#Article (Archive)

Mitigating Climate Change

Oct 13, 2011, 3:40 PM

All those living in The Gambia would agree that, over the years, climate change has been posing serious challenges to the country’s development efforts.

Windstorms caused by woodland degradation, and land use challenges as seen in adverse effects on our landscape are evident.

Floods are now common in the country, more than ever before, and are affecting almost all parts of the country.

Also, in recent decades, the sea level has risen and coastal erosion has posed serious long-term challenges to the country’s relatively short coastline.

Aware of these and many other negative impacts of climate change, our government needs to do more to mitigate the effects of climate change.

We do hope that the second national inter-ministerial dialogue on investment and financial flows to address climate, which opened yesterday and is attended by scientists, academicians, experts from UN agencies, public institutions and CSOs would come up with concrete recommendations and resource mobilization strategies in combating climate change.

Since tackling climate change requires more resources, we hope that this meeting would boost the efforts in mitigating the problem and saving our environment.

We salute UNDP and other development partners who help The Gambia mitigate the effects of climate change.

We also have the conviction that more community sensitization activities should be carried out, so as to create more awareness on the challenges climate change poses to the country’s continuing development.