Meeting on climate change - A three-day international “Climate Change” meeting that has brought together journalists from five African countries and experts started in Dakar on Monday. The workshop on the theme “Media and Climate Change” is part of the on-going capacity-building project for journalists by Africa Adaption Program (AAP).

The AAP is a newly-designed project under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and it is geared towards supporting integrated and comprehensive approaches to climate change adaptation in Africa.

The programme is funded by Japan and involves some 20 countries across Africa. Participating journalists are drawn from Burkina Faso, Morroco, Niger, Tunisia and Senegal which consist part of the francophone zone.

Mamadou Ndiaye, a leading Senegalese journalist and AAP team leader covering this part of Africa, emphasized the importance of the meeting. According to him, “climate change is a big issue affecting our lives in Africa”.

He said that experts on climate change have carried out researches and found out its causes and have a key message on finding possible solutions to the problem. 

But then, he went on, environmental experts and other scientists have fallen short of properly disseminating or spreading the message to members of the public. 

Therefore, Mr. Ndiaye said, the media have a great role in spreading the message on climate change and related matters from environmental experts to the rest of the society.

The AAP team leader called on media workers to “join the struggle on climate change” by getting well-informed on the issue and then relaying the message to the masses.

He emphasized that the issue of climate change should be a concern for all and must not be left to only the political leaders.

Pana 20/09/2011