Professor Patricia McCarney and Gov. Sani Bello in New York

Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello has said that the administration would serve as a good representative of Nigeria and the sub-region by ensuring that the state maintained its commitment to the objectives of World Council on City Data, WCCD, as one of the ‘WCCD Local Hubs’, on Sustainability Solutions.

Governor Sani Bello stated this recently at signing of Memorandum of Understanding , MOU with World Council of City Data at the Nigeria House, in New York, United States.

The Governor who commended WCCD, said the signing of MOU with the state showed the level of confidence and interest of the organization in the modest effort of the administration towards positioning of its cities to meet the ever increasing demands of its residents.

“My presence with some of my cabinet members, member of legislature and technical staff show our complete support and commitment to the selection of Minna as one of the 8 WCCD Local Data Hubs”

“As one of the WCCD Local Data hubs, I want to assure the WCCD of our commitment to the objectives of the initiative by ensuring other cities within Niger State join the WCCD reporting system and also serve as a very good representative in Nigeria and the sub-region.”

Governor Sani Bello who congratulated WCCD for the global recognition by the United Nations through Local 2030 Data Hubs for Sustainable Development Goals, called on the organization to initiate the process and means of strengthening local capacity of member cities to support accurate, timely and globally standardized city-level data generation, analysis and management.

“Without adequate and appropriate capacity , the sustainability of our effort is not guaranteed. I look forward to working with WCCD and Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto , to improve the capacity of my staff and train our ever enthusiastic youthful population.”

Earlier in her remarks, Chief Executive Officer, WCCD, Professor Patricia McCarney said that ‘time has come to harness standardized , independently verified, local level data to help drive transformational change on key global agreements, while also working with network of cities globally to drive local change.’ She noted that the launching at the United Nations demonstrated that cities around the world are the true determiners of sustainable future for the planet.

WCCD had earlier announced establishment of eight ‘Local Data Hubs’ around the world, on Monday July,2017 at United Nations by the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General aimed at ‘harnessing standardized, globally comparable city data as essential to tackling global , national and local agendas. Minna is the only city in Nigeria and second in Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa ). Other cities include Buenos Aires, Argentina, Cambridge, Canada, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Haiphong, Vietnam, Los Angeles, California, USA and Makati, Philippines.