1st NEWMAP QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER PUBLICATION

1st NEWMAP QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER PUBLICATION

Soil Erosion and degradation is one of the most serious environmental and public health problems facing human society today. Humans obtain more than 99.7% of their food from the land and less than 0.3% from the oceans and other aquatic ecosystems. However the land that holds the key to all that bothers on the livelihood of man have over the years been eroded and damaged by Erosion and other forms of Land degradation in the south- east with severe consequences on the people, while the combined forces of flooding and severe effects of climate change have contributed largely to the issue of deforestation and desertification in the North.

The effects of all these activities as well as human factors continue to wreak havoc on life and property, with a heavy devastating effect on the livelihood and economy.

The severity of environmental degradation prompted the Nigerian government to seek urgent support from the World Bank to tackle the challenge of severe erosion and its impacts in seven states of south-eastern Nigeria on a pilot basis: Abia, Anambra, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu and Imo.

The Bank responded through the US$500 million IDA-financed Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP) and has mobilized a strong coalition at national and international levels to tackle and reduce soil erosion on a war footing. The project became effective on September 16, 2013 and has received $3.96 million from the Global Environment Facility and $4.63 million from the Special Climate Change Fund.

The objective of the Erosion and Watershed Management Project for Nigeria is to reduce vulnerability to soil erosion in targeted sub-watersheds. The project has four components:

(i) Erosion and watershed management infrastructure investments component will support on-the-ground interventions to help reduce vulnerability to land degradation; (ii) Erosion and watershed management institutions and information services will strengthen the enabling environment for effective implementation of erosion and watershed management. The component will contribute to a number of outcomes centered on enhanced capacities, modernization and coordination of relevant federal, state, and local institutions involved in investment planning, management, assessment, enforcement, and monitoring of watershed and erosion related activities and disaster risk management; (iii) Climate change response component will include actions that contribute to strengthening Nigeria’s strategic framework for climate action. This component will enhance Nigeria’s capacity to promote low carbon, climate resilient development; and (iv) Project management component will finance goods, equipment, staff, travel, and consultant services for the following activities: (a) project management and coordination at federal and state levels, including procurement and financial management; (b) social and environmental safeguards management and oversight; (c) strategic project communications and outreach; (d) project Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), including two mid-term reviews; and (e) an impact evaluation fully integrated into M&E arrangements that will help build replicable intervention models early during implementation.

Suffice to state that the NEWMAP IMPACT a bi-quarterly Newsletter of the project will continue to x-ray and inform the public, on the activity and progress of Project implementation as well as give regular behavioral Counsel towards sustainable development.

As a national flagship of the project this edition critically presents the project, its component; implementation procedures; its derivable benefits and dynamic achievements over a short period of effectiveness.