Nigeria has received grants totalling $23 million in four years from the Global Environmental Facilityunder its “Big Full Size” project funding, a desk officer has said.
Halima Mohammed, GEF’s Desk Officer in the Federal Ministry of Environment, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Wednesday.
Mohammed said that the grants were approved to implement various environmental projects across the country.
NAN reports that GEF is the largest funder of environmental initiatives in the world, which also provides grants for projects related to biodiversity and climate change.
Other focal areas of its projects are international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Mohammed said that the fund was being used to implement projects in the fifth replenishment cycle, which, according to her, will end in June 2014.
She said: “The $23 million is used under three focal areas – climate change, biodiversity and land degradation.
“Under climate change, we received over $14 million, biodiversity $5 million and land degradation, $3 million.
“This allocation is under the System for Transparent Allocation of Resources, which allows GEF to allocate funds to countries to implement projects in specific focal areas.
“Apart from the $23 million we have benefitted under STAR, GEF has also approved over $6 million for us to implement some projects under Persistent Organic Pollutants.”
The officer said that the grant was to motivate the beneficiaries to commit resources to implementing environmental projects.
Mohammed explained that the benefiting country was supposed to pay counterpart funding if GEF approves a project for one dollar, Nigeria is supposed to give out two dollars as counterpart funding.
She said: “Nigeria may decide on the modality to pay the counterpart funding through the Federal Government, states or the communities.
“The communities contribute by giving lands and by the time you quantify this, they would have made a substantial contribution to the project.”
According to Mohammed, GEF operates in a cycle of four years, called the replenishment cycle, noting that Nigeria is operating in the fifth cycle, which will end in June.
Mohammed, also an Assistant Director in the Federal Ministry of the Environment, said Nigeria was supposed to be contributing at least $4 million Special Drawing Rights to the GEF trust fund.
She, however, expressed regret that Nigeria had not been diligent in paying its contributions as it had only redeemed the first and second replenishments.
Mohammed added: “Nigeria paid only $1 million SDR in the third replenishment and we are still struggling with the fourth and fifth replenishments.
“The sixth replenishment cycle meeting has been concluded, during which Nigeria did not pledge anything because there is no point pledging without redeeming.
“This will affect the allocation that we are getting from GEF.
“So we need to be up and doing in the payment of our contribution in order to benefit more from the grants.”
NAN reports that GEF works with countries to produce global environmental benefits in a manner that is country-driven and based on national priorities for sustainable development.
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