Environmental policy and administrative management

Ijan-Otun is a farming community of about 5,000 people. While the community has enjoyed appreciable support for development projects such as provision of boreholes and road that links it with major towns; it is grappled with the menace of erosion and flooding which has devastated the village with untold hardship including difficulty in human and vehicular movement. This has also affected their farming activities and they are not able to easily convey farm produce from the farms to the nearest market. This is in turn affecting their income generating potential and desirable livelihood enhancement. Women are most affected because of their need to fetch water, firewood and other livelihood needs including marketing activities. The objective of the project is to mobilise the community to embark on self-help drainage construction to address the menace of erosion in the community. The major activity is to construct affordable drainage system of about one kilometer to traverse the village. The community already has a small support from world Bank assisted development support of about N800,000 and ready to mobilise themselves to provide necessary manual labour to reduce the cost of the project to the barest minimum. Other project activities would involve awareness creation on environmental issues that lead to land degradation. The community will also be trained on tree planting exercise that will be geared towards prevention and reducing incidence of erosion both in the community and on farmlands

Nigeria