The Project office will be staffed by an initial 30 staff from both federal and state levels. Additional contracted experts from outside the system will be supported by Project Management Consultants, Monitoring & Evaluation Consultants and Communication Company. The clean-up project is to be funded by SPDC with an initial $1bn disbursed at $200m per annum over 5 years. A $10m takeoff grant has been provided. Following the flag off, a Technical Committee was set up in the Ministry, and has been working on the project-related activities that must be addressed immediately. Some of these projects in preparation include; 1. Provision of clean drinking water to the impacted communities. 2. Conducting a health impact assessment study being planned, in order to begin to better understand the level of the human health issues referred to in your letter. 3. Demonstration of remediation technology, which will allow for the testing of the different approaches that are being proffered from around the world, and to ensure that only the best is ultimately applied. 4. Groundbreaking for the construction of an integrated contaminated soil management centre which will be critical to the clean-up process. 5. Groundbreaking for the construction of a Centre of Excellence. & 6. Training These are the activities that the UNEP Report recommended for start-up. On 16th February, the Governing Council performed a ground breaking ceremony for the construction of an integrated Contaminated Soil Management Centre, provided for in the UNEP Report. On the same day, the project for demonstrating technologies for the clean-up, were launched at selected sites in the four local government areas of Ogoniland. An important part of the planned work is skills and livelihood training, which will be essential in ensuring the long term sustainability of the result of the clean-up. As part of our behavioral change strategy, we plan to train about 2000 women from the four local governments in different skills that will enable them to be financially independent. These skills include Snail Farming, Palm Oil Processing, Green Housing, Fishing – Shrimps, Agriculture Extension, and Pottery. iv. Interventions Relating to Environmental Protection: The environment sector has witnessed improvements in the areas of the development of a National Green House Gas Inventory System and purchase of green gas measurement equipment. Other are the establishment of a 1500km Great Green Wall initiative to check desertification in the frontline States; the establishment of procedures for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the generation of 20 CDM projects in 2012, among others. v. Green Bond Initiative Green Bonds enable capital-raising and investment for new and existing projects with environmental benefits. The nationally determined contributions (NDC) reflect Nigeria's commitment to the COPs of the UNFCCC in reducing the impact of climate change. It has significant overlaps with the nations development objectives and provides a platform to redirect resources in an effective manner that can have a dual impact, key development targets such as power and agriculture and emissions targets in both renewable and energy efficiency. 135