The African Development Bank (AfDB) has established a process whereby it renders technical assistance to African countries to align development policies with their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Dr. Anthony Nyong, Director, Climate Change and Green Growth at the Abidjan-based AfDB, who made the disclosure, stated that the process, tagged “Africa NDC Support Hub”, would identify projects and programmes that can be implemented through national budgets to meet unconditional targets.

“The Africa NDC Support Hub will also assist in attracting international climate finance to implement conditional targets and importantly, address the neglected elements of adaptation in the NDCs,” he added.

Dr Nyong made the submission against the backdrop of an ongoing informal discussion on the seeming incompartibility between Nigeria’s Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) and the NDC document. While the ERGP was designed as the roadmap to drive Nigeria out of recession, the NDCs is meant as the pillar of sustainable development in the country.

The online discussion was kickstarted by Professor Chinedum Nwajiuba, Vice-Chancellor, Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo in Ebonyi State, who observed that the ERGP document in some instances is inconsistent with the NDCs.

But Dr Nyong pointed out that, in this regard, Nigeria is not an isolated case.

His words: “It may interest you to know that this situation is not just limited to Nigeria. It is the story of Africa. Consultants descended on 53 African countries and crafted INDCs in three to four months. In most cases these hurriedly-crafted documents did not fully align with national developmental policies and strategies.

“Secondly, these INDCs at inception identified two targets: conditional and unconditional. Little is being said of the support that is needed to meet conditional targets. While not justifying the non-alignment between the ERGP and Nigeria’s NDCs, I believe we need to explore how we can use the ERGP and other policies to implement our unconditional NDC targets in the least.”

Prof Babajide Alo, Director, Centre for Environmental Human Resources Development (CENHURD), University of Lagos, opined however the divergence between the ERGP and the Nigeria NDCs is not surprising.

According to him, such inconsistencies and divergences are not uncommon with most of the nation’s development policies and national policy instruments.

“Development of policies by independent agencies with varying targets and goals that are not synchronised, as we all know, is all pervading in our nation state,” he noted.

Prof. Alo insists that synchronising the two policy instruments will not be a solution to the problem unless “the implementors of the ERGP appreciate the danger of not synchronising our national development options under the ERGP with our globally declared NDC and our national and international commitments under the Paris Agreement.”

He suggested that the Department of Climate Change (DCC) should “point this out and make specific and practical suggestions on how we might proceed to align the two development instruments.”

According to him, “an NDC-guided execution of the ERGP will clearly lead to a more successful ERGP that will lead to a significant  improvement of people and their livelihoods without compromising national sustainable development targets/goals.”

Prof Olukayode Oladipo, who is also of the University of Lagos, advocated for a comprehensive long term national development plan that will, according to him, address holistically the socio-economic and environmental needs of the country (say till 2050), from where short-term  (maybe five years) plans are targeted for implementation and budget implementation attached plus political and people’s will for success.

He said: “God is telling us ‘do something and I will help you’. As I understood from one of the Vice President’s speeches, no amount of prayer will develop Nigeria unless we permit the prayer to make us see value in hard work, transparency, accountability and determination to succeed as a nation and not as individuals in which less than 1% of the population are so rich that they can afford 2018 Utility Vehicles that are yet to be launched in countries where they are produced but are already in Nigeria, but 99% have to struggle for daily bread, we shall continue to rotate in the pool of confusion.”

Prof Francis Adesina of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, clamoured for the alignment of the two policy documents.

He stated: “I have also thought at some point that there are problems in the way we are going about addressing our challenges taking into consideration our commitment to the NDC. The international climate change response process does not foreclose national efforts to addressing specific national challenges, so I support the need to align these two strategies.

“This will translate to taking the country out of recession which again is about building resilience, and fulfilling our obligations under the Paris Agreement. A plausible way out is for the DCC to point this out and make specific and practical suggestions too on how we might proceed to align the two development instruments.”

Mr Sulaimon Arigbagu of HEDA Resources suggested that the demand for a Climate Change Commission should be revisited.

“I suspect that such a commission would have (aside from its other critical responsibilities) been able to engage and monitor the ERGP development process to ensure alignment with NDCs and our other climate response strategies/policies. NigeriaCAN and partners should consider this. We may have allowed the train of that effort to go cold but hope we can muster some good steam to fire the idea once more.

“I suspect my brothers and sisters in the civil service may not be too keen on the idea of a climate change commission now, and understandably too, but truly, once they get out of service they shall see the need for it. That much experience has shown.”

In the lead up to the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that held in Paris, France in December 2015, all countries that signed the UNFCCC were asked to prepare and publish their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), indicating how the parties will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The INDCs transformed to NDCs after the Paris Agreement was signed in Paris.

