CSOs Call for Anticipatory action, Early Warning and Localized Climate Action

Joint Statement on World Environment Day 2025

Civil Society Organizations call for Anticipatory Action, Early Warning, and Localized Climate Action

Abuja, June 5, 2025

In the wake of devastating floods that led to loss of lives of our brothers and sisters, families displaced, billions worth of properties destroyed, and livelihoods disrupted in Mokwa, Niger State, Nigeria, Ohaha Family Foundation, Connected Advocacy for Empowerment and Youth Development Initiative, Shelter the Hurting Initiatives, Nkafamiya Rescue Mission, Christian Rural and Urban Development Association of Nigeria, Bridge That Gap Initiative, Sustainable Environment Food and Agriculture Initiative, Clean climate and Environment campaign initiative, Local Communities Development Initiative, The Coalition of GLAAS, Global Platform for Civil Society in Disaster Reduction (GNDR), a group of civil society organizations, and network, expresses deep concern, stands in solidarity and reaffirm our commitment to the people affected by climate and environment challenges in Nigeria; the country grappling with complex climate and environment related challenges of droughts, deforestation, flooding, plastic pollution, indiscriminate waste disposal, oil spillage, prompting increased temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme weather events negatively impacting on human health, loss of productive land, food insecurity, exasperating conflicts in parts of the country.

The flooding in Mokwa, Niger State is a stark reminder that we must act before disasters occurs. We urgently call for a strengthened early warning system, anticipatory actions, improved disaster risk reduction leveraging innovative tools and systems, skills, and local knowledge to localizing climate action. A call to work together towards shifting from reactive disaster response to proactive resilience. Although the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) released its annual rainfall prediction, sounding the alarm about seasonal flooding risks, we urge more proactive approach to cascade the national information to local communities and structures, enabling timely appropriate action.

As Civil Society Organizations, we call for an urgent scale-up of early warning systems that are community-led, data-informed programs, that reaches local communities, promote early evacuation, anticipatory action in disaster readiness to save lives.

Build the capacity of local actors to enhance localizing disaster response. Local actors are often first on the scene, investing in local actors is critical for timely, context-specific response.

Resilience building starts with preparedness. We urge relevant stakeholders to promote anticipatory action integrated into national disaster risk reduction frameworks to protect lives and livelihoods, especially in vulnerable communities.

We equally call for timely disbursement of humanitarian relief funds, activate healthcare services and provision of emergency shelters to help affected population cope with the impacts of disaster

We reaffirm our commitment to work with community leaders, women’s groups, and youths to design early warning mechanisms that are accessible, multilingual, and culturally relevant.

We advocate for increased investment in climate and environment sector, as well as increased funding to local organizations to capacitate climate action and disaster preparedness and recovery

On this world environment day, we jointly as civil society organizations also advocate for deliberate national action to end plastic pollution and other man-made environment issues accelerating impact of climate change. We therefore call for joint and collaborative efforts from all stakeholder, including state and federal governments, donors, international partners, private sector and diaspora community to join hands with local actors now in climate and environment related preparedness, planning, and response.

For partnership inquiries, please contact: John Ede, edjohi@gmail.com

Ohaha Family Foundation, Connected Advocacy for Empowerment and Youth Development Initiative, Shelter the Hurting Initiatives, Nkafamiya Rescue Mission, Sustainable Environment Food and Agriculture Initiative, Clean climate and Environment campaign initiative, Christian Rural and Urban Development Association of Nigeria (CRUDAN), Bridge That Gap Initiative, Local Communities Development Initiative, Global Platform for Civil Society in Disaster Reduction (GNDR), Nigeria