A lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Prof. Christian Madu, has called for proper funding of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to enable it to meet its mandate.
Madu, a professor of Environmental Management and Control, made the call in an interview in Enugu on Friday, August 13, 2021.
He said that NEMA needed to be funded adequately to continue to support educational and research activities on disaster risk management.
According to him, the country needs to scale up its game on climate change adaptive initiatives.
“This can be achieved by making NEMA more responsive and able to fund knowledge-based evidence on climate issues in the country.
“There is need for capacity building of the country through NEMA to have the competence to manage disasters adequately.
“There is need for NEMA to key into a nationwide climate change adaptive sensitisation programmes on disaster reduction and mitigation,” he said.
Madu, who is a Supervisor of Lead Researchers, Centre for Environmental Management and Control, UNN, said the country should move ahead from climate change issues to climate affairs issues through NEMA.
He said that climate affairs, as a discipline, is a multi-disciplinary and large encompassing view of climate change.
“It focuses on climate science, climate impacts on ecosystems and on societies, climate politics, policy, law and politics, climate economics and climate ethics.
“It is aimed at addressing a wide range of climate-related issues.
“It goes beyond the traditional focus on individual and societal concerns,” Madu said.
By Stanley Nwanosike
