Building Nigeria's Response to Climate Change (BNRCC) Project
It has been determined that global climate change will have a strong impact on Nigeria, and West Africa more generally, particularly in the areas of agriculture, land use, energy and water resources. Nigeria’s long term development priority of poverty reduction will be severely constrained, if insufficient attention is paid to the current and future impacts of climate change.
It is clear that an organized,
systematic approach at the national level in Nigeria is needed to address our
climate change problem. The core challenge for Nigeria is to develop the
framework and the capacity at the state and local level to assess and respond
to vulnerability and resilience of sectors to predicted climate change impacts.
This will involve the development, assessment and implementation of adaptation
options. The “Building Nigeria’s Response to Climate Change” (BNRCC) project is
designed to assist in this process.
The Building Nigeria’s Response to
Climate Change (BNRCC) Project was developed on the achievement of an earlier
initiative called the Canada-Nigeria Climate Change Capacity Development
Project (C-NCCCDP), implemented with funding from the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA), 2001-2004 and implemented by the Nigeria
Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST). That project had the positive effect of
raising awareness of climate change issues and mobilizing a network of people
willing, capable and prepared to work on these matters. It also outlined some
possible follow-on project concepts that were made available to donors and
government agencies in Nigeria, including recommendations that framed the BNRCC
Project.
The previous project facilitated the
first multi-sector assessment of climate change impacts and adaptation in
Nigeria and resulted in five assessment reports being prepared. These
assessments gave rise to the framework for the BNRCC project. They were in
essence key aspects of a strategic environmental assessment; they also noted
important ‘lessons learned’ and specific recommendations, which have been
integrated into the BNRCC Project. Other products of the previous project
included a Climate Change Policy Brief. These Reports and documents are
available on www.nestinteractive.org.
The BNRCC project aims to help build
informed responses to climate change in Nigeria by enhancing capacity at the
individual, corporate and state levels to implement effective adaptation
strategies, policies and actions.
The BNRCC project is funded by the CIDA, and
will be managed by the consortium of CUSO and Marbek Resource Consultants, both
of Ottawa, Canada, see (www.cuso.org, and www.marbek.ca,). It will be
implemented in partnership with the Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Team
(NEST) www.nestinteractive.org.
For more information visit www.nigeriaclimatechange.org
