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UNESCO moves to end conflict in management of Lake Chad resources

By Matthew Ogune, Abuja
21 August 2019   |   3:27 am
The Regional Centre for Integrated River Basin Management (RC-IRBM), under the auspices of United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), has advocated for peaceful and sustainable management of Lake Chad natural resources through the Potential Conflict to Cooperation Potential (PCCP) approach.

United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)

The Regional Centre for Integrated River Basin Management (RC-IRBM), under the auspices of United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), has advocated for peaceful and sustainable management of Lake Chad natural resources through the Potential Conflict to Cooperation Potential (PCCP) approach.

RC-IRBM Executive Director, Prof. Emmanuel Adanu, who spoke yesterday in Abuja at a capacity-building workshop on water diplomacy and peaceful management of natural resources, noted that the effective and efficient management of water resources using the PCCP approach was essential for sustaining human wellbeing, livelihoods and a healthy environment in the Lake Chad Basin.

According to him, the event was initiated to know how to manage the potentials of Lake Chad and its environment to the benefit of the people, using peace, diplomacy and bringing everyone together under the BIOPALT.

He said: “We all know that the Lake Chad is a problem to the whole world and the effect of Lake Chad is going out to Europe and other parts of the world and we are very concerned about it.

“The most important aspect of it is peace because even if you have water there today, to correct what it has caused will take a very long time and even if you succeed in bringing the water tomorrow, the effect is still there. To bring back the environment to a condition near where it was will be very difficult.

“While the scientists are talking about how to refill Chad, we need to talk about those things that we need to make sure that there is peace among our people, especially the countries bordering Chad.”

Also, Director of RC-IRBM, Kaduna State, Dr. Omogbemi Yaya, said that the main objective of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of participants on peaceful and sustainable management of Lake Chad natural resources through expanding the PCCP approach for ecosystem management in general.

Yaya, who maintained that the PCCP approach would be adapted to better address conflicts in natural resources management, further noted that the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of managers, policy experts, and programme officers within and outside the water box in Nigeria on peaceful management of natural resources of the Lake Chad Basin.

The Acting Secretary-General of UNESCO, Abuja, Florence Oguah, noted that the successful actualisation of the President’s dreams for Lake Chad Basin depends primarily on core implementers of projects to make the environment sustainable.

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