Africa

Lu Ke was shown by BBC Africa Eye making videos with children, some of which included racist content.

Scientists have recently unveiled a first-ever weather forecasting model using artificial intelligence (AI) aimed at creating resilience in Africa. Credit: Kureng Dapel/World Meteorological Organization

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Jul 20 2023 (IPS)

Scientists have recently unveiled a first-ever weather forecasting model using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning solutions to help vulnerable African countries build resilience to climate impacts.

Researchers from the Kigali-based African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) are working on a new AI algorithm that allows various end users of weather predictions to make data-driven decisions.

According to climate experts, these efforts focus on building an intelligent weather forecasting system that is multi-dimensional and updated in real-time with a long-range and is a technology capable of simulating long-term predictions much more quickly than traditional weather models.

“Key to these interventions is to improve the accuracy of weather forecasting and help African governments better prepare for and respond to weather emergencies,” Dr Sylla Mouhamadou Bamba told IPS.

Bamba is the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 6 (AR6) for the Working Group 1 contribution: The Physical Science Basis and African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) – Canada Research Chair in Climate Change Science based in Kigali, Rwanda.

The AI model currently being tested by researchers from the Kigali-based Centre of Excellence focuses on analyzing huge data sets from past weather patterns to predict future events more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods commonly used by national meteorological agencies in Africa.

The first-ever machine learning model, which researchers are currently testing, focuses on analyzing huge data sets from past weather patterns to predict future events more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods to boost climate resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

Rather than working out what the weather will generally be like in a given region or area to get forecasts, Bamba points out that developing modern statistical models using a machine learning approach to forecast sunlight, temperature, wind speed, and rainfall has the potential to predict climate change with efficient use of learning algorithms, and sensing device.

Although most national meteorological agencies in Africa have tried to enhance the accuracy of their weather forecasts, scientists say that although current technologies can forecast weather over the next few days, they cannot predict the climate over the next few years.

“Many African countries are still struggling to take measures in preventing major climate-related disaster risks in an effective manner because of lack of long-term adaptation plans,” Dr Bamba says.

The latest findings by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) show that as the global climate further warms, the long-term adverse effects and extreme weather events brought about by climate change will pose an increasingly serious threat to Africa’s economic development.

The limited resilience of African countries against the negative impacts of today’s climate is already resulting in lower growth and development, highlighting the consequences of an adaptation deficit, it said.

Indicative findings by economic experts show lower GDP growth per capita ranging, on average, from 10 to 13 per cent (with a 50 per cent confidence interval), with the poorest countries in Africa displaying the highest adaptation deficit.

While projections show that climate change is likely to exacerbate the high vulnerability, the limited adaptive capacity of the majority of African countries, particularly the poorest, will potentially roll back development efforts in the most-affected nations, Dr Andre Kamga, the Director General of the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD). This highlighted the need to build high-resolution models.

Apart from exploiting processes to achieve early warning for all in the current climate value chain Dr Kamga stresses the pressing need to move to impact-based forecasts to enhance the quality of information given to users and to expect more efficient preparedness and response.

While Africa has contributed negligibly to the changing climate, with just about two to three percent of global emissions, the continent still stands out disproportionately as the most vulnerable region globally.

The latest report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)  indicates that most of these vulnerable countries lack the resources to afford goods and services to buffer themselves and recover from the worst of the changing climate effects.

While AI and machine learning remain key solutions for researchers to overcome these challenges, Prof. Sam Yala, Centre President at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Rwanda, is convinced that these modern weather forecasting models are important to help manage challenging issues related to improving adaptation and resilience in most African countries.

Frank Rutabingwa, Senior Regional Advisor, UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the Coordinator Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa Programme (WISER), acknowledges that for African countries to prevent and control major climate-related disaster risks effectively, it is important to improve their forecasting and information interpretation capacities.

Latest estimates by researchers show that the skill of numerical weather prediction over Africa is still low, and there remains a widespread lack of provision of nowcasting across the continent and virtually no use of automated systems or tools.

Scientists from AIMS are convinced that this situation has significantly affected the ability of national meteorological services to issue warnings and, therefore, potentially prevent the loss of life and significant financial losses in many countries across the continent.

In Africa, a study by Dr Sylla projected an extension of torrid climate throughout West Africa by the end of the 21st century. However, other African regions, such as North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa, lack this information.

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning can play a critical role by filling these data gaps on the reliability of weather forecasts that undermine understanding of the climate on the continent,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Ortensia Tserem, a 27-year-old indigenous woman from the Amazon jungle, arrived with her partner to the coastal city of Ica in search of better economic opportunities. She never imagined that living without water would become part of her daily life. In her wooden shack in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Ica, she has had to make space for plastic containers to store the water she buys to meet the needs of the couple and their two young children. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

By Mariela Jara
ICA, Peru , Jul 20 2023 (IPS)

Living without water in a desert area is part of the daily life of Ortensia Tserem, a member of the indigenous Wampis people from the Amazon rainforest of northeastern Peru, who came three years ago to the outskirts of the coastal city of Ica with the dream of better economic opportunities for her family.

However, the scarcity of water is a major hardship. Every week she has to buy water from tanker trucks, which costs about 56 dollars a month, a heavy burden on the family’s small income."The worst thing is not having water," said Fernández. "You get used to the sun, to the wind... but without water and sanitation it is very difficult. We don't leave because we have nowhere else to go: We just hope that the authorities will make good on what they promised us as candidates: to bring us drinking water." -- Alicia Fernández

“I have a three-year-old girl and a one-year-old baby boy. The most difficult thing is to make sure we have water for their hygiene, so that they don’t get sick,” she told IPS while showing the plastic drums where she stores water in her shack in the Intercultural settlement of Nuevo Perú on the outskirts of Ica, the capital of the department of the same name.

Like hers, the 150 families who settled in this desert area in the department of Ica, south of Lima, lack water, sewage and electricity services.

The shantytown is part of the area known as Barrio Chino, located at kilometer 163 of the Panamericana Sur, a major highway that runs across the country. It is populated by people from towns in Peru’s Andes highlands and Amazon jungle who are keen to become part of Ica’s agro-export boom.

Agricultural exports, which account for four percent of Peru’s GDP, are one of the factors that have exacerbated the problem of water scarcity in Ica, the sixth smallest of the country’s 24 departments, which had just over one million inhabitants in 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics.

“Since early 2000 in Ica we have been feeling the worsening water shortages due to the lowering of the water table as a result of the drilling of wells, when after the agrarian reform the large landed estates reemerged as a result of agro-exports,” Gustavo Echegaray, an engineer and renowned expert on water resources, told IPS.

Engineer Gustavo Echegaray poses for a photo at his office in Santiago, a city in the semi-desert coastal Peruvian department of Ica. The consultant and expert in water resources warns that in Ica, where agro-export activity has overexploited water, things will collapse if measures are not taken to correct the water imbalance. CREDIT: Courtesy of Gustavo Echegaray

Groundwater is considered the reserve for the future, so good management and sustainable use are imperative, he stressed.

