025.
Welcoming participants to the event which held at the institute’s secretariat in Port Harcourt, the executive director, Mrs Anyakwee Mgbechi, said the dialogue aimed at to addressing the urgent need for collective action to tackle the pressing challenges of climate change which disproportionately affect vulnerable populations particularly, women and girls.
Mrs Anyakwee Mgbechi disclosed: “Through this dialogue we will harness our collective expertise, experience and commitment to drive meaningful change and promote gender responsive climate action. Our goal is to develop actionable strategies, strengthen partnerships and drive impactful change”.
In her review on the gender action plan based on local knowledge, one of the resource persons, Chief Constance Meju explained that the Paris Agreement is a landmark document on climate change adopted in 2015 to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius as against the former industrial levels which were threatening the earth and destroying the ozone layer. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance. It entered into force in 2016 and has been signed by 195 countries and ratified by a hundred of those countries.
She added that the main goal of the agreement was to periodically access the collective progress towards reducing emission towards achieving the purpose of the agreement and a long term implementation which includes, to provide financing to developing countries to enable them mitigate and strengthen resilience in climate change impact adaptation. The National Gender and Climate Change Action Plan was according to her, developed to capture the global goals, and to address climate change mitigation and adaptation processes from 2020 to 2025, adding that Nigeria’s nationally determined contribution to the global target is 2030.
She pointed out that targets of the action plan are mainly to increase participation of vulnerable groups, especially women, youths and people with disability in climate change policies and negotiations at local, state, national and international levels , and to increase and promote understanding of climate impact on women, youths and other vulnerable groups; to promote the mainstreaming of gender in all policies, programmes and processes of climate change management in various sectors of the economy. It also aims to integrate gender concerns, and gender responsive innovative approaches in the implementation of the Paris agreement and Nigeria’s nationally determined contribution.
The women and environmental justice expert commended the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for flooding Niger Delta communities and cities with solar street light which, she said not only conserve energy, but is boosting safety and night businesses. She called for more innovative energy measures that will boost women and youths employment, while also calling on government at all levels to immediately look into the forestry department and set up forest guards to protect the forests.
The foremost frontline journalist and prolific writer also made recommendation for periodic health audits and outreaches by local authorities to improve the health status in communities as well as collaboration with other health professionals and related corporate bodies.
As further measures to address the menace of climate change, Meju stressed that community leaders can institute environmental friendly habits encouraging conservation, set environment friendly competitions and festivals.
In addition, she urged that land policy should be revisited to accommodate women, because women need to own land, while gender should be mainstreamed into local government and community policies and plans on climate change.
Fielding questions from journalists later, the executive director Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Mrs Mgbechi Nsirimovu Anyakwe explained that the institute has carried out several advocacy on the need to plant trees and also implemented a project titled, ‘Promoting Knowledge of Climate Change’ among women, girls and the vulnerable groups in some in the Niger Delta region.
She noted that from their observations, not many of the women are aware of the issue of climate change even though they are impacted. She hinted that planting of trees will help reduce the effect of gas emission in the environment to have more oxygen.
On his part, Dr Kelechi Justin, a consultant on climate change stressed that the national action plan on climate change should be adopted and localized by the local government areas, adding that without a policy in place, national target for the five key areas of climate action which includes energy, transportation, waste management land, agriculture and forestry would not be achieved.
In her observation, Dr. Chika Nwankwo, a lecturer in the University of Port Harcourt disclosed that climate change and gender affects the women more, that women are more vulnerable when it comes to climate change, women don’t have asses to natural resources.
