Opia Kumah advises Nigeria to take advantage of MDG lessons in implementing SDGs

NaijaAgroNet:

The Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office in Nigeria, Mr. Opia Kumah has advised Nigeria to take advantage of lessons learnt from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to tackle implementation of the recently promulgated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Addressing the State-level workshop on ‘Data Mapping for the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria” at the weekend in Kaduna, Mr. Kumah who was represented by the Economic Advisor in the state, Ojijo Odhiambo, described workshop as timely given its coming two months after the highly successful national-level meeting on the same subject held in Abuja and hardly two weeks after the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDGs Indicators Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

“As you are well aware, the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators which brings together member states of the United Nations, Nigeria included, and regional and international agencies, was created by the United Nations Statistical Commission in March this year with the mandate of proposing a global indicator framework,” he said.

The results of this global initiative, he said, will be considered by the Statistical Commission at its 47th session in March 2016. He stressed that the work of the group has nonetheless become an important reference point and input into national level activities related to data for monitoring and reporting on the SDGs.

While the Inter-agency and expert group is yet to complete its work, he pointed out that it is now clear that the international community favours a limited number of indicators for monitoring progress towards the SDGs.

“In the area of poverty, for instance, the group has just adopted the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) as an indicator for measuring progress towards the SDGs,” he said.

Emphasising that this is a clear testimony of the desire of the international community to capture and measure progress towards the SDGs in more qualitative and comprehensive terms. 

“As we deliberate on the indicators for measuring progress in Nigeria over the next two days, we should therefore keep in mind the need to evolve and adopt those indicators which are broad, qualitative and contextually relevant to our unique national situation,” he charged.

According to Kumah, regarding data for the SDGs implementation, monitoring and reporting, the critical challenge facing Nigeria is not the lack of knowledge of what needs to be done but rather how to apply the available knowledge and lessons learnt from the MDGs implementation over the past fifteen years.

“The country has learnt invaluable lessons from the MDGs implementation process. We fully appreciate the challenges that the country faces with respect to data. We know what works and what does not. We know where the gaps are. We know where the bottlenecks are. We know which indicators are particularly problematic to measure. We ought to use this rich knowledge base to evolve the most plausible implementation strategies for tracking, capturing and processing the SDGs indicators in a comprehensive, coordinated and efficient manner,” Kumah said.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) @ITRealms
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100 GEO members reiterate to unleash open data on global challenges

NaijaAgroNet:

Over 100 members of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) concluded its 12th Plenary session and fourth Ministerial Summit in Mexico City with reiteration to unleash the power of open data in effort to address global challenges, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This is coming as they have also adopted a 10-year Strategic plans to run between 2016 and 2015 in addition to a Ministerial Declaration that focuses on harnessing critical environmental observations to enable leaders to make better-informed decisions for the benefit of humanity at a time of rapid global change.

Arising from the weeklong meeting of over 400 delegates from 41 GEO governments and 39 partner organizations, and included Ministers of Environment, Science and Natural Resources, held at the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia (INEGI), Mexico City, the leaders reaffirmed resolve to share data on earth observations at a time of exponential data growth, human development and climate change.

These decisions are coming on the heels of recent adoption of the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development and an anticipated global agreement on climate change, GEO launched several bold, new initiatives, including “A global Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), including an Arctic to Antarctic network linking coastal observing centers in the Americas to measure species distribution and habitat.”

Also GEO resolved that AmeriGEOSS, a regional programme to share Earth observation data for agriculture; disaster risk reduction; water; and biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring.

The United States Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said, "As we near the historic Paris climate talks, it’s clear open data and international collaboration are key to countries moving the needle on climate change. We can and should share Earth observation data to help address climate challenges because science and open data are critical to understanding land, water, wildlife & climate change. They must be at the heart of every policy decision - no country can solve it alone."

European Commissioner Carlos Moedas said, "We have reached a tipping-point where GEO has to move its focus towards successful societal delivery. We should not underestimate this formidable challenge. The European Union, through its Horizon 2020 and Copernicus programmes will continue to be a driving force to help GEOSS reach its full maturity – a GEOSS which is designed for and accessible by all contributors and all users."

Communications Manager at Group on Earth Observations, Katherine Anderson informed NaijaAgroNet that GEO welcomed new Members Ecuador, Kenya, Somalia, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe, bringing the number to 100 nations; five new Participating Organizations: the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution (BSC), International Research Center on El Niño (CIIFEN), Future Earth, Research Data Alliance (RDA) and The World Bank (IBRD/IDA); and four new Observers:  European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL), Inter-Islamic Network on Space Sciences and Technologies (ISNET), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the UN Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).

She also said that the Thirteenth GEO Plenary will be held in St Petersburg, Russia in November 2016.

  
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Legumes important crops for food security - FAO boss

NaijaAgroNet:

The Director General, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, has said that legumes are important crops for food security of a good part of world population, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Silva made this statement while announcing 2016 as International Year of Legumes, with beans in the leading role. Under the slogan Nutritional Seeds for a Sustainable Future, it will deal with an international campaign to raise awareness of its benefits and promote its production and trade, besides encouraging new and more intelligent uses in all the food chain for their protein content and its health benefits.

According to FAO there are hundreds of varieties of legumes all over the world and says the most popular of its dry bean varieties like the haricot beans, Lima beans and little beans, besides chick peas and coupes.

Graziano da Silva underlined the fixing nitrogen properties of legumes that can improve soil fertility, increasing at the same time the productivity of arable lands, which also raises productivity of the lands and eliminates dependency on synthetic fertilizers, NaijaAgroNet gathered.

Such conditions lead to a lesser trail of carbon and, indirectly, to less emission of greenhouse gases, he assured.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in a communique read in his name during the ceremony of presentation, NaijaAgroNet learnt, expressed the view that legumes may contribute significantly to treat hunger, food security, malnutrition, environmental challenges and human health.

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VC decries nation’s unemployment rate

NaijaAgroNet:

The Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Akure (FUTA), Prof. Adebiyi Gregory Daramola, has decried the nation’s unemployment rate which he puts at between 21 and 30 per cent with 23 million unemployed youths, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The Vice Chancellor who was represented by Prof. Taiwo Amos, NaijaAgroNet gathered, spoke over the weekend in Ikorodu, Lagos as guest speaker at the 15th Memorial Lecture of Prof. Anthony Adegbola organised by Ikorodu Division Human Resource Development Board (IDHRDB),

He added that agriculture had gone beyond the primordial struggle of the past as it has become a high employment-creating and income-generating avenue, urging the youths to look into the entrepreneurial aspect of the sector which he listed to include product supply, farm production, product processing and product distribution.

Daramola urged development-oriented agricultural policies to make the sector address the malaise head-long. He contended that if the sector was made workable, the issues of rural-urban migration, conflicts, poverty and increased criminal activities which were associated with joblessness would be effectively tackled.

According to The Guardian Prof. Daramola, called on the three tiers of government to enthrone a conducive environment for agribusiness as a most variable platform to creating jobs for the teeming unemployed youths with a view to addressing the ‘alarming’ rate of unemployment plaguing the country, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

Delivering a lecture titled ‘‘Agriculture: A Panacea for youth employment in Nigeria,” Daramola urged stabilisation of power supply to enable existing industries produce to their optimal level, just as he called for further strengthening of the nation’s school curriculum to make the youths agriculture-enthusiastic.

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