Echegaray, who lives in Santiago, a city in Ica, also experiences daily water rationing. In his neighborhood they receive one hour of piped water a day, with which they fill tanks and containers for household use.

This complication of day-to-day life in the cities is much worse in the impoverished neighborhoods on the outskirts.

The right to water, a distant goal

Tserem, 27, said the right to water, guaranteed in international treaties and in Peru’s constitution, is just an empty promise. “Look at how living without water affects our health, our food, our environment, our peace of mind,” she explained as she gave IPS a tour of her modest wooden house.

The family has a latrine in the backyard, and taking a daily shower is an impossible dream.

Ortensia Tserem (L) and María Huincho moved from other parts of Peru three years ago to the outskirts of Ica, the capital of the coastal desert department of the same name in south-central Peru. Their families were drawn by the agro-export boom of which Ica is the epicenter, but they struggle to get temporary jobs and casual work, and their biggest challenge is access to drinking water, which they have to buy from tanker trucks. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Her partner is a day laborer on one of the large farms dedicated to export crops, whose work varies according to the seasonal labor requirements. “Right now it’s the slow season, there’s no harvest yet; he is helping to prune the tangerine trees, but only for a few hours a day,” she said in a quiet voice.

Fewer hours of work means a reduction in income, making it even more difficult to afford to buy water.

She is also employed during the harvests and at other times of higher demand for labor on the nearby large landed estates, and the rest of the time she spends raising the children and doing household chores.

María Huincho, 39, who moved here from the Andean department of Huancavelica, adjacent to the highlands of Ica, faces a similar situation. She came with her partner and their three young children with the hope of working on one of the farms that grow export crops like blueberries, grapes, tangerines, artichokes or asparagus.

A view of the Nuevo Peru Intercultural settlement, a shantytown which forms part of the area known as Barrio Chino, inhabited by families from different regions of Peru who came to the department of Ica, hoping for jobs on the large export-oriented fruit and vegetable farms. The 150 families in the neighborhood suffer from severe water scarcity. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

“I’ve been here for three years now and the hardest thing is to go without water. I bathe once a week, more often than that is impossible,” she told IPS. She is Tserem’s neighbor and they help each other in their daily chores. “You can never just sit still doing nothing here,” she said, smiling as she looked around at the large sandy field where the wooden houses have been built.

Ica is known worldwide for the pre-Inca Nazca Lines, ancient geoglyphs in the sand made by the Nazca culture which developed a complex hydraulic system with an extensive network of aqueducts that astonished the world when they were discovered.

Today, water stress is a reality in a large part of the department, one of the hardest hit by the growing water scarcity in this South American country of 33 million people.

Aquifer depletion

According to the United Nations, people require 20 to 50 liters per day of clean, safe water to meet their needs for a healthy life. Peru, despite its great diversity of water sources, has failed to guarantee the populace the right to water.

The National Center for Strategic Planning (Ceplan) has projected that by 2030, 58 percent of the Peruvian population will live in areas affected by water scarcity. Overexploitation is one of the reasons.

“Life without water is very difficult,” said Rosa Huayumbe (L) as she and Alicia Fernández paused on their way home, after walking down the steep unpaved road they take every day to buy food and water, which they pipe up to their homes using hoses. The two women have lived for eight years in the Dos de Mayo neighborhood, part of the municipality of Subtanjalla in the department of Ica. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Echegaray, the engineer, told IPS from his hometown that at the end of the 2000s the agricultural frontier in Ica was smaller, but under the authoritarian government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who changed the country’s economic model to a free market regime, land that was wasteland was allocated for business investment.

“The agricultural frontier has grown a lot on the side of what used to be desert, in the Villacurí pampas (grasslands), which are before the entrance to the city of Ica and also in the lower valley. Due to the irrigation technology that they began to use, a large amount of uncultivated land was made available by drilling new wells, which was done without any controls until 2009,” said the expert.

The result was seen in the decrease of water for small-scale agriculture and for local human consumption, Echegaray said.

“The population of the department of Ica has grown and at the same time the amount of water has decreased. A serious problem has been generated in the lower part of the province (also called Ica) and in general in most of the districts where water is rationed, there are areas where families have access to piped water one or two hours per week or every 15 days,” he said.

He added that due to the overexploitation of the wells, the water table is more fragile and an imbalance is occurring – in other words, the amount of water filtering into the aquifers is less than what is extracted from the wells.

Life is very hard without water

In March 2009, Law 29338 on water resources was approved, which regulates areas where water is protected or where its use is banned.

The bans refer to the “prohibition to carry out water development works; the granting of new permits, authorizations, licenses for water use and discharges.” The National Water Authority (Ana) has already applied this to the aquifers of Ica, Villacurí and Lanchas, all three of which are in the department of Ica.

But despite the ban, reports continue to appear from Ana itself about new wells in the aquifers. “Not all of them are detected,” lamented Echegaray.

Rosa Huayumbe (L) and Alicia Fernández, who came to Subtanjalla, in the Peruvian department of Ica, the center of the agro-export boom, climb the steep, dusty road they walk every day to get to their homes in the Dos de Mayo neighborhood, where the severe water shortage constantly disrupts their lives and makes a huge dent in their meager family incomes. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Rosa Huayumbe, 47, was born in the Amazonian city of Iquitos and her friend Alicia Fernández, 30, is from Pisco, a city in Ica. They came to the Dos de Mayo neighborhood in the Ica municipality of Subtanjalla eight years ago, and they have never had piped water in their homes.

This is a poor, desert area, where sand covers the unpaved streets and small houses, most of which are made of wood.

They live in a steep area and must stretch meters of hose so that the tanker truck can deliver water to their homes. They buy three dollars of water a day to cover their basic necessities.

“We work on the large farms,” Huayumbe told IPS. “Right now there is only work for men, which is pruning. We have more time to spend with our children but no money and it’s an even bigger problem to buy water.”

“The worst thing is not having water,” said Fernández. “You get used to the sun, to the wind… but without water and sanitation it is very difficult. We don’t leave because we have nowhere else to go: We just hope that the authorities will make good on what they promised us as candidates: to bring us drinking water,” she added during a pause climbing the steep dirt road back to their homes.

Echegaray said that if something is not done, Ica will run out of water and collapse. He called for studies to determine the water imbalance, which is estimated to be between 38 and 90 million cubic meters per year. “The difference is too big,” he said.
.
He also proposed putting into operation some natural dams and increasing experiments in planting and harvesting water that revive ancestral techniques to restore the aquifers.

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An unexplained blast in Johannesburg killed one person and injured 48 more, South African authorities say.

Young woman sips an orange soda and waits for the rain to stop, on the porch of a small country store in a rural village in Bungoma County, Kenya. Credit: IFAD/Susan Beccio.

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Jul 20 2023 (IPS)

The climate, conflict and economic shocks of recent years and their impact on food prices have landed a huge blow to the world’s hopes of achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of eliminating global hunger by 2030.

Indeed, rather than coming down, the number of people who faced chronic undernourishment in 2022 was around 735 million, an increase of 122 million on the pre-pandemic level of 2019, the United Nations said in the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report that was released earlier this month.

