Monrovia – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Liberia in collaboration with United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is expected to commence a two-day training workshop on Friday, September 7, 2018 in Ganta, Nimba County for capacity building and operationalization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Liberia.
The training which is being funded by the Green Climate Fund of the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) is being held under UNDP’s NAPs Project, which supports the government to advance its National Adaptation Plans process in climate-sensitive sectors.
According to EPA Media Section, the UNDP’s NAPs project focuses on strengthening institutional frameworks and coordination for the implementation of the NAP process, expanding the knowledge base for scaling up adaptation, building capacity for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into planning, and budgeting processes and systems.
The National Adaptation Plans presents a means of identifying adaptation needs and developing and implementing strategies and programs to address those needs with the prime objective of integrating climate change adaptation into all levels of development activities.
Climate change is a cross-cutting development issue that affects every aspect of sustainable development and the entire 2030 Agenda. Liberia’s NAPs project will contribute to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals with inputs aligned to SDGs 1, 2, 3,4,5., 8, 13 16 and 17.
It is thus important to provide training, awareness and education on the SDGs particularly the ones related to the environment, natural resource management, gender and climate change.
The two-day training, according to the EPA would focus on the SDGs that relate to the environment, natural resource management, energy, gender and climate change.
The training seeks to educate and inform stakeholders on the SDGs related to the environment, natural resource management, energy and gender and raise awareness on the link between the NAPS and SDGs and the importance of Climate Change Adaptation processes for the achievement of SDGs.
It also intends to improve understanding on SDGs and climate change adaptation challenges at the local and national level and as well build synergies within environmental actors for the successful implementation of their respective programs and initiatives for climate change adaptation in Liberia.
It is expected that the 35 participants from relevant government ministries and agencies mayors of fives rural cities, women representatives will have a better understanding of SDGs relative to the environment, natural resource management, energy and gender and the importance of Climate Change Adaptation and its related challenges in achieving SDGs.
Participants are also expected to be schooled on how to factor climate change adaptation into all development activities and recommendations on how to build synergies and co complementary actions within actors for the successful implementation of NAP processes in Liberia.