Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu says the Lagos Resilience Document now in public domain, represents his administration’s strategy and vision to transform Lagos into an innovative, inclusive and prosperous city.
According to Sanwo-Olu, the state government will also be leveraging the document and strategy recommended to create an inclusive environment, offer quality governance and build infrastructure that empowers both the residents and businesses to thrive and grow sustainably.
The governor spoke at the official launch of the Lagos Resilience Strategy on Tuesday, expressing the belief that strategic document will help Lagos tackle its social, economic and physical challenges.
The governor, represented by Sam Egube, the commissioner for economic planning and budget, further noted that the launch of the document would provide an empirical background for all its policies and also facilitate speedy transformation of the state to a more resilient city.
He added that the resilience document is an attestation to the readiness of his administration to bequeath a legacy of good governance to residents of the state and also guarantee their wellbeing.
“With the implementation of the Resilience Strategy, we will develop a sustainable approach to combat flooding incidents, stop haphazard urban planning, improve emergency response, provide quality healthcare services, support the immense potential of our youths through technology and deliver a robust, multimodal and integrated transportation system, without excluding the poor and vulnerable.”
According to him, with the pace of development going on across the state and its attendant effect on the environment, Lagos cannot afford to rely on traditional concepts in tackling its challenges but must adopt a cross-sectoral planning and implementation approach.
“The Lagos Resilience Strategy contains 3 pillars, 10 goals and 31 initiatives which provide a framework for improving the capacity of the city to respond to present and future shocks and stresses. It aligns with the Lagos State Development Plan, the ‘THEMES’ agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals,” he explained.
He acknowledged that the success of the strategy depends on three major factors which include, mainstreaming resilience, collaborative engagement and monitoring and evaluation, Sanwo-Olu averred that the Lagos Resilience Strategy would be reviewed periodically to monitor its alignment with the city’s development priorities and to track progress on resilience building.
On his part, Egube, the commissioner for economic planning and budget, whose speech was read by Adebayo Sodade, the special adviser on economic planning and budget, said that the objective of the strategy development was to identify various challenges the city experiences, and opportunities for collaborations and actions to improve the resilience of the city of Lagos.
According to him, the initiatives articulated in the Lagos Resilience Strategy are affordable, scalable, replicable and measurable.
He added that the initiatives would support the efforts of communities in Lagos to adapt to global environmental changes towards surviving adversity, grow and to confidently thrive, resulting in a Lagos that is truly efficient, inclusive, enterprising and prosperous.”
The commissioner recalled the challenge of developing the strategy and capturing the resilience building actions by the various stakeholders who were involved in the process, including the academia, civil societies, ministries, departments and agencies of the state government.
JOSHUA BASSEY
