Save the Children International (SCI) has called for sustained financial arrangements from federal and state governments to confront desertification and build resilience for drought.
Its Country Director, Duncan Harvey in a statement issued Wednesday to commemorate 2024 World Environment said the world is at a crossroad, adding that climate change is aggravating the state of the environment in myriad ways and impacting negatively on human society, including children.
He said according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the number and duration of droughts has increased by 29 per cent since 2000 – without urgent action, droughts might affect over three-quarters of the world’s population by 2050.
Harvey noted: “The climate crisis is a child rights crisis. The climate crisis is a grave threat to children’s survival, development, learning, protection and their other rights.
“Therefore, without addressing the climate crisis, we will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and progress towards realising children’s rights in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989) and/or the Child Rights Act (2003).
“At the national and subnational levels, the government of Nigeria has initiated and is implementing policies and programs towards addressing challenges related to climate crisis.
“Those federal and state governments initiatives need to be backed by strong state systems and sustained financial arrangements in order to restore the land, confront desertification, and build resilience for drought so that no more child will suffer from the current effects of climate crisis.”
SCI, however, decried the growing negative impacts of environmental degradation on children—the most deprived and marginalised people, thus reducing opportunities for children to survive, learn and be protected.
