Through the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Aridlandscapes Initiative, the World Bank has allocated $2 million to address environmental issues in Bauchi State.
At a four-day Stakeholders’ Engagement for Bauchi ACReSAL that was conducted at the Command Guest House on Wednesday, Governor Bala Mohammed made this announcement.
He claimed that his administration had given the World Bank N500 million in counterpart money to start the project in Bauchi State.
He continued by saying that N500 million more was added to the 2023 budget to ensure there would be sufficient cash for the project’s successful launch in the state’s seven pilot areas.
The governor explained that the state’s motivation for joining the project was to address natural emergencies and ecological catastrophes.
“Our choice to take part in the ACReSAL Project was an additional effort of our state’s strive to combat fragility and natural emergencies through the development and implementation of several multi-sectoral initiatives over the last few years where we collaborated and tapped into technical and financial assistance from multi-national donors, bilateral donors, and Federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to address several ecological challenges in the state.
“The State’s Technical Team created a report that we submitted to the World Bank outlining our rationale and interest in taking part in the ACReSAL Project. Unfortunately, we even submitted it very late, but despite the limited resources, the state government steadfastly worked to establish the State Project Management Unit, deploy qualified staff, release vehicles to the SPMU, and release counterpart funding in the amount of N500 million within two years.
“We also budgeted an additional N500 million in the 2023 budget to ensure we have the resources to satisfy the counterpart criteria. I’ve been told that in the national body’s assessment, we came in second place overall in the federation. This demonstrates our success as a state and the excellent performance of the Project Implementation Unit.
“As a result of the aforementioned and in recognition of the outstanding dedication shown so far, I am happy to inform you that our state has obtained the advance release of $2 million through the SPMU to start the project implementation in earnest.
He said, “I’m pleased that the ACReSAL Project is well-articulated and timely, especially given that it is in line with the fundamental idea of our administration of giving the environment, agriculture, and water resources priority.
He claims that Bauchi state is endowed with natural resources, including special course ecosystems, game reserves, vast arable and irrigable land resources, including 10 macro watersheds, 46 micro watersheds, seven major rivers, five lakes, and 10 major wetlands. However, he also notes that despite these endowments, population growth and man-made climate change prevent the state from realizing its full potential.
Mohammed pointed out that the ACReSAL Project, which aims to strengthen Nigeria’s long-established enabling environment for integrated climate-resilient landscape management and increase the sustainable land management practices in targeted watersheds in northern Nigeria, will go a long way in helping to solve the state’s lingering ecological issues.
“We have located the hotspots of these ecological issues throughout all of the local government areas in the state to start the ACReSAL Intervention Project. I instructed the SPMU to work diligently to implement these interventions with equity and justice across the first seven chosen communities. We have already found 45 other villages in addition to the seven mentioned.
“I want to express my gratitude to the residents of Kirfi, Gololo, Duguri, Cheledi, Yakubun Bauchi, Gwaram, and Sulaiman Adamu Communities for their significant contributions to civil engineering projects, which included building dams, drainage systems, stonework, and drainage systems to prevent erosion and flooding.
“In addition to stonework, the ACReSAL Project will implement integrated solar-powered borehole schemes, the farm produces processing facilities, plant and agric development units, irrigated farming, agroforestry, greenhouse farming, and tree planting across the state’s 20 local government regions.
“The initiative, whose six-year implementation duration is intended to affect more than three million people’s livelihoods, primarily in rural areas. And I want to emphasize that this project’s funding is based on finances. Since there are so few states competing, we must fight hard to get our hands on the $700 million pot. We are fortunate, and I can make out a light at the end of the tunnel,” said the governor.
Dr Kabir Mohammed, the state coordinator for ACReSAL, also spoke during which he praised the governor of the state for creating an environment that allowed the project to succeed in the state.
He named the state’s Kirfi, Gololo, Duguri, Cheledi, Yakubun Bauchi, Gwaram, and Sulaiman Adamu communities as some of the pilot communities.
In six local government areas spread across the state’s senatorial districts, Mohammed indicated that one of the project’s implementation efforts would be to plant trees beside new road construction.
“Distribution of 6,000 effective biomass cooking stoves and fuels, among other things, to prevent indiscriminate tree cutting in communities,” he said
For the initiative to be successful, the state coordinator asked all parties to work together.