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Harnessing the Blue Economy Must Consider Social Inclusion and Responsible Stewardship
Cranes used to offload containers from cargo ships at the Port of Mombasa. Kenya signed anagreement with the Government of Japan for the construction of extra berths at the port. Credit: KEVIN ODIT | NATION MEDIA GROUP
By Ambassador Macharia Kamau and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 29 2018 (IPS)
In April 2018, Commonwealth leaders met in a retreat at a royal residence in the English county of Berkshire and agreed on strategies to deepen trade in their 53-member organisation, improve security, tackle climate change, and work togetherfor the betterment of the lives of the people of the Commonwealth.
During the Commonwealth Summit, Kenya received support forits plan to host aHigh Level Sustainable Blue Economy Conference scheduled to take place from 26-28th November 2018 in Nairobi. Under the theme Blue Economy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the conference presents an opportune moment for advancing global conversation on both the productive and sustainable side of the blue economy.The conference will lay the case for a sustainable exploitation of the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes for the economic empowerment of all communities.
Canada stepped forward as a co-host during bilateral talks between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Lancaster House, London, on the margins of the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting. “Our meeting gives us an opportunity to speak about the great relationship between Kenya and Canada. Canada is pleased with the excellent conference on the blue economy you are hosting and is ready to partner with you,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Kenya welcomes other countries to join this important initiative as co-hosts. Kenya also welcomes partnerships from governments, academia, private sector, international organizations, political and thought leaders from around the world to share ideas, experience and knowledge on how countries can implement Blue Economy action plans in their countries.
Africa’s economies have continued to post remarkable growth rates, largely driven by the richness of its land-based natural resources. Yet even though 38 of the continent’s 54 states are coastal and 90% of its trade is sea-borne, Africa’s blue potential remains largely untapped. The African Great Lakes constitute the largest proportion of surface freshwater in the world and it is easy to see why the African Union refers to the Blue Economy as the “New Frontier of African Renaissance”.
Ambassador Macharia Kamau
The potential of the blue economy in Africa is largely unexploited due to uneven focus on land as the most important factor of production. While Africa is endowed with large water bodies, the communities living in close proximity to such lakes, seas and oceans in the continent are among the poorest in the region. The realization of the limitations presented by land as a factor of production in the continent, especially in view of climate change, has necessitated governments and other stakeholders to focus on the immense potential for growth presented by the water resources.
A good illustration of Africa’s maritime resources potentialis the island nation of Mauritius, one of the smallest countries in the world, which has territorial waters the size of South Africa but has one of the strongest blue economies in Africa, ranking 3rd in per capita income in 2015.
Ironically, the narrative on the continent’s maritime space has for long veered towards the bad news on illegal harvesting, degradation, depletion and maritime insecurity. This narrative is changing gradually, with recent initiatives indicating that countries are looking at full exploitation and management of Africa’s Blue Economy as a potential source of wealth for the continent’s growing population. With forecasts placing the value of maritime-related activities at 2.5 trillion euros per year by 2020, the continent’s hidden treasure could catapult its fortunes.
Kenya is one of several African countries that are formulating strategies to mainstream the Blue Economy in national development plans. Broadly the sub-sectors of the blue economy in Kenya include fisheries & aquaculture, maritime transport & logistics services, extractive industries which include offshore mining of gas &oil, titanium, rare earth (niobium), and culture, tourism and leisure & lifestyle. In the past the country has largely focused on fisheries both for domestic and export markets – a sector that accounts for only about 0.5 per cent ofGDP – yet Kenya has a maritime territory of 230,000 square kilometres and 200 nautical miles offshore.
Siddharth Chatterjee
The groundwork for regulatory and policy changes has started, with the Fisheries Management and Development Act 2016 and establishment of theBlue Economy Implementation Committee indicating the government’s intention to utilize its marine resources for economic growth while conserving the same for future generations. The government ban on single use plastic bags is another demonstration of commitment to ensuring plastic waste does not continue to threaten the environment, including marine life. There has also been a move to protect the coral reef, home to one of the world’s most diverse marine eco-systems.
As Africa enjoins itself to the a paradigm shift to the blue economy, and looks for pathways towards being at the centre of global trade based on the Blue Economy, rather than just the supplier of unprocessed raw materials, among the greatest hurdles will be responsible management, so that the wealth generation is inclusive and ecologically sound.
To achieve this, countries must importantly work on current conflicts that are driven by lack of demarcation of maritime and aquatic boundaries.This has been a constant source of tensions between neighbouring countries, not only threating any long-term investment considerations, but also leading to irresponsible use of resources.
With the potential gains from the Blue Economy, states have no option but to fast-track resolution of disputes and strengthen their maritime and ripariancooperation mechanisms. This will provide grounds for working on interstate economies of scale and develop strategies for bridging technical and infrastructure gaps among States.
