Monrovia – In a bid to boost Liberia’s fight against Climate Change, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Conservation International (CI) have embarked on a project to include gender in the process.
On Monday, several female staff from various line ministries and agencies benefitted from a day-long workshop on Green House Gas Inventory.
The workshop was part of activities marking the successful end of Liberia’s Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT), which supports developing countries to build institutional and technical capacity, both pre- and post-2020, to meet enhanced transparency requirements as defined in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement.
Speaking at the event, the EPA’s CBIT Focal point, Arthur Becker said Liberia was fortunate to receive funding from the Global Environment Facility (GCF) in 2018, adding that there was a late joint start to the implementation of the project due to some bureaucracies and covid-19.
However, key elements of the project’s outputs and the objectives have been met and the government is now anticipating support CBIT-2, according to him.
Speaking further, he said the implementation is aligned with the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) developed in 2015 when Liberia had not ratified the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Following the ratification of the agreement, it is now called the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), comprising five sectors including three mitigation sectors covering Energy, Waste and the Transport sectors, and two adaption sectors including Agriculture and Forestry.
Mr. Becker disclosed that under the ongoing revised Climate Change Action Plan of the country, the NDC, takes into consideration additional five sectors, including Fisheries, Health, Green Corridors and Short-lived climate pollutants.
For full implementation, he said the EPA and partners will prioritize the inclusion of women, adding that the workshop was the beginning of more engagements with women across line ministries and agencies.
“The NDCs of 2015 is quite different from the revised version of 2020/2021. This will then speak to the realty that Liberia is on the verge of accelerating the climate action beyond what target was set in 2015,” he said.
“We are elated with the involvement of not only women, but competent, qualified and knowledgeable sectoral heads who are playing pivotal role in the various sector.”
He mentioned that a pivotal aspect of the CBIT implementation was an agreement signed with the sector line ministries and agencies to work together to present accurate data on Liberia climate change fight. As part of this agreement, he said hubs were established at various line ministries, and this has helped Liberia to accelerate the pace and enhanced its reporting requirements. As the country anticipated support for CBIT-2, he promised that the EPA will continue to utilize the expertise of those that were trained.
During the training, Liberia’s CBIT Senior Project Manager, Nelson Jallah called on the participants to use the knowledge acquire and push the agenda of climate change in their respective ministries and agencies.
Also speaking, the participants thanked the EPA and CI for the ‘educative’ workshop, and promised to share the knowledge with others who were not opportune to attend the training. They also pledged their commitments to work with their bosses and colleagues at their respective ministries and agencies to ensure that laws and regulations put in place to combat Climate Change are implemented.
“Usually in Liberia, when you come to workshop like this, it is dominated by man. But this is the first workshop that I have seen where you have the women participating on issue of climate change,” said Princess Mary Tarpeh, Agro-Meteorological Technician at the Ministry of Transport.
“Laws are there at the Ministry of transport. What is needed is to enforce the law, make it more effective and we can start by making sure vehicles that are plying the streets of Monrovia and Liberia as a whole are road worthy.”
Roseline K. Donmo of the Ministry of Mines and Energy added: “The workshop was interactive. Most people think when you talk about gender, it is only women. But gender is both men and women.”
She continues: This workshop brought a whole lot because most women did not know about Green House Gas emission and its effects. But this workshop brought a lot of things to our mind; and we will go out there and educate other women who don’t know the effect about climate change and Green House Gas emission.”
The training comes on the back of a completion of a six-month intensive training ervation International (CI), in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Aether has certificated several technicians from various line ministries as Green House Gas (GHG) inventory experts.
Aether is an environmental friendly group based in the United Kingdom that provides consultancy in air quality and climate change emissions inventories, forecasting and policy analysis.
The certification ceremony came on the back of a six-month project under the CBIT, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project sought to equip technicians into becoming reliable Greenhouse Gas Emission inventory data experts.
Speaking at the event last Friday in Monrovia, the EPA Executive Director, Professor Wilson Tarpeh said the project is part of activities aimed at strengthening Liberia’s national capacity by executing the transparency elements of the Paris Climate Agreement.
