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By Henry Uche
The Federal Government the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) are on course to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 and 13 (Affordable and Clean Energy and Climate Action respectively) and reduce carbon emission by zero percent by 2060 as committed to by the government.
The trio under Global Cleantech Innovation Program (GCIP) Nigeria, are seeking to encourage young Nigerian entrepreneurs and innovators in the technology, agricultural, industrial, waste management, water resources sectors, with finance and other support schemes, geared towards wealth creation through green processes and methodologies.
At the National Forum and Award Ceremony in Lagos recently, the Minister of Science, technology and Innovation, Adeleke Mamora, represented by the Director (environmental science and technology), Mr. Peter Ekweozoh, revealed that the journey to position Nigerian tech innovators in the global scale and deepen green tech across critical sectors of the economy started five years ago.
According to him, the federal ministry of science, technology and Innovation debut by embarking on Technology Needs Assessment for Climate Change Mitigation and Adoption in Nigeria’s Vulnerable Sectors, and came up with the idea of calling for entries from budding entrepreneurs and innovators to proffer sustainable solutions.
Out of 25 interested participants, three (3) promising innovators and entrepreneurs emerged the winners after painstaking and rigorous processes. The winner left the ceremony with $10,000, first run up with $7,500, while the second run up with $5000. These tech enthusiasts would proceed further with bigger projects for the benefit of Nigeria.
“The Ministry of Science, technology and Innovation after this would take the program to every nooks and crannies of the country. Recall, Nigeria signed Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015, and pledged to commit to reduction of Global warning in seven critical sectors up to 47 percent. 27 percent in conditional and 20 percent in unconditional.
“That is to say we must avoid every actions that would produce emission of green house gas(carbon dioxide). This is a three years program focused on cleaner energy technologies” he maintained.
For his part, the UNIDO Country Representative, Mr. Jean Bakole who double as the Regional Director, said the Program sought to build robust Innovation ecosystem that could identify and systematically support high – impact cleantech technology innovation as well as attract large scale investment.
“This mechanism is expected to deliver significant global impact on limiting global temperature rise to well below 2° C, as well as generating local environmental benefits,”
He said the project would help Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs), innovation hubs and start- ups to compete in the global market and connect them to potential Investor, customers and partners through the Global Cleantech Network. “With this, startups in Nigeria would focus on promoting low carbon technologies in order to achieve SDGs 7 and 13” he affirmed.
