The government, through the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), has embarked on planting trees in schools and institutions in Lira City in a bid to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The tree planting program follows decades of losing thousands of hectares of forest cover, exacerbating the disastrous effects of climate change.
On Tuesday, June 6th, 2023, various different tree species were planted at VH public school, Lango Quran primary school, Lira P.7, Lira Town College, and the Lira mayor’s garden, among others.
Under this initiative, the OPM is partnering with civil society organizations such as Sustainable Development Goal Champion and Uganda National NGO Forum, among others, ahead of the People’s Sustainable Development Goals Festival held in Lira City on June 8, 2023. The national celebration is due for July 22nd, 2023 in Kampala.
Onesmus Kansiime, the senior program officer in charge of knowledge management in the Office of the Prime Minister, said the drive is meant to create awareness about the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and how it affects the lives of the locals.
“And also gunner everyone’s efforts, individual and institutional efforts, government, and CSOs to play their roles in the implementation of sustainable development,” said Kansiime.
Leonard Otika, the Lira City Environmental Officer, said the trees planted will help restore the 336 trees that were planted at the Lira mayor’s garden and later destroyed during road construction under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructural Development (USMID).
“In the past, of course, we have been planting trees under various projects like Usmid and the Uganda Road Fund. In the last three years, we have planted about 2500 trees, but due to unavoidable circumstances, about 700 of them are still existing as part of the city strategy of greening the environment. So the trees that have been planted shall act as carbon sinks to absorb the ammunition within the city,” he added.
Sam Atul, the Lira City mayor, called on the leadership of both communities in Lira to actively participate in the festival as it is an opportunity for them to deepen their understanding of the SDGs so as to provide quality education to its learners.
“As a young person, make it a commitment in your life to help this country achieve some of these goals. “One of them, which you are already part of right now, is quality education,” said Atul.
Lira City in Northern Uganda is one of the four regions to host the inaugural People’s Sustainable Development Goals festival. The festival, which kicked off on June 6, 2023, and ended on June 8, 2023, is aimed at accelerating the localization and full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at all levels.
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