Nigeria loses 8.6 percent GDP to land degradation

This Day (Nigeria): Nigeria is losing 8.6 of her national income to poor land management. Sustainable land management touches on the environment and climate change. This comes as the desert is encroaching from the north and the Atlantic Ocean is washing away the low-lying shores of the south. No part of the country was spared the loss of value of land.

How to tackle this problem is the proposition of a study of what constitute good and sustainable management practices. Flagged off Monday in Abuja, the study is to review public expenditure of land management in Nigeria. The Federal Government is commissioning the report with the support of the World Bank and the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Experts at an inception workshop for the study said economic impacts of sustainable land management can be measured by taking a look at land degradation. A primary finding, citing a 2006 study, is that the loss of the value of the degraded land is 8.6 per cent of the Nigerian GDP.

… Nyonya tied poverty alleviation to sustainable land management. He told THISDAY that, if Nigerian policy makers are serious about the fight against poverty, they should show through budgetary allocation to land management and agriculture.

Zuma Rock in Abuja, Nigeria, shot by Shiraz Chakera, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License