Report: #EarthDay2020 Webinar On “Climate Action & COVID19
By: Iccdi Africa
Tags: Health, Covid 19, Climate Change, Agriculture, Wash

The webinar tagged “Climate Action and COVID-19” focused on Health, Education, Agriculture and Water relating to the COVID19 pandemic and our survival during Post-COVID19. Hosted by Olumide Idowu — the Co-Founder of ICCDI, the event was graced by various professional in all of the selected areas of the thematic concerns.

Speakers #EarthDay2020 Webinar On “Climate Action & COVID19

The speakers were;

Chris Chukwunyere; a public health practitioner with experiences in community and public health development who spoke on “Health and COVID19.”

John Agboola; a farmer, youth advocate, and an agricultural researcher for sustainable development in Africa who spoke on “Agriculture and COVID19”.

Mmanti Umohi; a lead consultant of PurplePatch Consult and educational psychologists who spoke on “Education and COVID19”.

Raquel Kasham Daniel; an educator, entrepreneur and a development practitioner in Nigeria who spoke on “Children and COVID19” and;

Victor Ogunsola; a researcher and development practitioner who spoke on “Water and COVID19”.

Many issues discussed were on the current global pandemic at national, regional and global levels at it relates to our primary means of survival currently treated by growing global health crisis. The challenges and solutions proffer are but not limited to;

Water Challenges:

Over 50 million people in Nigeria have no access to fresh, clean water, particularly in northern Nigeria. The latter heavily depend on rainfall to get access to water to conduct water-related activities.

A finding has shown that 69.7% in monetary value to purchase water since the pandemic has risen and it requires 6 litres of water daily to wash hands. Subsequently, 50% of the rural population spent at least 500 naira daily to buy water to drink and conduct domestic chores.

Solutions:

Water should be a priority for all nations, particularly in Africa; hence, governments have to ensure water provisions for all. If not, the water crisis would be inevitable now and after covid19.

The municipal players in the water resource sectors should be critical agents and partners in championing the cause of providing water.

Agricultural Challenges:

The global health crisis has caused a lower production of food and as strained further, food supply chain compounding the unemployment challenges among farmers who are mostly rural dwellers, and causing more widespread hunger.

Currently, the hunger crisis has increased. According to a United Nations report, over 135 million people are living in hunger.

Solution:

· Massive investment across all sector, particularly in the agricultural industry, should be of priority.

Monetary support, seeds, and fertilizers should be easily accessible to help end markets value addition and the multiplicity of food production.

At this time, innovative ideas by individuals and governmental support will be a holistic approach to rescue the nation from nationwide hunger and starvation post-COVID.

Public Health Challenges:

· Many individuals fail to maintain physical distancing against the rule to do so, increasing the global death rate.

The impact of this on the economy has left 2 million people unemployed and many more to come during post-COVID.

The mental health cases, domestic abuse, and violence have increased rapidly, shutting down marriages and limiting social interaction of people.

The pandemic kills people faster, creating no time for solutions, unlike climate change which is slow and accumulative, yet, it gives us time to act now to be able to mitigate and adapt.

Solutions

The only solution to curb the spread of COVID19 is to stay at home and frequently wash our hands to decrease more casualties.

Poper funding of public health care facilities and health care providers should be of priority. It is crucial to invest in these facilities to help save lives because there will still be pandemics to come but our capacity to handle it depends on our today’s choices.

This period has given us a sense of urgency and proactiveness for the future. It is left for us to use it to save our world.

Educational Challenges:

In our world today, over one billion students are out of school, this will not only affect the teacher-student physical relationship but has interrupted the “social flow” of student greatly

The educational system in Nigeria adopts a face-to-face teaching method. With the stay at home, over 85% of student who lives in rural communities and attends public schools will lack access to information, education, and adequate learning materials.

Many parents have become overwhelmed by this crisis and are not adequately equipped and mentally stable to help educate their children.

The lack of investment in advanced teaching technologies, training materials for teachers as well as the students will create more chaos in teaching students after COVID19

The lack of financial capacity to pay staffs will lead to an override during post-covid19

Solutions:

As a nation and as a people, we need to rethink strategies, restructure and re-evaluate our investments, spendings, channel our energies towards innovations and partnerships.

Complied by Abimbola Abikoye Project Lead ICCDI AFRICA