In line with SDG 14, development of this sector must alsopromote social inclusionwhile ensuring environmental sustainability. In this respect, the continent owes special consideration to people living along the shores of oceans, lakes and rivers, essentially youth and women. The question of how this“new frontier” can address poverty reduction and hunger whenleaving no one behind must be a central consideration.
Sadly,Global citizens have already demonstrated considerable recklessness in managing land-based resources. The relatively untouched frontier of Blue Economy must be handled with the highest environmental stewardship and social responsibility.
Kenya and Canada are committed to this and the United Nations family is fully in support of this important initiative which could leapfrog Kenya’s and indeed the world’s economic growth.
We therefore invite the world to Nairobi on 26th to 28th November 2018, to participate in a global conversation and showcase technology and innovation on the most appropriate strategiesfor productive, sustainable and inclusive use ofthe numerous resources in the seas, oceans, rivers and lakes.
The post Harnessing the Blue Economy Must Consider Social Inclusion and Responsible Stewardship appeared first on Inter Press Service.
Excerpt:
Amb. Macharia Kamau is the Principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Kenya.
Siddharth Chatterjee is the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Kenya.
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Categories: Africa
Zimbabwe’s Long Road to Gender Parity
Women activists in Zimbabwe have long demanded a fair share of power. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS
By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, May 29 2018 (IPS)
Zimbabwe goes to the polls in July for the first general election since the departure of Robert Mugabe, and the jockeying over who will represent the country’s major political parties is in full throttle.
Primary elections are internal processes by political parties to allow aspiring candidates to contest among themselves with the eventual winner being the one who will represent the party at national elections.“It’s evident that the political space, despite constitutional provisions, is overall not conducive for women and intra-party violence against women is very high." --Glanis Changarirere
As soon as the political parties announced the primaries in April this year, thousands of candidates submitted their names, with sitting parliamentarians also having to contest in what the ruling party Zanu PF said was a sign of democracy.
However, from the lists that were released by Zanu PF and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, the roster was dominated by men, with women largely staying away.
This at a time when there is a huge global drive towards realising the United Nations-driven Planet 50-50 by 2030 gender equality campaign in public office positions by year 2020.
One female Zanu PF legislator, hoping to retain her parliamentary seat, complained last month that she was being intimidated by aspiring male candidates, reporting that the men were going around telling prospective voters not to vote for a woman.
She eventually lost the election to a male candidate.
It was one of many troubling reports concerning women aspiring for public office, with political parties accused of failing to address these concerns.
Glanis Changachirere, Team Leader at the Institute for Young Women Development (IYWD), which lobbies for women’s participation in political processes, says women seeking public office are still marginalised by political parties and discouraged from participating because of widespread political violence.
“It is worrisome that as we enter the second term of the Constitutional provision for gender parity, women’s political representation is under threat,” Changachire told IPS.
“Leads from Zanu PF primary elections are indicating a regression in women’s representation. Women only constitute 8 percent of that party’s parliamentary and senatorial candidates. There are examples in some provinces where there was not a single woman elected in the primaries,” she said.
The ruling Zanu PF announced the final list of parliamentary candidates on May 3, revealing that the preliminary results where dominated by men with women who were seeking re-election failing to make the cut.
Some of the losers, who again were dominated by men, contested the results in 10 constituencies, citing among other things political violence against their supporters, forcing the party to call for a re-run.
“It’s evident that the political space, despite constitutional provisions, is overall not conducive for women and intra-party violence against women is very high,” Changarirere said.
Perhaps highlighting the extent of the odds stacked against women, Oppah Muchinguri, Zanu PF’s first ever female national chairperson, who was elevated to the post last year and sought to retain her parliamentary seat, was one of the heavy casualties in the primary elections.
Under the Zimbabwe constitution adopted in 2013, 60 uncontested seats are reserved for women in the legislature in what is termed proportional representation where political parties nominate female candidates based on the number of seats the party won in the general elections.
In the 2008 elections, only 34 women made it to the 210-member parliament, and a decade later political parties are still struggling to make up the numbers that meet their commitment to global standards.
In 2013, the number grew to 86 elected female legislators, an increase of 39 percent, according to UN Women statistics.
According to Morgan Komichi, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) national chairperson, the party has set aside 50 percent of parliamentary seats for women, but from the number of women who have expressed interest in actually contesting the primaries, Zimbabwe’s main opposition could well be lagging behind in realising its own gender balance benchmarks.
“The patriarchal and primitive thinking of women playing second fiddle roles — for example, women are expected to sing and ululate and provide care work roles in political parties — are still entrenched. No deliberate mechanisms [exist] to ensure proportional presentation of women in key leadership positions and government line-up,” Changachirere said.
