Cephas Avishigh

My Community Development...

INDEPENDENCE DAY MESSAGE — MACS FOUNDATION

Happy Independence Day, Nigeria! On this solemn and joyful occasion we celebrate our nation’s resilience and renew our prayers for peace, prosperity and the health of every Nigerian. MACS Foundation offers heartfelt thanks to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his administration for steps taken in the fields that matter most to our mission, which are environment, agriculture and health, and prays they be sustained and deepened so the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals becomes lived reality for millions.

We welcome recent national moves to tackle pollution and strengthen waste management, including the government’s push for Extended Producer Responsibility and other national waste frameworks that will help reduce plastic pollution and protect our ecosystems.

We also salute the renewed focus on cleaning and restoring oil-impacted communities through the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) and related remediation work in Ogoniland and other affected areas. These are actions that heal land, protect livelihoods and honour victims of decades of environmental harm.

On agriculture, we applaud bold partnerships and investment mobilisation aimed at transforming Nigeria’s food systems including large-scale financing and agro-processing initiatives that will expand mechanisation, reduce post-harvest losses and bring farmers into value chains that create jobs and food security. These efforts are critical to SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption & Production).

In health, MACS Foundation joins the nation in supporting the government’s renewed commitment to primary health care, immunization coverage and the Basic Health Care Provision Fund. These are steps that are central to achieving Universal Health Coverage and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being). We recognise the scale of the task ahead which is sustaining immunisation gains and expanding primary care will require continued financing, strong supply chains and community partnerships.

As an organisation rooted in communities, MACS Foundation prays that these programmes are implemented with transparency, urgency and an inclusive approach that brings women, youth and smallholder farmers into decision-making and benefit sharing. We pledge to support these goals by mobilising grassroots awareness, delivering training through the Macs Climate Change Academy, and partnering with MDAs and local stakeholders to ensure projects reach the most vulnerable.

On this Independence Day we ask all Nigerians to pray for our leaders, to encourage sustained action, and to hold public institutions accountable so that environmental restoration, food security and health for all become the firm foundation of a renewed, prosperous Nigeria.

God bless Nigeria.

Amb. Cephas Avishigh
Executive Director
The Macs Foundation
United Nations

The UN 80th Anniversary will be handling here at the UN General Assembly Hall 22nd September 2025

UN Photo

United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Executive Summary of the Strategy

This strategy is the result of a global, open and inclusive consultation process in 2019 and 2020. It will be adapted periodically and will guide the implementation of the UN Decade by all stakeholders in a spirit of partnership, inclusiveness and joint coordinated action.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to end poverty, conserve biodiversity, combat climate change and improve livelihoods for everyone, everywhere. These objectives, encapsulated in 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are unlikely to be met unless ecosystem degradation is stopped and ecosystem restoration is undertaken at the immense scale of hundreds of millions of hectares globally. Currently, there is insufficient political support and technical capacity in both the public and private sectors to invest in the many hundreds of thousands of ecosystem restoration initiatives worldwide that are needed to achieve restoration at such a scale. Not only would such investment contribute to achieving the SDGs, but it would also yield considerable economic returns for a recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and lead to more social, economic and ecological resilience. Based on data from a wide range of ecosystems, for every dollar spent on restoration, between three and seventy-five dollars of economic benefits from ecosystem goods and services can be expected. UN Member States decided to implement a Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to realise these benefits and to ensure that healthy ecosystems play a critical role towards achieving the SDGs by 2030. This UN Decade will inspire and support governments, UN agencies, NGOs, civil society, children and youth, private sector companies, indigenous peoples, farmers, women’s groups, local communities and individuals globally to collaborate and develop the appropriate skillsets for catalysing and successfully implementing restoration initiatives across the world. The support will include: promoting a global movement focussing on restoration; developing legislative and policy frameworks to incentivise restoration; developing innovative financing mechanisms to fund operations on the ground; detailing a values-based imperative to conserve, restore and care for nature; undertaking social and natural science research on restoration in terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine as well as marine environments; monitoring global progress on restoration; and building the technical capacity of restoration practitioners globally. Although the UN Decade ends in 2030, it aims to create a platform for societies globally to put their relationships with nature on a new trajectory for centuries to come. It is envisaged that this trajectory will include: nature being respected across society; ecosystem restoration taking place over hundreds of millions of hectares and generating millions of new livelihoods; human rights, with a focus on gender equity, youth, local communities, indigenous peoples and future generations, being central to restoration initiatives; global supply chains and consumption patterns being shifted to protect, sustainably manage and restore nature; long-term scientific research being used to guide restoration initiatives.

https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/publications/executive-summary-strategy



The Macs Foundation

Executive Summary of the Strategy | This strategy is the result of a global, open and inclusive consultation process in 2019 and 2020. It will be adapted periodically and will guide the implementation of the UN Decade by all stakeholders in a spirit of partnership, inclusiveness and joint coordinated action.The 2030 Agenda for Sustain...