LAGOS GOV: WE ARE AT DISADVANTAGE IN ACCESSING RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES……
By: Safiya Abdulrahim Dabban
africa247@gmai.com
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has announced plans to create four thousand and five hundred new jobs for Lagos residents.
Governor Sanwo-Olu who made this known on Wednesday in Victoria Island during the unveiling of the Lagos Circular Economy Hotspot 2023 themed: “Towards a Circular and Resourceful Economy: The Future Lagos” explained that the new jobs would spring up from reusing, upcycling and recycling of materials to minimise waste.
During the event, Governor Sanwo-Olu signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Netherlands Circular Hotspot on technical cooperation and knowledge sharing, fully adopting a circular economy for the benefits of the people while also preserving the environment in a sustainable manner.
He said: “The Circular Economy Hotspot 2023 is of utmost importance, not only for Lagos and Nigeria, but for the entire sub-Saharan Africa. This speaks to my administration’s core principle of encouraging citizens engagements and partnerships in our bid to sustain a resilient socio-economic development for Lagos. Developing countries like ours, which have contributed the least to global warming, are facing the worst impacts of climate change. We are also at a disadvantage in accessing resources and strategies needed to fight climate change and adapt to its impact.
“To save the future generations of resource scarcity, efforts must be committed to ensuring that resources are reused again in order to minimise waste. Our linear approach to delivering public goods and services is being re-evaluated and the principles of Circular Economy shall be adopted fully. In a city like Lagos, we believe that this initiative will create more jobs, because additional innovative production ideas will be needed and extra manpower required to keep materials in the loop for a long time.”
Lagos is the first State in Africa to host the circular economy conference and the
unveiling of the Circular Economy Hotspot pioneers the transformation of the current production order towards regeneration and sustainability
Congratulating Lagos for blazing the trail, the Consular General of the Kingdom of Netherlands, Mr. Michael Deelen, noted that it was time for Nigeria to have a change of perspective and expectations.
Represented by Deputy Consular General, Ms. Leone Van der Stijl, Mr Deelen restated the commitment of his Country to work with Lagos to co-design exchange programmes focused on building Innovation hubs.
“It makes sense to replace the current linear model of grab, use and dump to a circular model of feeding recycled materials back into the system. The Netherlands is willing to provide the knowledge and capacity needed to build the circular economic model.” he said.
While welcoming participants to the conference, the Permanent Secretary, Office of Environmental Services in the State Ministry of Environment, Dr. Omobolaji Gaji described the conference as a catalyst for change not just in environmental sustainability, but also in economic development and people’s empowerment.
The two day event is being attended by reprwsentatives from the organised private sector across Nigeria, international development partners and various interest
groups in environmental advocacy.