By Helen Oji Abuja
Constructive participation of the Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in local and global environmental governance has been described as one of the ways of increasing public debate on issues surrounding the formulation and implementation of environmental policy.
Th is was disclosed during a meeting between the CSO/ NGO and the Minister of state for environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril who further stressed that such contribution can as well support greater transparency in implementing environmental programmes. “ T h e c o m p o n e n t o f improving environmental governance is to promote citizen participation in the planning and implementation of government’s environmental policies and programmes,” he said. He also revealed that the ministry organizes a stakeholders meeting with CSOs, NGOs in collaboration with the United Nations Development programme ( U N D P ) . “ T h e m e Environment in an era of change”.
“The organisations can contribute to increased public debate on issues surrounding the formulation and implementation of environmental policy,’’ he stressed. “The ministry could not allude to any achievements without the participation of CSOs, their input had given a policy direction in attaining and sustaining agreen environment and the forum would set an agenda for the nation in its eff orts to attain a better environment,” he added. Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr. Shehu Ahmed, said that the governance in the environment sector could only be effective with the active participation of the CSOs and NGOs.
