UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Patricia Espinosa, and UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Mami Mizutori, in an op-ed published on October 11, 2018 by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, insist that climate change is now a major multiplier of disaster losses worldwide There has been a doubling of extreme weather events ...

The Word Bank Board of Directors says it has approved the third Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement (REDISSE) Project and committed additional $120 million to the work plans. Mr John Paul Clark, the World Bank Senior Health Specialist, made the disclosure on Monday, October 16, 2018 in Lagos at the opening of the ongoing technical sub-committee meeting of the REDISSE ...

Agriculture economists have expressed concern about how agricultural activities in the country have taken the back stage since the discovery of oil. They note that agriculture sector, comprising the cultivation of and keeping poultry and livestock, among others, has played a dominant role in the country’s economy in the past. They observe further that as the major hub of the ...

Stakeholders in the water sector have called on government at all levels to prioritise provision of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities to tackle spread of diseases in Nigeria. They made the call on Monday, October 15, 2018 in Abuja at an occasion to mark the global Handwashing Day, jointly organised by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources in collaboration ...

The United Nations (UN) has urged the Australian Government to address the collapsing health situation among refugees and asylum-seekers at its offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Although according to a Guardian report at the weekend, the Department of Home Affairs of Australia said in a statement that it took refugee health and welfare “seriously,’’ the UN ...

A non-governmental organisation, the Environmental Management and Development Trust (EMADET), has taken up a campaign to promote the use and conservation of the local wrapping leaf. The wrapping leaf, otherwise known as Thaumatoccocus danielli (or Ewe-eran in south west, Nigeria), is a kind of leaf that is used for wrapping hot local food. Director of Programme, EMADET, Mr Alade Adeleke, ...

WaterAid Nigeria says about 60,000 children below the age of five years still die every year in Nigeria, owing to diarrhea infections. The group made the disclosure in a statement endorsed by Oluseyi Abdulmalik, its Communications and Media Manager, and released on Sunday, October 14, 2018 in Bauchi, to mark the Global Handwashing Day, celebrated annually on Oct. 15. “We ...

A cross section of line Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in collaboration with the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) have reviewed and validated a National Biosafety Mainstreaming Strategy that will further strengthen the biosafety regulatory regime and its inclusion in various sectors of the economy. The National Biosafety Mainstreaming Strategy document developed by the NBMA was presented, reviewed and validated ...

A new vehicle, powered by the sun and made from plastic waste, is set to explore Antarctica. A team from Clean2Antarctica has built a vehicle, named the Solar Voyager, to explore Antarctica to learn from the continent’s sustainable nature. The Solar Voyager is built from plastic waste and is powered by the sun by ten solar panels to ensure the ...

An international organisation, Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB), has advised Nigerian farmers to take advantage of the newly approved Genetically Modified (GM) cotton varieties to boost cotton production. Country Coordinator of OFAB, Dr Rose Gidado, gave the advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday, October 12, 2018. She said that ...