Stockholm+50 consultations call for MDA’s cooperation

Uganda’s development partners and environment conservation stakeholders are calling for cooperation among all government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) and the civil society to tackle the challenges of climate change as it continues to affect economic development.

Elsie Attafuah, the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program raised the concerns during the Stockholm+50 dialogue to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

“When you think about the fact that our development in Uganda and many other African countries depend on the land and therefore if there is climate change it impacts on us in agriculture, tourism, and health then there is a collective responsibility on our part to find a creative resolution to manage our trade-offs among different sectors, particularly in this decade of action,” said Attafuah.

The overall objective of the Stockholm +50 initiative is to provide a springboard to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations Decade of action to deliver the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, the Paris agreement, the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, and encourage the adoption of green post- covid 19 recovery plans.

 UN Resident Coordinator, Susan Namondo says,  “with 8 years remaining to achieve the SDGs, Stockholm+50 dialogue provides an ideal platform to foster discussions on possible ways to drive forward the implementation of the SDGs including a healthy planet and promoting sustainability.

With Uganda’s forest cover highly depleted, environment experts expressed concern over the slow growth rate of the forest cover. According to Permanent Secretary in the ministry of water and Environment, Alfred Okot Okidi, although forest cover has grown to 13.4 percent it remains way below that targeted 18 percent.

“We want to ensure that in the next 10 years we are at actually 18 percent of the entire country. We have also started another set of laws specifically to tackle the wetlands and in the next few months, it should come to fruition. It’s in areas regarding payment for ecosystem services and enforcement.” Okidi noted.

The stakeholder consultation was organized by the Ministry of Water and Environment with support from the United Nations Development Program dubbed the Stockholm+50 initiative on behalf of the government of Sweden, under the theme “A healthy planet for the prosperity of all-our responsibility, our opportunity”.

This year marks fifty years since the first United Nations conference on the human environment – the 1972 Stockholm Conference. The Government of Sweden will host a UN, high-level meeting in June 2022 to commemorate this anniversary.