CIDA SUPPORTS NORTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PROJECT (BACK PAGE, OCT 21)

THE Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is supporting the Ghana Environmental Management Project (GEMP) in the three northern regions with $7.2 million.
The GEMP, which was couched out of the national programme to combat desertification and drought, is aimed at strengthening the capacities of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), among other institutions, to spearhead the crusade to protect the environment.
The acting Upper West Regional Manager of the EPA, Mr Asher Nkegbe, who made this known explained that the GEMP project was a five-year programme which sought to empower the respective institutions and communities to seriously deal with issues affecting the environment.
Mr Nkegbe was speaking at a ceremony to inaugurate a 16-member municipal environmental management committee in Wa, the Upper regional capital.
He advised the various committees which ranged from the regional, municipal to the districts to identify priority areas as far as environmental issues were concerned, and intensify their education, especially at the community level.
These committees, he said, must assist the communities to come out with proposals and also enact bye-laws as a step to ward off activities which degraded the environment.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Upper West Regional Minister, Mr Mahmud Khalid, charged Community Environmental Management Committees (CEMOs) to initiate programmes such as tree planting and anti bushfire campaigns.
He stressed the need to continuously empower local communities to enable them to contribute effectively to issues on the exploitation of the environment.
“Under the GEMP, some nurseries would be developed so please stock these nurseries with viable economic trees so that while protecting the environment, the people can also reap some benefits from the trees” Mr Khalid added.