The Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam, has restated the federal government’s commitment to tackle the impacts associated with sinister chemicals known as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) on human health and environment.
The minister who stated this during the inaugural ceremony of the Project Steering Committee (PSC) on the Enabling Activities to Review and Update the National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on POPs in Abuja, said the cross-cutting dimension of POPs management and the magnitude of associated challenges call for collective responsibility among all sectorial stakeholders.
Mrs. Mallam hinted that the multi-stakeholder committee being constituted and inaugurated, forms part of the institutional arrangement for the implementation of the enabling activities for the National Implementation Plan (NIP), update and review project.
She stated that consequent upon the amendment of Annexes A, B and C to the Stockholm convention on POPs, in 2008 and 2011, it was obligatory for convention parties, Nigeria inclusive to review, update and endorse their original national implementation plan, and same be transmitted to the convention secretariat in line with article 7 of the convention.
‘’When the NIP review and update project would be completed, it would further enable Nigeria to attract support for chemicals and POPs management activities under GEF – 6 project cycle, effective from June 2014,’’ Mrs. Mallam said.
The minister stressed that the challenges of POPs management have immense socio-economic cum public health implications that could only be effectively addressed with enormous resources in terms of funding, infrastructural capacity, institutional framework among others.
She commended the collaborations of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) on implementing the enabling activity for the Review and Update of the NIP, and funding support by Global Environment Facility (GEF) in line with article 7 of the convention.
In her remarks, chairman of the committee and permanent secretary of the ministry of Environment, Mrs. Rabi Jimeta, commended the minister for the trust reposed on the committee to carry out the task.
