The World Wildlife Fund(WWF) Uganda has welcomed the creation of a fund to help compensate countries struggling to cope with loss and damage caused by climate change during the ongoing COP28 in Dubai.
On the opening day of the UN COP28 Climate Summit, nations agreed to create a fund that aims to provide financial assistance to nations most vulnerable and impacted by the effects of climate change.
To this, several nations started putting in money right away with the hosts, United Arab Emirates, and Germany each committed to donating $ 100 million .
The loss and damage fund board will in January 2024 meet to discuss the structure of the fund and Uganda is one of the first seven countries to benefit from the fund.
Commenting about the development, Ivan Tumuhimbise, WWF Uganda's Country Director welcomed the news, noting that it is one of the key issues in their position paper at COP28.
"Uganda is more than ready to take advantage of this opportunity to be able to fulfill its pledge on reaching the targets made by global biodiversity framework. It is about halting nature loss and driving nature positive development," Tumuhimbise said.
He explained that the discussions at the ongoing COP28 are talking of regenerative agriculture and that Uganda falls in this category, especially in highland communities.
"What is emerging from the pledges being made is opportunities for adopting regenerative agriculture and will make a lot of business sense for communities especially in highland areas in Uganda like Rwenzori, Sebei, Kigezi and Bugisu regions which constitute almost 20 million Ugandans. If all of them were able to adopt regenerative agriculture and work with government to enforce the recent pronouncement by president to evict communities from wetlands, we can achieve the 30 by 30 target as by global biodiversity framework."
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According to the NGO that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment, Uganda is prepared for the loss and damage fund to ensure it has impact, noting that infrastructure is in place to ensure benefits and turnaround for people.
"We can benefit from COP28 by influencing only investments that promote nature positive are only funded. We call upon multinational financial instruments like World Bank and Africa Development Bank that lend money to government and private sector should take advantage of COP28 to ensure they push that only companies investing in nature positive investments are the only receive investments to ensure the war of climate change is won," Tumuhimbise said.
According to Rita Mugwanya, the Policy and Advocacy Lead at WWF, the fund was long overdue.
"We had waited for this fund for over 10 years and we ask those countries which have not pledged to come up and pledge. We ask government to ensure youths and women who are contribute the biggest percentage and are mostly interact with environment and nature are considered first," Mugwanya said.