Although tragic, this increase is not surprising.

What one perhaps would not expect is for obesity rates in developing countries to be rising too.

Steep price gaps between healthy and unhealthy foods, coupled with the unavailability of a variety of healthy foods, are driving rises in obesity rates in both urban and rural areas of developing countries, the IFAD paper found

According to a new report by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), overweight and obesity rates across low and middle income countries (LMICs) are approaching levels found in higher-income countries.

In 2016, for example, the percentage of people in low-income countries who were overweight was 25.8%, up over five percentage points on 2006.

The percentage rose from 21.4% to 27% for low-middle income countries in the same period.

The reason is simple – money.

Steep price gaps between healthy and unhealthy foods, coupled with the unavailability of a variety of healthy foods, are driving rises in obesity rates in both urban and rural areas of developing countries, the IFAD paper found.

The report, which reviewed hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and examined data from five representative countries, Indonesia, Zambia, Egypt, Nigeria, and Bolivia, said that the price gap between healthy foods, which tend to be expensive, and cheaper unhealthy foods is greater in developing countries than in rich developed ones.

As a result, three billion people simply cannot afford a healthy diet.

According to one of the studies (Headey 2019) reviewed by the report, it is 11.66 times more expensive to obtain a calorie from eggs in poor countries than it is to obtain a calorie from starchy staples, such as potatoes, bread, rice, pasta, and cereals.

In those same countries, it is only 2.92 times more expensive to obtain a calorie from sugary snacks than from starchy staples.

In wealthy countries, the gap is much smaller: it is 2.6 times more expensive to obtain a calorie from eggs than it is to obtain one from starchy staples and 1.43 times more expensive to obtain a calorie from sugary snacks.

“While price gaps between healthy and unhealthy foods exist in nations across the globe, that price gap is much wider in poorer countries,” said Joyce Njoro, IFAD lead technical specialist, nutrition.

“Also, high-income inequality within a country is associated with a higher prevalence of obesity.

“If we want to curb rising obesity rates in developing countries, we need big solutions that address how food systems work.

“It is alarming to note that three billion people globally cannot afford a healthy diet.

“Preventing obesity in developing countries requires a comprehensive approach that addresses cultural norms, raises awareness of associated health risks, and promotes the production, availability and affordability of healthy foods.”

The report said research showed sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is on the rise in developing countries (Nicole D. Ford et al. 2017; Malik and Hu 2022), and global sales of packaged food rose from 67.7kg per capita in 2005 to 76.9kg in 2017.

It noted that packaged food tends to be processed, which often means increased content of added or free sugars, saturated and trans-fat, salt and diet energy density, and decreasing protein, dietary fibre, and micronutrients.

The report also mentioned cultural factors.

In some developing countries, fatness is seen as desirable in children as it is considered a sign of health and wealth, and consumption of unhealthy foods may also carry a certain prestige, it said.

Culture also plays a role at the energy-expenditure side of the equation in places where physical inactivity is associated with high social status.

The report added that women are more likely to be overweight or obese than men in nearly all developing countries.

Referring to a 2017 study (Nicole D. Ford et al), it said reasons included different physiological responses to early-life nutrition, different hormonal responses to energy expenditure, weight gain associated with pregnancies, lower physical activity levels, depression, economic circumstances over the lifespan, and differences in sociocultural factors – like those regarding ideal body size and the acceptability of physical activity.

IFAD released the report ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment in Rome July 24 – 26 July.

The summit, hosted by Italy and IFAD and its sister Rome-based UN food agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), will highlight how food-system transformations can contribute to better and more sustainable outcomes for people and the planet and the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals ahead of the SDG Summit in September 2023.

ECW’s Yasmine Sherif and Graham Lang walk with UNHCR partners through Borota, where thousands of new refugees, most of them women, and children, have arrived after fleeing the conflict in Sudan. Credit: ECW

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 20 2023 (IPS)

If you want lasting peace, the best investment you can make is in education, said Education Cannot Wait’s Executive Director Yasmine Sherif in an exclusive interview with IPS.

“(This will) make children and adolescents literate, learn critical thinking, address trauma and psycho-social challenges from being victims of a conflict or crisis, develop their potential, and become financially independent,” Sherif said, adding that these were critical skills to participate in good governance of their countries in the future.

She was speaking to IPS ahead of her participation in the ECOSOC High-Level Political Forum side event “Ensuring Education Continuity: The Roles of Education in Emergencies, Protracted Crises and Building Peace” at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Education is the answer to breaking the vicious circle of violence, conflict, and crisis – while this often is associated with war and conflict, the same applies to climate change.

“If the next generation that is today suffering from climate-induced disasters are not educated, do not understand or have an awareness of how to treat mother earth, and do not have the knowledge or skills to mitigate or prevent risks in the future, the negative impact of climate-induced disasters will only escalate.”

Unfortunately, conflicts and climate risks increasingly combine to multiply vulnerability, she said – and instead of declining, the number of children who need urgent support is increasing.

“Today, 224 million crisis-affected children do not receive a quality, continuous education. More than half of these children – 127 million – may have access to something that resembles a classroom, but they are not learning anything. They are not achieving the minimum proficiencies outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4).”

Sherif stressed the crucial linkage between education and protection for children in crisis-affected countries and explained how protection is a core component of the holistic package of education ECW is supporting together with its partners.

“On the legal side, we advocate for the respect of the international humanitarian law, national human rights law, and the National Refugee Law, and for an end to impunity for those who violate these,” said Sherif. “We also call for additional countries to adopt the Safe Schools Declaration, and actively support its implementation at the national level.”

To prevent violence around and in schools, practical measures are included to ensure the children are safe.

“It’s important to ensure safe transport to and from the school. And that would, of course, bring a sense of safety to the parents, who may not be willing to send the girls to school because of that. You ensure the infrastructure of the school provides protection. You may need wards around the school so that nobody can walk into the school and abduct a girl.”

ECW funding also includes protections to prevent sexual and psychological violence.

“All the funding that we invest requires giving protection a priority. And that is essential wherever you operate or invest funding in a country of affected by armed conflict; you need to ensure protection is prioritized.”

Sherif said that in countries like Afghanistan, where the Taliban have banned girls from attending secondary school and upwards, ECW works with local partners to support non-formal education.

“There is a lot of work at the community level, with local authorities allowing ECW’s investments in civil society and UN agencies to continue to operate. So community-based schooling is pretty much (being) run now, where we are investing at the community level,” she said, and while it may not be ideal, it does work.

Likewise, non-formal learning centers have been set up in Cox’s Bazar, where the Rohingya refugees live after fleeing violence, discrimination, and persecution in Myanmar.

“Our aim is for every child to be able to access national education systems, but sometimes it is not possible politically or physically due to the dangers of the conflict. So we also support our partners to establish non-formal learning centers until another more sustainable solution can be found.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, ECW’s partners were innovative in ensuring education continued – with remote learning programmes such as radio and TV-based education, where IT connections were available through phones and WhatsApp with learning kits and tools.

