The British government has entered into partnership with the Gombe State Government in areas of climate change mitigation, industrial development and tracking delivery in the implementation of the Gombe State 10-Year Development plan.
The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing gave the assurances during a meeting with governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya in Abuja, where they discussed varieties of topics.
Some of the issues discussed were governance, investment, peace and security, education and environment.
Inter-communal relations
The British envoy particularly noted that Gombe State was relatively secured and peaceful, commending the Governor for his visionary leadership and ensuring excellent inter-communal relations with Muslims and Christians working positively together in his state.
“I feel very impressed with His Excellency’s vision and his commitment to delivering for his people and I think this is the area where UK and Gombe State Government will collaborate.”
The British High Commissioner also commended Governor Inuwa for aligning his 10-Year development plan with the sustainable development goals and gave assurance that the UK government would assist in its tracking delivery efforts and monitoring of progress through sharing of experience and other mechanisms of support.
On the Muhammadu Buhari industrial park being set up by Governor Yahaya in Dadinkowa, Mrs Liang said: “the establishment of an industrial park linked directly to hydroelectricity to take care of agricultural processing on local crops is a laudable and positive step. We hope to hear more about it so that we can connect some British investors to take advantage of it”.
” On the issue of climate change, I think you got a very interesting initiative. So we are going to connect His Excellency’s team with our relevant departments dealing with different sources of climate finance”.
Mrs Laing indicated the willingness of her country to take part in the upcoming Gombe State Investment Summit.
Governor Yahaya informed his host that Gombe State had developed its 10-Year Development Plan, christened Development Agenda for Gombe, DEVAGOM along with a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (2021-2030) which sets the path to achieve rapid physical, social, and economic growth in the state in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
“The document identifies five development pillars upon which DEVAGOM revolves; a strategic linkage of socio-economic and administrative anchorage that is also built on the model of the UN’s SDGs as a global trend,” said Governor Yahaya.
He, therefore, requested the UK Government’s support in the effective implementation of the plan and track progress towards achieving the set goals.
“Gombe state is currently setting up a Coordinating Research & Economic Intelligence Unit (CR/EIU) with the mandate to track our performance and progress towards achieving the goals of the DEVAGOM which will serve as a guide for decision making by the Government, Stakeholders, Policy Makers, and the Public.
“We are therefore requesting the support of Her Majesty’s Government in building the data capacity for the unit to enable this tracking and as well as to strengthen technology-driven Governance,” GovernorYahaya said.
The Governor also solicited support and partnership with the UK to increase the efforts of his administration to manage the impact of climate change by coming up with a climate mitigation strategy for Gombe State.
“In Gombe State, we have a home-grown and community-driven initiative that we call Gombe Goes Green ( 3G) which targets the planting of at least 1 million trees per annum to address deforestation and check the advancement of Sahara desert while mitigating climate change.
Gombe is also battling with the devastating impact of land degradation with about 210 active gullies, though we have tackled some through NEWMAP and intend to do more under ACreSAL.
He adds that all the efforts required more intervention through a partnership with the UK government.
Lateefah Ibrahim
