On the 10th of February 2024, we had in attendance more than 300 participants from 5 major coastal fishing communities in Lagos state. The conference is a platform built for frontline communities to be actively participate in climate action and ocean governance while crafting climate solutions to the various challenges they face. In additions to this, the conference served the purpose of scaling climate and ocean knowledge of communities as they add their skills to the community of people championing the SDGs.
The founder of Revamp Rave Network, Miss Abimbola Abikoye in her opening address noted that the goal for bringing together communities especially those whose occupation and means of livelihood is dependent on the ocean for the rural community conference was to accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals #SDGs in Africa by reshaping their involvement in climate and ocean policy processes. She narrated the reason for the conference sections was to make communities network with each other and share ideas that are culturally rooted and digested, and therefore proffer indigenous solutions to boast polices to fit more deeply to the peculiarity of the current climate and environmental challenges disrupting local economies.
Miss Abimbola highlighted that the Conference was designed to serve as a platform for building stronger collaboration frameworks and establishing partnerships with the capacity to transform rural communities, rapidly and also creating a bridge to bring about policies to improve livelihood of people living in coastal communities.
The first speaker at the event, the Founder of Ocean Justice Africa Oluwatoyosi gave a remarkable presentation that explored the vulnerability of women and the need for their active involvement in climate concerns and ways they can build more resilience in climate conversations. In her words, nothing beat the innovative solutions of women to push further climate solutions for more resilience.
The second speaker at the event the Director, United Nation Information Centre, Ronald David Kayanja who was represented at the event by Dr Seyi Soremekun while speaking on the theme of the event strengthening the capacity of communities on climate adaptation and mitigation for more ocean governance, encouraged the participants at the conference to relieve themselves of cultural stories that might hinder their understanding about climate change and refocuses their mind towards learning and adopting new ways to ocean activities and on climate change.
He enjoined the fishermen and women in the conference to avoid cultivating fingerlings for profit making as those activities could make some fishes go into extinction in the ocean and it might lead to scarcity in the long run.
The third speaker at event executive secretary of Human and Environmental Development Agenda Resource Centre, Mr Sulaimon Arigbabu explored the importance of strengthening the capacity of communities on climate adaptation and mitigation for more ocean governance and shared his insight and experiences on the theme of the event. He stressed the need to bring about formidable policies to address the menace that comes with climate change. He emphasized the need for ocean literacy for more understanding on climate change effects.
The full packaged event also enveloped a goodwill message delivered by programme associate, Oak foundation, Adel Ramdani and the representative of the Director, Department of Climate Change Lagos State Ministry of Environment and Water Resources. They collectively urged the attendees to utilize all suggestions and practices adopted in the conference for the mitigation of climate change actions.
The event came to climax with a group discussion session where communities were grouped in a group of 30 to extract ideologies, possible challenges, also to identify their level of understanding on climate change and approaches utilized when climate change strikes. The session gave the communities the opportunity to share their knowledge, thoughts and understanding about climate change and ocean literacy.
Watch Highlights from the event