“Home-based, going from door-to-door, that was how it was done during COVID. There was some creativity and innovation. It is possible. It is not ideal, but it is possible.”

Sherif said ECW had developed a proven model to bring quality education to every child – even in the most challenging crisis-affected contexts of war and conflicts – but that the biggest hindrance is the financing.

“If we had the financing, we could reach the 224 million (children) immediately. So financing is the big hindrance today. While peace is the number one (solution), if peace is not possible, education cannot wait.”

“If financing for education is provided in crisis and climate disasters, ECW can reach 20 million children and adolescents in the coming four years. And that requires about another USD700 million for Education Cannot Wait between today and 2026. Just USD 700 million is a small amount when you consider the return on investment you get when you invest in human potential.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Ibrahim Mayaki, the Africa Union Special Envoy for Food Systems, previously served as the CEO of the AU Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD). Ahead of the UN Food System Stocktaking Moment scheduled to take place in Rome on 24 - 26 July 2023, Africa Renewal's Kingsley Ighobor interviewed Dr. Mayaki. They discussed various issues regarding the state of Africa's food systems and the opportunities and challenges involved in feeding a rapidly growing population. Credit Africa Renewal, United Nations.
 
Below are excerpts from their insightful conversation:

By Kingsley Ighobor
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 20 2023 (IPS)

 

Q: As the African Union Special Envoy for Food Systems, what is the scope of your mandate and what should Africans expect from you?

The role of special envoys of the AU is primarily to tackle a critical issue for which the AU needs support. A special envoy does not seek to replace or take over the responsibilities of the AU or the AU Commission (AUC). Instead, their role is to support and enhance their work by bringing additional value.

This is the first time the AU is designating a Special Envoy specifically dedicated to food systems. Previously, notable individuals such as Rwanda’s Donald Kaberuka served as Special Envoy for Financing and Michel Sidibé from Mali as Special Envoy for the African Medicines Agency.

Ibrahim Mayaki, Africa Union Special Envoy for Food Systems

There are three main reasons behind this decision to designate a special envoy for food systems. These issues were thoroughly discussed when I accepted the designation.

Firstly, we could enter a post-Ukraine war era that will be characterised by a crisis in food systems.

Leaders must not only establish the food systems but should also ensure their effectiveness in achieving desired outcomes

The market has witnessed an unfavourable evolution, and African countries are suffering the consequences of that war. We have observed shortages of vital resources such as fertilisers, seeds, wheat, etc. The crisis and our response to it have revealed a lack of co-ordinated efforts.

Hence, the first reason for appointing a Special Envoy is to ensure preparedness for such a crisis, even as we anticipate more crises in the future.

The second reason relates to the many initiatives addressing food systems issues in Africa. We have some complexity in terms of initiatives, and this complexity necessitates better management and coherence.

Without proper co-ordination, Member States and their stakeholders may struggle to comprehend the direction we are heading in. Therefore, the appointment aims to foster preparedness and enhance coherence among these initiatives.

The third reason, closely linked to the previous two, pertains to resource mobilisation. Specifically, it refers to the need to mobilise domestic resources to address the challenges faced in food systems.

We also have the resources of multilateral development banks and other institutions that can support Africa’s endeavours in transforming its food systems.

Q: Apart from the Ukraine crisis, what other factors are jeopardising Africa’s food systems?

I will start by unpacking the concept of food systems. Previously, and still now, we talked about agriculture, agricultural production, rural economy, diversification, agricultural productivity, food security and insecurity.

We are talking about food systems now because it embraces the entire spectrum, in an integrated manner, of processes, from the farmer to the consumer, and, in-between, the numerous actors and sectors.

Kingsley Ighobor

Evidently, food systems are about production, nutrition, roads and other infrastructure, markets, and trade. It’s about connecting farmers to markets, about education and entrepreneurship, enabling small-scale farmers to become micro and small entrepreneurs. It’s about agribusiness.

Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of providing consumers with essential information and addressing the impacts of climate change, particularly in regions like Africa that suffer greatly despite being net zero emitters.

If we look at Africa today, it’s true that we have reduced extreme poverty in the past 20 to 25 years, but at the same time there is an increase in malnutrition.

Our food import bill is still very high, beyond $60 billion a year. The small-scale farmers who produce 80 per cent of the food we eat also suffer from malnutrition and food insecurity, which is abnormal.

We have utilised frameworks such as CAADP [the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme] and the Malabo Declaration to address agricultural development. The Malabo Declaration is considered a precursor to food systems because it opened agriculture to other sectors.

It is a kind of CAADP phase two, and it has been well implemented with over 40 countries adopting national agricultural investment plans. The African Development Bank has started to develop compacts at the national levels to enable countries have frameworks that will attract financing.

So, we have the frameworks, but we need two radical things to occur.

The first one is to have a whole-of-government approach toward food systems transformation and not leave it to the agriculture or the environment ministries.

Secondly, we need to invest more in food systems to reduce food insecurity. I said at the Ibrahim Governance Weekend [held from 28-30 April, 2023] that food insecurity is not a question of production; it’s a question of poverty. At the end of the day the main aim is to tackle poverty.

FACT BOX
Africa’s food import bill is beyond $60 billion a year.
Africa will have approximately 2.5 billion people by 2050

We need a moonshot for Africa’s land restoration movement

The COP26 Africa needs

Now is the time to sprint if we want to end hunger, achieve other SDGs. Regarding CAADP, we see that many countries are still not meeting their commitment to invest 10 per cent of national budgets in agriculture and rural development?

You are right. Only around 10 to 12 countries out of the 50-plus have managed to reach the target of investing 10 per cent of their national budgets in agriculture.

However, some countries claim to meet the 10 percent threshold, but their expenditures include items that are not directly linked to food systems or the transformation of agriculture through a sound integrated plan.

When you have a head of state who prioritises agricultural transformation and provides the drive that leads to results and impact, that transformation happens. So, the issue of leadership is critical.

Technically, we know what needs to be done—agricultural techniques, access to market and finance, and increasing yields—but we need the political solution and determination to move forward.

Sometimes you have leadership but lack the necessary systems. Leaders must not only establish the systems but also ensure their effectiveness in achieving desired outcomes.

Q: How do you anticipate the AfCFTA’s [African Continental Free Trade Area] potential to strengthen Africa’s food systems, considering the complexities and the need for an integrated approach?

The AfCFTA aims to resolve the issues of tariff and non-tariff barriers and to facilitate the flows of goods and services. These require working on normative issues such as rules and regulations.

But it’s not the AfCFTA by itself that will facilitate production. The success of the AfCFTA in enhancing our food systems transformation is contingent upon the availability of robust infrastructure such as roads, railways, and storage facilities.

So, the AfCFTA is an important instrument, but it must be complemented by sound policies and well-developed infrastructure.

Food insecurity is not a question of production; it’s a question of poverty. At the end of the day the main aim is to tackle poverty

Can that be done?