However, the political opposition MDC national spokesperson Tabitha Khumalo told IPS that the MDC had ratified the Women’s Charter as set out by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development targeting 50 percent women’s representation in decision making and already has provisions to allocate gender in the party, but it was up to the women to take up the mantel.
“There is a belief that women should be handed political office. They should go out there and work for it. There are constitutional provisions to meet these standards, my question is who lobbies who to get those numbers,” Khumalo told IPS.
One-time deputy prime minister and former MDC vice president Thokozani Khuphe, who was expelled from the party in March, has since formed her own splinter political party, accusing rivals of denying her the constitutional right to lead the country’s largest opposition political party.
Khuphe accused her rivals of sexism, saying it was clear they did not want a women to lead, vowing that a woman is also constitutionally empowered to lead Zimbabwe.
Former Deputy President Joice Mujuru, also expelled from Zanu PF, and once considered by some as former President Robert Mugabe’s successor, now leads the National People’s Party (NPP), with smaller parties led by women such as Lucia Matibenga’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and rallying behind Mujuru as the sole female presidential candidate for the July national elections.
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Categories: Africa
Tobacco use is one of the leading causes of premature death and disability worldwide: warns WHO ahead of World No Tobacco Day
Credit: Bigstock
By WAM
CAIRO, May 29 2018 (WAM)
Every year, on 31 May, the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners mark World No Tobacco Day, highlighting the health and other risks associated with tobacco use, and advocating for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption. This year, World No Tobacco Day focuses on tobacco and heart disease. The campaign’s slogan is “Tobacco breaks hearts. Choose health, not tobacco”.
"In 2015, nearly 1.4 million deaths in the Region were caused by cardiovascular disease. It has been estimated that in the next decade, deaths from cardiovascular disease, which in the Eastern Mediterranean Region is mostly attributable to ischaemic heart disease, will increase more significantly than in any other region of the world except Africa."
Dr Jaouad Mahjour, Acting WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean
Tobacco use is one of the leading causes of premature death and disability worldwide. It is also a key risk factor for the development of coronary heart disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease. “In most countries in WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Region, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disease”, says Dr Jaouad Mahjour, Acting WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “In 2015, nearly 1.4 million deaths in the Region were caused by cardiovascular disease. It has been estimated that in the next decade, deaths from cardiovascular disease, which in the Eastern Mediterranean Region is mostly attributable to ischaemic heart disease, will increase more significantly than in any other region of the world except Africa.”
Large sections of the public do not realize that tobacco is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease. Thus, on World No Tobacco Day this year, WHO aims to increase public awareness on the link between tobacco, exposure to secondhand smoke and cardiovascular disease. “Tobacco use in the Region has risen among men, women, boys and girls”, notes Dr Mahjour. “In some countries of the Region, 52 percent of men and 22 percent of women use tobacco. The rates among youth are particularly worrying; they can reach 42 percent among boys and 31 percent among girls. This includes shisha which is more popular among youth than cigarettes.”
On the eve of World No Tobacco Day 2018, WHO encourages: cardiovascular communities and specialists to take charge, educate and lead, to limit tobacco use and so contain this cardiovascular disease epidemic at national and regional levels; the public at large to make every effort to reduce the risks to their heart health by quitting tobacco, avoiding its use and exposure to secondhand smoke; governments to take all possible action to control tobacco use and raise public awareness of the link between tobacco use and heart disease; and countries and civil society to scale up prevention and control of cardiovascular disease by intensifying action on the six MPOWER measures in line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and so reduce demand for tobacco. The six MPOWER measures are: monitor tobacco use and prevention policies; protect people from tobacco smoke; offer help to quit; warn about the dangers; enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; and raise taxes on tobacco.
“Tobacco in all its forms contains dangerous chemicals”, says Dr Mahjour. “The only proven strategy to keep the heart and blood vessels safe is to quit, avoid initiation and exposure to secondhand smoke”. Shisha, smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes cause acute adverse health effects, such as heart attacks, stroke, high blood pressure, heart failure, arrhythmia and other cardiovascular events. Secondhand smoke causes serious acute or chronic cardiovascular disease. In infants, secondhand smoke causes sudden death and in pregnant women, it leads to low birth weight and congenital heart defects in fetuses.
WAM/Tariq alfaham
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Categories: Africa
Food Waste Enough to Feed World’s Hungry Four Times Over
Poland wastes at least 8.9 million tonnes of food every year. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu / IPS
By Thalif Deen
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 28 2018 (IPS)
The United Nations is continuing to fight a relentless battle to eradicate extreme hunger – particularly in the world’s poorest nations—by 2030.
But it is battling against severe odds: an estimated 800 million people still live in hunger— amidst a warning that the world needs to produce at least 50 percent more food to feed the growing 9.0 billion people by 2050—20 years beyond the UN’s goal.