In a statement delivered on Sunday, September 24, 2017 at the First meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP1) to the Minamata Convention on Mercury holding in Geneva, Switzerland, Charlie Brown, President of the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry, salutes Nigeria, the EU and other nations across the world for their pioneering work to end the use of mercury in the practice of medicine and dentistry

Today we convene the historic Minamata Convention, where we shall make mercury history.

Yes. And we shall make dental amalgam history.

The World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry salutes the European Union, which has phased out amalgam for children, and phased out amalgam for pregnant women and for breastfeeding women.

The World Alliance salutes the work of the Africa region and of the African governments in the march toward mercury-free dentistry. The Abuja Declaration for Mercury-Free Dentistry for Africa sets the pace. The government of Mauritius ended amalgam use for children. Dental schools from Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria across to Tanzania and Kenya have made major curriculum shifts to educate this generation of dentists.

Dental mercury is a major source of black-market mercury in illegal gold mining. If we end dental amalgam, we have a two-fold gain.

The World Alliance salutes the nations across Asia for their pioneering work for mercury-free dentistry. The Dental Council of India ended the amalgam proficiency requirement, freeing up dental schools to be entirely mercury-free. In China, a multi-stakeholder conference was held involving the government of China and civil societies for the road map for mercury-free dentistry. Similar national stakeholder conferences were held in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Vietnam. The Dhaka Declaration for Mercury-Free Dentistry for Asia shows the commitment of civil society to move to this goal.

The phase-out of amalgam for children is the key phasedown step:

• Milk teeth are less complex, longevity is not a factor, and there’s the obvious rule of precaution when implanting a gram of mercury centimeters from a child’s developing brain.
• It means the emergence of atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) – even in the villages that lack electricity. As the WHO report Future Use of Materials for Dental Restoration says: “Alternative restorative materials of sufficient quality are available for use” for the milk teeth.
• When you return to your home nations, please do as the European Union as done: phase out amalgam for children now.  For one simple reason:  The children of your nation are equally important to the children of Europe.

The Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) and Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) are said to be operating miles apart.

While the ERGP was designed as the roadmap to drive Nigeria out of recession, the NDC is meant as the pillar of sustainable development in the country.

In the lead up to the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that held in Paris, France in December 2015, all countries that signed the UNFCCC were asked to prepare and publish their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), indicating how the parties will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The INDCs transformed to NDCs after the Paris Agreement was signed in Paris.

But Professor Chinedum Nwajiuba, Vice-Chancellor, Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo in Ebonyi State, believes that the ERGP document in some instances is inconsistent with the NDCs.

“For example, the NDC intends to work towards off-grid solar of 13,000 megawatts while the ERGP hopes to add 1,100 megawatts of solar energy to the national grid (on-grid). Also, the NDC will work towards ending gas flaring by 2030 while the ERGP is so much interested in urgently increasing oil production,” submitted Prof Nwajiuba, who is also Member, Board of Directors, Nigerian Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST).

He emphasised that even though the ERGP mentioned that gas flaring would be reduced in the country, the extent in terms of annual volume of reduction projection was missing.

“I think this is vague. I read the quantitative projections of the macroeconomic indices contained in the ERGP, so concerted effort should have been made to quantify the reduction of gas flared,” he submitted.

Describing Nigeria’s agriculture as very vulnerable to climate change, Nwajiuba explained that, climate smart agriculture, a practice which seeks to increase productivity/yield, adaptation, resilience and mitigation, was considered by the NDC and the Green Alternative (Agriculture Promotion Policy) as the main climate change response for Nigeria’s agriculture.

“Unfortunately, this is totally absent in the ERGP. Climate change was totally absent in the ERGP, despite Nigeria’s recent endorsement of the Paris Climate Agreement. Therefore, the ambitions laid down in the ERGP cannot be met without due consideration of the impacts of climate change and its potential to retard or even stop any development effort in Nigeria. This is a potential gap,” said Nwajiuba.

He added: “To further provoke debate on the ERGP, let me ask some questions. Who owns the ERGP: Federal Government without the states and local governments? What is the extent of ownership and responsibilities of non-state actors?”

In a reaction, Prof. Haruna Ayuba of the Nasarawa State University, Keffi, stresses that the NDC (with 13 years to go) could be regarded as mid-term (or even long-term in Nigeria!) while the ERGP (with barely three years to go) is short-term.

His words: “I totally agree with you that there should have been synchrony in the two documents, that is the ERGP should serve as milestone in achieving the NDC.

“Maybe the Department of Climate Change (DCC) (in the Federal Ministry of Environment) should quickly liase with those implementing the ERGP to find common grounds. I think that a lot of the successes in the ERGP could feed into the NDC.”