Again, I emphasize the importance of effective national leadership in addressing our prevailing challenges, as many of them necessitate solutions at the national level. While regional solutions are crucial, national governments need to embrace and implement these regional solutions.

Furthermore, it is vital to ensure coherence among all our initiatives. We should not adopt disparate approaches from various institutions, as this would create a landscape of competing initiatives. Instead, we must assert our strategic frameworks and urge our partners to align with these frameworks.

These frameworks include CAADP, the Malabo Declaration, and the African Common Position on Food Systems, which was developed through inclusive national dialogues involving over 50 countries.

Q: How does the Africa Common Position on Food Systems inform your preparation and participation in the upcoming UN Food Systems Stocktaking Moment?

At the UN Food Systems and Stocktaking exercise, each region of the world will present a position. Africa’s position will revolve around three key issues.

The first one is financing food systems transformation. It should be a priority for our partners that our capacity to mobilise domestic resources is not undermined.

The second is climate, which will need to be looked at in a very realistic manner. Despite commitments made at the various COPS, many of them remain unfulfilled. If these commitments cannot be respected, we must explore alternative approaches to climate finance.

The third is about our small-scale farmers. The farmers are a part of a private sector we are talking about. The private sector is not only agribusiness; it also includes small-scale farmers who have the capacity and knowledge to transform our food systems. They need to be supported, as it is done in the US and Europe.

At the stocktaking exercise, what will also be looked at is how far we have gone in implementing the conclusions of the 2021 Food Systems Summit and what lessons each region can learn from the others.

Q: With Africa’s projected population reaching approximately 2.5 billion by 2050, coupled with the existing challenge of over 250 million malnourished Africans, is there a sense of heightened concern among policymakers and stakeholders?

This question is extremely pertinent because Africa’s population is set to double by 2050. The most critical concern is the challenge of feeding over 1 billion additional people. Failure to address this issue with the necessary capacity and solutions will not only strain our existing governance systems but also heighten social fragility.

Given our demographic situation, the risk of encountering numerous political crises becomes imminent.

Urgency is paramount, necessitating an alarmist approach and accelerating the implementation of solutions, especially considering that a significant portion of the projected population growth already exists today.

This acceleration must be achieved through the appropriate policies and political determination.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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El General, whose song inspired Tunisia's pro-democracy revolution, laments the return of repression.

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Over half the people in Africa still don’t have electricity access -- a major contributor to persistent poverty.  Credit: Energy 4 Impact Senegal

By Philippe Benoit and David Sandalow
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 19 2023 (IPS)

Africa is caught in the crosshairs of climate change. Despite contributing just 3-5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, the continent will endure climate change’s destructive impact, including more severe storms, rising temperatures and erratic rainfall in the years ahead that threaten the well-being of hundreds of millions of people.

Renewable energy is an important part of the solution – and Africa enjoys an enormous potential in this regard. With some of the world’s highest levels of solar irradiance, vast expanses of land with favorable wind conditions and powerful rivers with immense hydroelectric potential, Africa is teeming with renewable energy resources. However the continent’s progress in tapping into this potential lags, leaving a huge energy access challenge as well as a power generation deficit that is stunting business and other drivers of inclusive economic growth.

As the world gears up for the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) to be held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the need to address Africa’s energy needs sustainably is all too apparent. Doing so will require rethinking the approach and reshaping policies to dramatically grow Africa’s energy system.

As COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber said at last month’s climate finance summit held in Paris, “For countries that have done the least to cause climate change, climate finance remains unaccessible, unavailable and unaffordable….” Can COP 28, with UAE leadership, deliver for Africa on this potential?

This will require big and bold actions, including massive investments in large-scale infrastructure. It will also require investment in information and other soft assets.  And, significantly, it will also necessitate  small and micro-scale grassroots initiatives which are particularly important to ensure that local populations remain active participants in the process.

The shortage of energy in Africa is a pressing problem. Over half the people in Africa still don’t have electricity access — a major contributor to persistent poverty.  This gap drives households to rely on inefficient and polluting energy sources like charcoal, wood, and kerosene. This pervasive energy deficit, highlighted in the ‘Tracking SDG7: The energy progress report for 2022’ has profound implications for health, education, and sustainable development across the continent.

An even larger portion of the population lacks access to clean cooking technologies, a crisis disproportionately affecting women and girls, and exposing them to harmful household air pollution that was responsible in 2019 for approximately 700,000 deaths across Africa. Rather than diminishing, the number of people without access is projected to potentially rise from 923 milion in 2020 to 1.1 billion in 2030.

But Africa’s energy problem extends beyond the lack of access to electricity and clean cooking targeted by SDG#7.  In too many places across the continent, there is a lack of sufficient and reliable electricity to power businesses that are the backbone of Africa’s growth drive.  The result is a combination of inadequate supply or expensive generators acquired to compensate for the inefficiencies.  Fundamentally, Africa’s ability to stimulate local entrepreneurs or attract international developers and capital is too often being undermined by a weak electricity network.

The shift in focus to renewables provides an opportunity to change the narrative and realities of Africa’s power system.  The large amounts of financing being discussed for climate (including in the lead-up to and at COP 28) – amounts which tend to exceed the levels of funding traditionally mobilized for poverty alleviation – provide an important opportunity for the continent.

Mobilizing funding to harness Africa’s bountiful renewable energy would not only help to meet its current and increasingly large future energy needs, but also contribute to global efforts to avoid prospective greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, Africa’s renewables are large enough to both meet domestic needs, and also help to power green development abroad, including through the export of green electricity to Europe or even, eventually, hydrogen generated from its massive hydropower resources.

Unlocking Africa’s renewable potential will require supportive policies, robust regulations, technological innovation, and substantial investment. Strong, sound and predictable regulatory frameworks and institutions are key.

Better information is also key. For example, the African Energy Commission has established the Strategic Framework on the African Bioenergy Data Management  that seeks to raise awareness of the potential of the bioenergy sector, reflecting the specificities of the reality on the ground in the region.

Given Africa’s limited financial resource base, any solution requires reaching beyond Africa’s borders.  Wealthy nations can bring capital, expertise, and adapted technologies to the continent. South-South cooperation can encourage peer learning, the dissemination of technological solutions adapted to local climatic conditions and the developing country economic context, and support the deployment of the increasing financial capacities of emerging economies to support Africa’s renewables.

Multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, export credit agencies and private capital should also all do more.

The hosting of COP28 in the UAE provides an opportunity to mobilize funding for Africa from a broader set of actors and countries, moving beyond the traditional North/South divide.  In fact, climate finance has been identified by the COP28 host as one of the key goals of this COP. As COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber said at last month’s climate finance summit held in Paris, “For countries that have done the least to cause climate change, climate finance remains unaccessible, unavailable and unaffordable….” Can COP 28, with UAE leadership, deliver for Africa on this potential?

One UAE initiative – the Zayed Sustainability Prize – has already helped promote local action in addressing these challenges.  (One of the authors is a member of the Selection Committee for the Prize.) Over the years, the Zayed Sustainability Prize has supported sustainable change around the world by recognising and rewarding innovative and impactful organizations working to overcome development barriers, including limited access to reliable power, clean water, quality healthcare, and healthy food.

