Monrovia — The Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) for Climate Action Bilateral Programme funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) continues its supports to partner countries. This time, Liberia and Gambia benefit Geospatial training.
At the request of the Gambian MRV for Climate Action Program, a week-long geospatial training was held in Banjul, the Gambia from April 15-19, 2024. The training was sponsored by ECCC through NovaSphere, and brought together about thirty (30) participants from the Ministries of Environment, Petroleum and Energy of the Gambia.
The MRV for Climate Action Bilateral Programme is intended to strengthen national development priorities and capacities to plan, finance and achieve GHG emission reductions and implement low-carbon solutions for local development challenges in four West African Countries (Liberia, Gambia, Ghana and Togo). This program has been supporting these West African countries since August 2022 and continues until March 2026.
The participation of Liberia in these trainings is meant to enhance the geospatial capability of the country in order to establish an effective domestic MRV system which will also contribute to the country's effort in meeting its international reporting requirements to the UNFCCC. The training also positions Liberia to prepare for its proposed Forest and Mangrove monitoring pilot project, which when approved will be sponsored under the MRV for Climate Action Bilateral Programme.
During the opening ceremony of the training held in Banjul, the Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Gambian Ministry of the Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources, Mr. Bubacarr Zaidi Jallow expressed thanks and appreciation to the people of Canada and NovaSphere for their support to the MRV for Climate Action Program in the Gambia.
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The deputy permanent secretary urged participants to take the training seriously for the benefit of their respective institutions and countries as a whole. For her part, the chief trainer Ms. Crystal Wespestad from the Spatial Informatics Group of the United States of America expressed joy that the participants were able to gain the requisite skills meant for Solar PV and Forest Monitoring.
The Spatial Informatics Group is a group of applied thinkers with expertise in environmental fields ranging from landscape ecology, wildlife ecology, transportation modeling, ecosystem services valuation, natural hazards, and forestry to natural resource economics, based in the United States of America.
Mr. J. Negatus Wright represented the MRV team of Liberia. Mr. Wright is a Liberian Geologist, Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing Specialist, who has been supporting the establishment of a functional Domestic MRV system in Liberia in order for the country to account for its GHG emissions from the environmental and other sectors.
As a national climate change specialist, Mr. Wright is equipped with the skills of land cover monitoring as well as mapping deforestation, forest degradation including solar PV across the World.
