Kogi To Host 3rd Zonal Ecological Summit

The Ecological Fund
Office (EFO) is to hold its 3rd Zonal Stakeholders Forum/Eco-fair in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, before the end of the year, a statement said last Thursday.
The statement was signed by Mr Tolu Makinde, the Deputy Director (Press) in the office and made available to newsmen in Abuja.
It said the Forum was specifically designed to bring key stakeholders in the ecological sector from the Northern part of the country to promote synergy in tackling their peculiar ecological problems.
With the theme “Effective Partnership toward Sustainable Ecological Projects Management” the statement said the summit was designed to create a platform for stakeholders to collectively strategise, establish procedures and set standards in the implementation of ecological projects.
“The theme is designed to create a platform for stakeholders to collectively strategise, establish procedures and set standards, with a view to identifying performance gaps in the implementation of ecological projects.
“It is to also articulate the management improvement strategies for enhancing efficient and cost effective implementation of ecological projects.’’
The summit is expected to attract the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senate and Committee Chairmen on Environment and Ecology as well as state Commissioners of Environment and Permanent Secretaries from the three geopolitical zones in the north among others.
It would be recalled that rotation of Zonal Stakeholders Forum/Eco-fair among the geopolitical zones of the country was one of the decisions  reached at the maiden National Eco-fair in 2011.
It is a strategy to frontally address serious ecological problems peculiar to different ecological zones of the country.
The first and second Zonal Fora were held in Ondo and Katsina states respectively.