For example, M-KOPA, which won in the Energy category in 2015, uses digital technology to help its customers make micropayments towards essential products and services, such as smartphones, refrigerators, solar panels, even bank loans and health insurance. Last month, it closed US $250 million in new funding to expand its fintech services to underbanked consumers in Kenya, Nigeria, and more recently, Ghana.

Another winner was the Starehe Girls Centre which empowers disadvantaged girls by providing them access to quality education. The school won the Prize in 2017 in the Global High Schools category in recognition of its efforts to reduce its utility bills through the installation of solar panels and more efficient lighting. These financial savings have allowed it to admit more girls from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Generating local action is a critical input to ensure that massive investment programs translate into a just transition for households. To this end, large-scale infrastructure must be accompanied by people-centric programs.

Africa’s renewable energy potential could both help drive enormous economic growth in the region while also helping the world address the challenge of climate change. The potential is there, and it will require action …  in ways big and small.

(Article first published in Nation (Kenya edition) on July 3, 2023)

Philippe Benoit is research director for Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050. He previously held management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency and has over 20 years of experience working on Africa.

David Sandalow is Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, and a member of the Selection Committee of the Zayed Sustainability Prize.

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Dr Rintaro Mori, Regional Adviser, Population Ageing and Sustainable Development at UNFPA, told the conference it was crucial to invest to improve social security, health, and well-being. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
BANGKOK & JOHANNESBURG, Jul 19 2023 (IPS)

Countries with falling population growth face twin dilemmas: Ensuring their aging population live healthy and fulfilling lives and removing barriers to parenthood.

This was the focus of a recent workshop in Thailand reviewing the ICPD30 process and preparation for the Summit for the Future slated for next year (2024).

The workshop was opened by Professor Keizo Takemi, MP Japan and Chair of AFPPD, who contextualized the issue.

“In the Asia Pacific region, a profound shift awaits us. By 2050, one in four individuals will be about the age of 60, with a majority of them being women. The empowerment and the well-being of these women become essential for their meaningful and independent participation in the socio-economic development.”

The meeting sought to highlight what is required from lawmakers to ensure a dynamic and balanced aging society where older people will be physically, mentally, and economically self-reliant as possible, with a sustainable healthcare system.

Dr Rintaro Mori, Regional Adviser, Population Ageing and Sustainable Development at UNFPA, in an interview with IPS, said parliamentarians’ role included “macro level policy planning to prepare for the coming population aging and low fertility including both economic and human rights perspectives.”

Their role was to lead the governments’ reform policies and systems of the country to adjust for “the emerging population trend, such as pension reform and education sector reforms to accommodate all ages,” and “investing in early and later years to take preventative measures to improve social security, health, and well-being.”

Mori said this was possible using a life-cycle approach with a strong emphasis on prevention:

“Prevention is the most cost-effective way to promote healthy and active aging. Life-long investment in social security, health promotion, and psychological well-being (relationship) is the key.”

Parliamentarians and experts met in Bangkok to discuss the ICPD30 process and preparation for the Summit for the Future 2024. Credit: APDA

Boosting fertility was crucial for countries facing declining and aging populations. Dr Victoria Boydell from the University of Essex in the UK said it is vital to remove barriers to parenthood but not through the trend of reducing access to sexual and reproductive health services.

According to research by UN Women and the International Labour Organization, 1.6 billion hours a day are spent in unpaid care work – representing 9 percent of global GDP, and women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household work than men. These factors needed to be considered by lawmakers.

Boydell said policy responses to boost fertility and remove barriers to parenthood included supporting early childhood development, enrollment in quality childcare from an early age, compensation for the economic cost of children through the allocation of benefits, tax exemptions, and other subsidies.

Other practices include fostering employment, especially amongst mothers, for example, part-time and flexible working conditions, promoting equal pay, equal sharing of paid and unpaid work, and allocating benefits to low-income families.

Regarding SRH services, there could be an increase in access to infertility treatment, fertility targets and policies to support the higher number of children, cash or tax exemptions, and access to contraception and abortion. Choice was a key right that needed protection.

In a case study, Chalermchai Kruangam, an MP from Thailand, said it was expected that a growing number of older people would need institutional long-term care – with considerable costs to the fiscus. It was, therefore, crucial to encourage governments and stakeholders to support modifications of living arrangements for older people and provide access to knowledge and training on new technologies, particularly digitalization and information technology. This would ensure that older people remained independent for longer periods, especially if supported health facilities near their homes.

Willie Mongin, an MP from Malaysia, said governments needed to formulate and implement necessary measures to ensure that social systems are ready to meet the older adult’s needs, improve their lives and the well-being of their families and communities – so they can live their lives with dignity. With the World Bank, Malaysia was formulating a strategic plan or blueprint to address an aging population’s impact, including economic growth, productivity, social protection, and health care.

Mori told IPS it was important to note that “older persons are a quite diverse population. Some of the wealthiest persons are among the older population. The health status of older persons is quite different depending upon the individual. Any country should have basic social security infrastructure based on the needs and demands of the population, not solely on the age of a person.”

He also said governments should take into account the older persons’ diversity in their plans to, for example, encourage them to remain in the workplace beyond traditional retirement ages.

“The health, skills, and knowledge of older individuals are diverse, and governments should not plan such economic and labor market policies based on the assumption that older persons are homogenous, Mori said. Recently in Japan, trends show that small and frontline jobs seem to be suitable for older persons (Sakamoto 2022).

Note: The workshop was organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

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Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, holds up a glittery diary with testimony of the impact of the war on children. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 2023 (IPS)

The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, held up a child’s glittery, crimson-red diary as he addressed the Member States at the 88th plenary meeting of the General Assembly on Tuesday.

The regularly scheduled event was set to discuss “the situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.” Many speakers took the opportunity to address the recent termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the humanitarian toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Kuleba centered his remarks on an emotional appeal to protect Ukraine’s 7.9 million children the Russian invasion had “deprived” of their normal lives. He shared a series of diary entries he said were written by Ukrainian children.

One eight-year-old boy in blockaded Mariopole writes bluntly about the deaths of his family members. A 13-year-old girl, who has been living in occupied territories for four months, writes about her fear of leaving the house. “Mom tells us not to go for a walk in places where they are many people because many girls get raped,” Kuleba read.

“There are thousands of children like this who go through the same suffering,” Kuleba said as he held the diary in the air, where it sparkled.

Throughout the ongoing High-Level Political Forum at the United Nations, the war in Ukraine has been repeatedly cited as one reason the world is failing to make progress on the sustainable development goals set for 2030.

“This war is intrinsically linked to our sustainable development agenda and the sustainable development goals,” the President of the General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi, said.

Goal ten addresses the dire support needed for refugees. An update on the sustainable development goals released by the UN last week reports that the number of global refugees has hit a record high of 34.6 million. 41% of these refugees were children.

