A United Kingdom Government Initiative – Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office, Partnership Agile Governance and Climate Change (FCDO-PACE) – on climate change has offered a proposal of partnership to Abia State Government.
Presenting the proposal during a visit to Governor Alex Otti, the National Team Lead, Mr. Ifeanyi Peters Ugwuoke, said that FCDO-PACE is a United Kingdom Government initiative which operates at the intersection of governance reform and climate change responses and expressed its readiness to partner Abia Government on climate change initiatives.
He identified potential areas of collaboration including, climate finance readiness, green budgeting, and policy alignment, and described the programme as part of a broader bilateral relationship between Nigeria and the United Kingdom spanning over two decades.
Ugwuoke commended Governor Otti’s commitment to transparent governance and climate action and acknowledged his achievements in the last two years as well as the Governor’s visionary leadership which is in alignment with international best practices.
Responding, Governor Otti expressed readiness to partner stakeholders in promoting climate change initiatives in the State.
He said that partnering experts like the FCDO-PACE was the right thing to do as it would bring about solutions to climate change effects as well as addressing its challenges and assured his team would sit down and work out the best practical ways of handling it.
“What we are doing is actually the direction. We will sit down, study, understand it, and then come up with solutions,” Otti said as he emphasized that his administration is anchored on a strong value system, rooted in strategic planning, diligent execution, and measurable outcomes.
He reiterated his unwavering commitment to disciplined governance, climate action, and evidence-based policy implementation.
The Governor lamented that many well-conceived policy documents that date back to the 1960s and 1970s, have been abandoned because of poor follow-up and noted that, the country has intelligent minds and sound policy frameworks but lack consistent implementation of the good and beautiful ideas.
Governor Otti stressed the need for structures that would ensure efficiency and sustainability to be put in place and called for careful planning in the transition to renewable energy, even as he noted that, unchecked industrial and economic activities, especially in the private sector, contribute significantly to the environmental degradation.
