The Environmental Protection Agency, in collaboration with the National Adaptation Plan Global Network (NAP Global Network), has held a day-long inception workshop for various stakeholders on climate change adaptation.
The workshop focused on arriving at communication strategy for climate change adaptation in Liberia under the National Adaptation Plan.
Its objective was to seek stakeholders’ involvement, participation, and solicitation to prepare a communication strategy to target climate change adaptation under the NAP process in the country.
The participants were drawn from various sectors of the society, including government ministries and agencies, gender studies practitioners, the media, community leaders, youth and students, and the civil society.
Speaking at the start of the event Wednesday, August 9, 2023 in Monrovia, the Project Manager of Green Growth at the United Nations Development Program, Abraham Tumbey, identified communication as a key tool to achieving the planned objective.
He urged the participants to focus on ways to collaborate efforts that will help mobilize the communities in taking steps that put them on the path of climate adaptation in Liberia.
“Ensuring a grassroots approach in the actualization of the communication strategy is cardinal to its successful rollout,” emphasized Tumbey, as he spoke to the audience in Monrovia.
Mr. Tumbey stressed that there are others who do not have an easy access to communication, especially those in the most remote, marginalized, and isolated areas.
“People in these areas, along with persons living with disability, should be given priority in the execution of the communication strategy,” Tumbey advised.
He also wants the fight to be inclusive at all levels of the society by enlisting the effective participation of key policymakers, the media, civil society organizations, and human rights institutions, among others.
Abraham Tumbey further urged citizens, particularly the participants, to contribute collectively to ensure the actual results are realized in the country.
At the same time, the Green Growth Project Manager disclosed that the UNDP remains supportive to the Liberian government to achieve the communication strategy for climate change adaptation in Liberia, under the National Adaptation Plan.
Meanwhile, the proxy for the Environmental Protection Agency Executive Director, Prof. Wilson Tarpeh, Jefferson F. Nyandibo, lauded the participants, adding that the development of strategies to fight against climate change is important and welcoming in the country.
Mr. Jefferson F. Nyandibo is the Focal Point for Climate Change for the United Nations at the EPA.
He stressed that the Liberian government remains committed to fulfilling the targeted goal under said project, with the help of the country’s international partners.
According to him, gains made by the government through the EPA would not have been made possible without the development partners.
Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in partnership with NAP Global Network, and with financial support from the Government of Canada, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, An Roinn Gnothai Eachtracha agus Tridala Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and OIISD, guided the consultants as they conducted the workshop.
The NAP Global Network is a network of over two thousand membership that supports climate change adaptation efforts around the world.
NAP Global supports individual governments and national institutions