According to Kuleba, only 383 of Ukraine’s 19,474 illegally transferred children have been reunited with their families. He called for a joint demand that Russia “immediately provide the list of children from Ukraine and grant access to them for international human rights and monitoring missions.” Kulebal also encouraged the development of new international instruments to punish the taking of civilians as hostages.

He concluded with a commitment to ending the war through Ukrainian victory: “This war needs to be won. Unfortunately, on the battlefield, and at a high cost so that the aggressor drops plans…”

Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian minister of Foreign Affairs, focused on achieving peace through diplomacy rather than battle to mitigate skyrocketing inflation, food scarcity, and energy demands felt by people around the world—additional threats to the sustainable development goals.

Szijjártó suggested that grain from Russia and Ukraine be transported through Central Europe, where countries like Hungary would help prevent food shortages. This would offer an alternative to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which allowed for the transportation of goods across the Black Sea to Turkey until its termination by Russia yesterday.

“We do not only keep the opportunity open for transiting Ukrainian grain through Central Europe, we have invested in huge infrastructural development in Hungary to increase the volume of grain from Ukraine [to reach other ports] where they can be shipped to Africa and Middle East countries where this grain is badly needed,” Szijjártó said.

Dmitry A Polyanskiy for the Russian Federation, meanwhile, described injustices experienced by Russian-speaking civilians in Crimea under Ukrainian governance. He called leadership in Kyiv a “puppet regime” of the West and criticized lies about Russia in “contemporary Western society.”

“Colleagues in developing countries have a clear understanding of what is taking place,” the representative said, referring to what he said was a “colonial tradition of pitting countries against each other.”

Kőrösi expressed disappointment at the Security Council’s failure to adopt any resolutions regarding the war in Ukraine, noting the General Assembly’s passage of six resolutions in support of Ukraine. He condemned ecological warfare, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and the “consistent and systematic violations of international law.”

“This war constitutes a serious threat that risks jeopardizing the prospects for a sustainable future for humanity and the planet,” Kőrösi said.

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Youth host Jay Matsushiba, in Vancouver, participating in a beach clean-up with Tanya Otero of the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up. Credit: Nick Hawkins/Ocean Frontier Institute

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jul 19 2023 (IPS)

The Canada-based Ocean Frontier Institute is very clear about the significance of a new collaborative ground-breaking ocean research program. Global warming cannot be effectively tackled, and human life cannot survive on Earth without the ocean.

The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the planet’s surface and absorbs 25 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, yet there is a critical lack of understanding about the changes occurring in the seas as greenhouse gas emissions increase.

“The ocean has absorbed 90 percent of the excess heat from the atmosphere, but will that continue? We know the ocean is a big factor in climate, but we need a much better level of detail to understand how the ocean is functioning now and how will that change in the future.” Dr Anya Waite, CEO and Scientific Director of the Ocean Frontier Institute told IPS.

The Institute was established by Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast in 2015 to accelerate global leadership in ocean research with a focus on the North Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Gateway. On 12 May 2023, it launched the Transforming Climate Action (TCA) research initiative with its academic partners, Université du Québec à Rimouski and Université Laval in Quebec and Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Institute describes it as “the most intensive investigation ever into the ocean’s role in climate change.” And it seeks both knowledge breakthroughs and climate action solutions in association with Indigenous communities, including the Mi’kmaq people, custodians of indigenous land and knowledge on Canada’s Atlantic coast.

Youth host Nesha Ichida gathering fish samples in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Credit: Nick Hawkins/Ocean Frontier Institute

“Our relationship with the ocean is an ancient one built on balance, respect, and knowledge passed down from generation to generation,” stated Angeline Gillis, Executive Director of the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq, at the program’s launch. “It will provide a unique opportunity to bring together our common experiences and understandings of the ocean in a partnership that will ensure we move towards a sustainable future for our children.”

Coastal communities in Canada have long depended for generations on the sea and coastal marine life for food, culture and socioeconomic survival.

The world’s ocean is the greatest form of protection against an overheating planet. It removes more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than all the rainforests and stores 90 percent of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions. A critical marine organism, phytoplankton, captures carbon dioxide from above the sea’s surface and circulates it to the deep ocean, where it is stored for millennia. And, so, the ocean moderates the effects of global warming and, in turn, determines climate and weather patterns while generating 50 percent of the oxygen we need to breathe.

But, as global temperatures keep rising, scientific data collected from a vast network of submergible floats scattered across the ocean indicates that there are changes occurring in the sea as the amount of carbon dioxide it takes in endlessly grows. This year, scientists recorded the highest temperature of the world’s ocean in 40 years. Waite says there are warning signs about a possible decline in the health of the ocean and its ability to regulate our climate to safe levels.

“We know extreme climate events are becoming more common. The probability is that there will be more extreme events in the future, but climate modellers are currently not able to predict them,” she said.

Fanny Noisette, Professor of Biological Oceanography at the Université du Québec à Rimouski, told IPS that she had witnessed severe levels of deoxygenation in the bottom waters of the sea near the coastal town of St. Lawrence on the Burin Peninsula. This has resulted, for example, in shoals of Northern Shrimps migrating from the deeper ocean to shallower coastal areas where oxygen is more readily available, she said.

“The decrease in some species abundance, such as Northern Shrimps, could lead to the transformation of economic activities and sources of revenue in local coastal communities,” Professor Noisette predicted, adding that “these environmental changes are superimposed on to other local disturbances already happening in coastal zones, such as pollution and invasive species. Management of coastal zones will need to be more rooted in holistic and ecosystem-based approaches.”

The North Atlantic Ocean, which is the largest oceanic carbon sink, is a critical site for climate-oriented research, and the TCA program will draw on the expertise of many disciplines, from oceanography and atmospheric science to maritime law, social science and justice to Indigenous knowledge. It will also include collaboration with 40 national and global partners in industry, government and the non-profit sector.

The program will strive to generate new scientific data that will be critical to making better decisions about climate action. And identify more effective solutions for the planet’s survival, including the development of new technologies to remove the build-up of carbon dioxide in the sea.

Scott Simpson filming Jordan Wilson and Nicola Rammell of the John Reynolds Lab near Bella Bella, British Columbia. They were doing an experiment to see how salmon impact flower growth in estuaries. Zan Rosborough is recording sound. Credit: Nick Hawkins/Ocean Frontier Institute

Helen Zhang, Canada Research Chair of Coastal Environmental Engineering and Professor of Civil Engineering at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, told IPS that micro-algae will be critical to this goal. “Micro-algae widely exist [in the ocean] and have the robust capacity to employ a carbon dioxide conversion factory in the cold marine environment, such as the North Atlantic and Arctic gateways,” Zhang explained. Micro-algae convert carbon dioxide to biomass, which “can then be used to generate bio-products, such as bio-surfactants and biofuels, that can support the growth of various ocean industries, such as transportation and fisheries, as an alternative energy source.”

If global warming is not contained, scientists predict that higher sea temperatures will generate more severe marine heat waves, acidification of seawater and bleaching of coral reefs. That, in turn, will have detrimental impacts on marine life, their habitats and ability to breed. Therefore, removing toxic carbon dioxide from the ocean is essential to its long-term health, the survival of marine life and the sustainable lives of coastal communities. Nearly 10 percent of the world’s population, or more than 680 million people, live in low-lying coastal areas of continents and islands.

