President Mutharika meets Mary Robinson Foundation: Building resilience in climate injustice
The Mary Robinson Foundation (MRF) has emphasized on the need for a strong understanding and more focus on financing for development and building resilience if the fight against climate change and climate injustice is to be won.
President Peter Mutharika on Tuesday evening held an audience at the Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe with the MRF delegation to discuss issues of climate justice and how Malawi can benefit from the foundation in the fight against climate change in regards to the work the foundation is doing in the country.
President Mutharika hailed the delegation for paying him a visit, saying the visit was significant as Malawi and Ireland have had a long standing relationship.
The president observed that the meeting had come at the right time as Malawi was trying to build climate change resilience.
“We need expertise in climate change as we are building resilience on the same. We are emphasizing on the need to grow drought resistant crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes as well as promoting the greenbelt irrigation in the agricultural sector,” said Mutharika.
Speaking to journalists after the audience with the Malawi leader, MRF Founder and President, Mary Robinson, said climate change and climate justice are significant issues which need urgent attention.
“Climate change and climate justice issues are significant which means we have to pay attention to them and have more focus on financing for development and financing for building resilience for climate change,” said Robinson who is former President of Ireland.
MRF works on climate justice and focuses on the climate change injustices which are significantly impacting on developing countries.
Robinson said climate change injustices are affecting poor communities in developing countries whose effects are sometimes hard to recover from.
“Not only is climate injustice affecting poor communities in developing countries, but also in developed countries. For example, the cyclone storm which hit the United States, it was the poor communities which were heavily affected,” she said.
She said there is need to listen to voices of the grass root in order to put in place effective and efficient strategies in the fight against climate change and climate injustice.
Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining, Aggrey Masi, commended the delegation for paying a courtesy call to the State President, saying their visit would benefit the country as far as climate change and climate justice are concerned.
“Malawi will benefit a lot from this delegation and the Community Based Adaptation (CBA) 12 Conference as the delegation has come with expertise in areas where Malawi is not doing well and need that expertise either through financing or capacity building,” he said.
The MRF delegation is attending the CBA 12 conference currently underway in Lilongwe. Over 200 delegates in locally driven action are taking part in the conference which is aimed at sharing innovation and knowledge on how to get climate finance behind particular works.
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