By Albert George Sheriff
The UNDP Country
Director has called for a rapid and fundamental change and the need
to better integrate environmental concerns into development
activities.
Speaking on Monday
at a sub-regional consultative conference on the reflection of the
Rio+20 conference at the Shangri La Conference Hall, Lumley Beach
Road, Aberdeen, Mia Seppo identified some challenges faced by Sierra
Leone and her MRU neighbours, which she said included the adverse
effects of external and internal pressures of environmental
degradation, climate change and disasters that are causing major
obstacles to efforts to promote economic independence and promotion
of human security. She said those factors continue to sink the
government’s effort to move the country to an agenda for
sustainable development and economic independence.
Madam Seppo said
the Rio+20 conference was initiated by the United Nations in
pursuance of the General Assembly Resolution 64/236 which called for
organising a conference on sustainable development. She said the
objectives of the Rio+20 conference was to secure renewed political
commitments for sustainable development; to assess progress made so
far on the implementation of the outcomes of previous commitments to
sustainable development, and to address new and emerging challenges.
The UNDP Country
Director said the Rio+20 conference focused on two broad themes: (a)
a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty
reduction and (b) the institutional framework for sustainable
development. She added that seven critical issues were recognized
during the preparatory work for the conference that was given
‘priority attention’: jobs, energy, cities, food, water, oceans,
and disasters.
“It’s
increasingly clear that the wellbeing of our natural environment is
fundamental to the wealth and health of our local, regional and
global societies”, Madam Seppo said, adding that “yet greenhouse
gas emissions are rising, biodiversity is disappearing at an
unprecedented rate, and many of our ecosystems are severely
degraded”.
She said among
other things, the objectives of the sub-regional meeting was to
examine the outcomes of the Rio+20 conference on the various
different sectors, particularly environment, agriculture, forestry
and energy, and to promote coordination and information sharing at
national and sub-regional levels.
Other speakers
include the Director of EPA, Dr. Kolleh Bangura who said that nearly
20 years after the Earth Summit, nations gathered again in Rio,
Brazil but in a world very different from that of 1992 when the
Rio+20 conference was convened. He said many of those seemingly far
off concerns were becoming a reality with sobering implications for
not only achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, but
challenging the very opportunity for seven billion people - which
could rise to nine billion by 2050 - to be able to thrive, let alone
survive.
The UNDP Sierra
Leone, organized the conference in collaboration with Environmental
Protection Agency, Sierra Leone (EPA-SL) and the Ministry of Energy
and Water Resources, and was attended by representatives from Sierra
Leone and countries of the Mano River Union (MRU), Ivory Coast,
Liberia, and Guinea.
Sierra Leone’s
Director of Forestry, Sheku Mansary chaired the conference.