While global unity and action to limit the planet’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius remain in limbo, the Ocean Frontier Institute and its partners are forging ahead with a clear vision and timeline of action. That leadership is fully backed by the Canadian Government, which has contributed $154 million to the ‘Transforming Climate Action’ program through its Canada First Research Excellence Fund. In total, about $400 million has been committed to the TCA research program. And, in line with Canada’s national goal, the Institute is focused on achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

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Nowhere is the escalating threat of climate change-induced disasters greater than in Asia and the Pacific. The impact and magnitude of disasters, over the past decade, indicate that climate change is making natural hazards even more frequent and intense, with floods, tropical cyclones, heatwaves, droughts and earthquakes resulting in tragic losses of life, displaced communities, damaged people’s health and millions pushed into poverty. Credit: ESCAP

By Kwan Soo-Chen and David McCoy
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 19 2023 (IPS)

For years, the concept of climate justice has been built on the understanding that countries and communities contributing the least to global warming are disproportionately bearing the impacts of climate change.

For example, developing countries have been more affected by climate events due to their existing vulnerabilities and limited capacities to respond – eight out of the top ten countries most affected by climate extreme events from 2000 to 2019 were developing countries, where six were located in Asia.

Based on the principle of equity, climate justice was embedded in the UN Climate Convention in 1992 through principles of “polluter pays” and “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”, placing responsibilities to combat climate change on the richer nations.

However, the lack of effective mechanism to operationalize these principles remains an issue to this day. Discussion on “loss and damage” was revived in COP27 in reaction to the failure of developed countries to fulfil their pledge to climate financing to help vulnerable states with climate actions.

While there is currently no clear definition for “loss and damage”, the term essentially refers to the much-contested obligations of countries that have historically benefited from fossil fuel investment to pay for the residual consequences and permanent damage caused by climate change to nature and human societies, predominantly in the developing countries.

Loss and damage encompass both economic and non-economic losses. While economic losses cover damage to resources, physical assets and services; tangible or intangible non-economic losses hold a larger share of the loss and damage, including the impact on individuals (loss of life and health, mobility), societies (loss of cultural heritage, identity, indigenous knowledge), and environment (loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services).

Climate justice and the right to health

Health is the most essential asset of human beings. However, population health, particularly of poor communities in developing countries, is increasingly threatened by the environmental and social changes brought by climate change. This brings in a different outlook on climate justice through the human rights lens.

As health is underpinned by various social and environmental determinants, such as air, water, food, housing and development, the impacts of climate change on those determinants are infringing the fundamental human right to health.

While the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1946 emphasizes the entitlements to equal opportunities to enjoy the “highest attainable standard of health” without discrimination to “race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition”, climate change is exacerbating the existing health inequity and vulnerabilities across the structural social hierarchies, making the progressive realization of the highest attainable standard of health increasingly difficult. This is particularly true among the traditionally discriminated and marginalized communities.

For example, while climate change affects everyone, the health of Indigenous communities is especially vulnerable to climate change due to their close relationships with nature (many Indigenous peoples still rely directly on nature for their basic necessities) and their social and economic marginalization.

In addition, there is emerging evidence showing mental distress among indigenous communities due to the threats upon their culture, identity and sovereignty as they lose or are forced to migrate from their traditional territories due to environmental changes.

Along the same lines, while men and women are affected differently by climate change, women face greater health risks and vulnerabilities due to their particular health needs (e.g. in maternal and reproductive health), household and caregiver roles (e.g. water and food preparation), and underlying gender gaps in access to supports such as resources and critical information that affect their capacity to respond effectively to climate variability, especially in rural and remote areas.

Children and the elderly are also disproportionately affected by the direct and indirect impacts of climate variability on temperature, air quality and food sources due to their unique physiology.

Marginalized groups such as indigenous people and women have often been excluded in decision-making processes concerning climate actions that could affect their health and well-being. Nonetheless, they could be important agents of change while promoting health equity in climate mitigation and adaptation.

For instance, indigenous knowledge on sustainable management and conservation of the environment is a valuable resource. While gender equity in climate actions are increasingly recognized and incorporated in climate finance, youths are at the forefront of climate advocacy fighting for the intergenerational rights to their future well-being.

Climate litigation – a way forward?

On this front, various efforts have been made to call for the acceleration of climate actions around the world. In the past years, advocacy campaigns, strikes, public demonstrations, and activists’ protests have been increasingly reported across media platforms, lobbying for countries to fulfil their climate pledges. Although some progress has been made, they are not enough to catch up with the fast-rising global temperature.

Increasingly individuals and non-governmental organizations are turning to climate litigation as part of the social movements, using human rights law as a strategic instrument to enforce climate actions.

Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the number of climate change-related lawsuits has doubled from just over 800 cases (1986 -2014) to over 1,200 cases (2015 – 2022), with most cases based in the Global North (particularly in the US) and a growing number of cases from the Global South.

Human rights law offers strong grounds for litigation against states as states hold the primary responsibility and duty to protect human rights. At the European Court of Human Rights, three climate cases are pending before the Grand Chamber of the Court.

Among others, the climate cases were made on the grounds of the human rights violations of the right to life (Article 2), and the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8) as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights.

Across Southeast Asia, increasing number of environmental conflicts leading to lawsuits have been documented, prominently in countries like Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Plaintiffs were often communities, non-governmental organizations and civil societies, with cases grounded on state governments’ failure to fulfil treaty obligations (Paris Agreement) and reduce carbon emissions; and corporations’ environmental destructive activities such as illegal logging and peatland burning that violate the human rights to life and healthy environment.

At the local level, government agencies have been sued over their failure to perform duties in ensuring environmental and social protections through governance mechanisms, such as the lack of transparency of environmental impact assessments for project development and inadequacy of environmental standards (e.g. air pollution standards) in protecting citizens’ health.

However, there remain issues of enforcement and jurisdictional limits within the international politics to be dealt with in climate litigations. Besides, lawsuits against governments could be counter-productive if states have limited capacity to respond. Nonetheless, a court proceeding is a catalyst to bring up the longtime debate on climate justice and enforce actions among those held accountable.

Interestingly, a recent study found that these litigation processes are posing financial risks to the polluting carbon majors companies as their market share prices fell after lawsuits.

In addition, the recent advancements on the recognition of human rights in the context of climate change look promising. In June 2022, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and in March 2023, another UN resolution, led by Vanuatu, was passed to secure a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states’ accountability and consequences for inaction in the first attempt to establish climate action obligations under international law.

As the establishment of international legal rules are influential on judges and governments, it is hopeful that these efforts will build the momentum in countries’ commitments to climate actions in all member states. The role of civil societies as climate watchdogs remains fundamental in ensuring effective actions are followed through in the quest for climate justice.

Kwan Soo-Chen is a Postdoctoral Fellow and David McCoy is a Research Lead at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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