The Lagos State Resilience Office (LASRO), in collaboration with the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development (CHSD), on Tuesday, successfully hosted the Discovery Areas Working Group meeting at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Alausa, Ikeja. The event brought together stakeholders from various sectors which include academia, government agencies, private organizations, and community representatives to examine the complexities and opportunities of Lagos as a thriving metropolis.
The meeting focused on six critical discovery areas including Lagos as a Water City exploring innovative solutions for flood management, water transportation, and sustainable urban planning; Safe and Secured City discussing strategies to enhance public safety, security, and emergency response systems, Giga City, Envisioning Lagos as a hub for digital innovation, entrepreneurship, and smart city infrastructure.
The forum provided a platform for stakeholders to share knowledge, expertise, and experiences, culminating in a comprehensive understanding of the complexities and interdependencies of these discovery areas.
Dr. Folayinka Dania, the Lagos State Chief Resilience Officer, while delivering her welcome address, established the need to review the existing Lagos Resilience Strategy because there are new emerging areas that need to come into it and the current document’s five tenure has elapsed.
She emphasised that the Lagos State Resilience Office is committed to leveraging the insights and recommendations from the meeting to inform the development of a comprehensive resilience strategy for Lagos State.
Mr. Muiz Ogbara from the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), harps on the need for Lagos to better engender inter-agencies collaborations and also foster synergies between it and neighbouring States in the South West region of the nation.
According to Ogbara, “Lagos State needs to collaborate with various stakeholders. We need to always communicate with counterparts in the South West region, especially Ogun state. There is a need to have regional cooperation, harness technology and innovation while considering green climate change emergence”.
Professor Peter Elias, Co-Director at the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development, emphasised the importance of the informal sector and the need to deploy a better approach to prioritize the sector.
According to him, “Informality has become a global concern because of the perception which derives from the negative way the informal communities/informal sectors are described, forgetting the fact that informality plays a significant role in any society. In Africa, more than 70% of economic activities are in the informal sector”.
Dr. Noimot Abiola Balogun, Public Health Strategist, restated the immense opportunities that exist around water in the State, the need for everyone to get involved and the government to establish incentives to encourage healthy competitive participation.
According to her, “Lagos is home to vast opportunities when it comes to water, but there are challenges. The good thing, however, is that, if all hands are on deck, these challenges are surmountable. Essentially, what we need to do is evolve our way of engagement in a social incentive approach to showcase and recognise people that are performing.
“Rewarding the best collaborating Ministry, the best performing Ministry, and the best agency in sending feedback and data, would be considered as a game of healthy competition that is socially acceptable.