KAfcOmE Among Leading Participants at 10th Lagos International Climate Change Summit

The Kreative Arts Foundation for Community Engagement (KAfcOmE), a prominent environmental and social change awareness and advocacy organization, was among the leading NGOs invited to the recently concluded 10th Lagos International Climate Change Summit.

This annual summit, initiated in 2009, serves as the primary platform for setting and driving the Climate Change Agenda in Lagos State. The 2024 summit, themed “Accelerating Climate Finance and Championing Local Adaptation Initiatives,” took place from June 11 to 13 on Victoria Island, Lagos.

KAfcOmE, previously known as I-Rep Mother Nature, has been at the forefront of campaigns against the indiscriminate disposal of plastic bottles and recycling opportunities. They had an advocacy program recently supported by #GGF which also encouraged tree planting across three grassroots communities in Lagos State.

KAfcOmE’s Executive Director, Willie Workman Oga, a renowned filmmaker, conscious artist and environmentalist, emphasized the importance of climate activism, stating, “Climate activism is a task everyone should be concerned about because of the high stakes involved.”

NGOS like our organization’s efforts and contributions by other stakeholders as to environmental protection and sustainability were acknowledged during the summit, and highlighted as a critical role of NGOs in combating climate change and promoting local adaptation initiatives.

“Our recent grassroot campaigns are targeted at children, teenagers and youths transitioning into adulthood, to sensitize them on the dangers of littered plastic bottles in the environment and also, to encourage them to imbibe environmental responsibility and recycling at early age”

According to the KAfcOmE Executive Director, Amb. Willie Workman Oga, he highlighted that their participation in the 10th Lagos International Climate Change summit has given them more interactive access to boost existing collaboration, knowledge sharing and also, to attract strategic linkage to environmental networking and partnership resources locally and globally.

“With the new knowledge and insights into some of the key issues of environmental sustainability, we will work on leveraging on new partnerships, in order to achieve the common goal of saving the mother earth from activities of man that compromise the the environment and climate”, said Workman

The KAfcOmE Boss expressed satisfaction at this summit’s outcome and the consequent recommendation by stakeholders and participant to support the establishment of a Lagos Climate Innovation Fund to drive climate resilient initiatives.
According to the communique issued at the end of the summit, participants recommended the funding of climate resilient infrastructure and buildings to protect urban dwellers and critical assets from climate related hazards such as: floods, storms and heat-waves.

The communiqué stated, “Lagos needs to deliberately develop a mechanism to access and scale-up Climate finance flows for projects and programmes through the development of bankable adaptation initiatives/ projects”.

“It also needs to work with financial institutions such as AFDB and other partners to strengthen incentives such as concessional financing, blended financing and risk mitigation instruments for accessing private capital.”

It also urged Lagos to look into blended financing which includes: Private capital investment and developmental capital that are both public and philanthropic funders.