Lagos State Government has directed all Local Governments and LCDAs to domesticate the state’s Resilience Strategy document in addressing challenges that may confront them at the grassroots and to build a prosperous state.
Giving the directive at a meeting with representatives of all the council chairmen at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, on Tuesday, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget Mr Simon Egube said local governments as an important arm of government must domesticate the Lagos Resilience Strategy document in order to improve the state’s resilience capacity.
According to him, sensitizing the local governments on the state’s resilience strategy is a demonstration of the government’s commitment to working with the councils to achieve an innovative, inclusive and prosperous Lagos. He said: “We implore all Local Governments to key into and adopt the Lagos Resilience Strategy to address similar challenges confronting them at the grassroots.”
According to him, the resilience strategy document is designed by the Lagos State Resilience Office (LASRO) as an inclusive approach through which the city’s stakeholders across all sectors were mobilized to identify the city’s main challenges and bring about dynamic initiatives to address them, adding that,“through the document, we see a clear pathway to a beautiful future, the Lagos of our dreams and Africa’s model Mega city.”
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Mrs Adetutu Abiola Liadi, said the government is sensitizing the local governments because the quest to develop a resilient culture cannot enjoy a firm foundation without their support.
Mrs Liadi who was represented by a Director of Economic Planning in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget Mrs Simisola Otuyalo said: It is our belief that efficient implementation of the strategy will enable us build a greater Lagos of our collective dreams, a Lagos that is safe, sustainable and inclusive, a Lagos that survives, adapts and thrives in the face of any challenges it might experience and turn them into greater opportunities for growth and development.”
Earlier, the Chief Resilience Officer Dr Folayinka Dania said the councils in domesticating the strategy document are expected to use the document in coming up with sustainable solutions to the challenges plaguing them.
According to her, the document is primed on three pillars which are; development of an efficient city, an enterprise city and an inclusive city, and the development of robust solutions to issues that causes top shocks and stresses to Lagosians.
She said LASRO was created in 2019 as an office to coordinate state government strategies and in response to the state emerging as one of the 100 resilient cities around the world by the Rockefeller Foundation.
She explained that the resilience document, which was launched in 2019, encapsulated Lagos State’s Long Term Development Strategy 2021-2051, planning for the time the state’s population would hit 80 million people.
Dania therefore urged the local governments to plan at implementing programmes or projects aimed at promoting the state’s resilience.