The acting director, department of climate change, Federal Ministry of Environment, Mrs. Halima Bawa-Bwari, has stressed the need for participatory process and national ownership in the overall success of the Green Job assessment programme.
She stated this in Abuja today, April 26, 2021 at the validation workshop for ‘Assessing social and employment impacts of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) policy’ to guide NDC enhancement and a just transition organized with support by the United Nations Development Programme – NDC Support Programme and International Labour Organization (ILO) Green Job Programme.
Bawa-Bwari said the workshop aimed to validate the finalized scenarios as reflected in the submitted report through the active engagement of different participating MDAs and also secure strong political commitment for the implementation of the Green Job assessment programme.
She explained that the new NDC process would be informed by an assessment of the employment impacts, positive and negative as well as an indication of the measures that would be taken to ensure a just transition for workers as indicated in the Paris Agreement.
“For a just transition, we need participation of affected workers and communities in planning and advancing climate actions. Against this background, the ministry believes that the green job assessment programme would contribute to the evidence-based policy formulation on socio economic impacts of NDC policies and development of appropriate social protection measures to maximize job growth and minimize losses as the country pursues its economic diversification agenda,” she said.
The DCC boss said the workshop was an opportunity for national stakeholders to understand sector results from Green Job Assessment Model followed by questions and answers in agriculture and forest, industry, oil and gas, energy and transport, water and also for stakeholders to understand the key concept of NDC policy making, just transition, and social and employment impacts of green transition which would help to guide the assessment.
In his goodwill message, the ILO representative, Marek Harsdorff said in the recovery effort of any nation, in particular Nigeria, it was important to see the climate agenda in the contest of the social recovery agenda, pointing out government’s recovery efforts should be in terms of economic resilience, poverty reduction, employment creation.
“So, the assessment model helps us to understand alternative scenarios to economic recovery. It will help policy makers, and participants to understand what options we have and what could be done to make our recovery better,” he added.
Earlier, the UNDP representative, Mr. Muyiwa Odele, underscored the importance of supporting the government of Nigeria’s aspiration to transiting from an oil dependent economy to one that is resilient and works for the benefit of all Nigerians.
He commended the leadership of the Ministry of Environment and that of the department of climate change for being “in the core of finding solution and the development of the economy especially in the face of the COVID-19 challenges”, stressing the need for the nation to look at opportunities to create more jobs and fast- track economic recovery.