Still, the World Bank predicts that climate change could cut crop yields by more than 25 percent undermining the current attempts to fight hunger.
The hunger crisis has been aggravated by widespread military conflicts – even as the Security Council, the most powerful body at the United Nations, was called upon last month to play a greater role in “breaking the link between hunger and conflict.”
Holding out the prospect of wiping out famine “within our lifetime”, Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told the Security Council that almost two thirds of people living in hunger were in conflict-stricken countries.
He singled out war-devastated Yemen, South Sudan and north-eastern Nigeria, which still faced severe levels of hunger, while the food security situation in Ethiopia, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo was “extremely worrying”.
In an interview with IPS, Alessandro Demaio, Chief Executive Officer of the Norway-based EAT, an international NGO engaged in the fight against hunger, said: “At EAT, our mission is a simple but ambitious one: to transform the global food system and enable us to feed a growing global population with healthy food from a healthy planet – leaving no-one behind.”
“We do this by bringing together leading actors from business, science, policy and civil society to close scientific knowledge gaps, translate research into action, scale up solutions, raise awareness and create engagement,” he noted
Excerpts from the interview:
IPS: One of the UN’s 17 SDGs (Goal 2, Zero Hunger) aims to eradicate extreme hunger – particularly in the world’s poorest nations– by 2030. Do you thinks this is feasible?
Demaio: Food is, in one way or another, linked to all UNs 17 Sustainable Development Goals. As a doctor, it deeply concerns me that more than 800 million people go hungry and more than two billion are overweight or obese, worldwide. These numbers are accompanied by a ballooning epidemic of diet-related and preventable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancers.
While working in Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Cambodia at the frontlines, I saw firsthand how hunger has many forms. Undernutrition manifests in children in two key ways: by becoming dangerously thin for their height (wasting), or permanently impeding their growth (stunting). In the other extreme, populations with calorie dense but nutrient-poor diets drive the global burden of overweight and obesity.
There is a deeply unjust disconnect between food availability and quality in different parts of the world. One third of all food produced gets lost or goes to waste — that’s enough to feed all of the world’s hungry four times over!
But slow response to increasing pressures from climate change and increasing social inequalities means that not everyone gets access to the right foods. In fact the United Nations last year declared that hunger, after more than a decade in decline, was on the rise again.
I do believe that we can reach zero hunger by 2030. We have many of the solutions to do so, such as connecting smallholder farmers to markets, removing barriers to trade and boosting food production sustainably.
But we just need the political will to match, and to get stakeholders across sectors, borders and disciplines to work together and pull in the same direction.
Food is our number one global health challenge and a formidable climate threat. We´re not only producing what makes us sick and destroys the planet, we continue to subsidize it with billions of dollars annually. It is the worlds’ poor and the communities who are least responsible for creating them who are disproportionately affected by these trends.
IPS: What is your agenda to help reform the global food system, including increasing agricultural productivity, and recycling food waste?
Demaio: In our work to reform the global food system, we at EAT connect and partner across science, policy, business and civil society to achieve five urgent and radical transformations by 2050:
1. Shift the world to healthy, tasty and sustainable diets;
2. Realign food system priorities for people and planet;
3. Produce more of the right food, from less;
4. Safeguard our land and oceans; and
5. Radically reduce food losses and waste.
About 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted every year, that’s an estimated one in three mouthfuls of food every day. In poorer nations, this waste generally occurs pre-market and can be part-solved by simple technologies in supply chains including transport, packaging and refrigeration. Technological interventions such as precision agriculture or investments in post-harvest processes will make huge differences.
In wealthier countries, the majority of waste occurs after market, in supermarkets and in our homes. This is where buying less but more frequently, avoiding impulse buys and taking measures to reduce the “buy one get one free” that incentivize over-purchasing, are all key.
IPS: The world needs to produce at least 50 percent more food to feed the growing 9.0 billion people by 2050. Is this target achievable because climate change can cause devastation to crop yields?
Demaio: The bad news is that modern agriculture doesn’t feed us all and it does not feed us well. The good news is that we have never had a bigger opportunity, more knowledge or the ingenuity and skills to fix it.
Increasing investment in harvesting infrastructure combined with improving access to markets and technology can result in minimizing field losses for farmers in low and middle-income countries, as well as help to pull millions out of poverty. In high income countries, business and consumers have a transformative role to play in reducing wasted food.
Through new business models, improved production, packaging and educational campaigns, businesses can nudge consumers in the right direction. By nudging better purchasing habits, better evaluations of portion size and improving food preparation techniques, consumers can dive headlong towards a circular food economy. Every pound of food saved from loss or waste will create economic, health and environmental gains.
Through working with remote communities, health professionals, and science and business leaders, I have seen how plant-based dietary trends have fueled a rediscovery of countless crop varieties with promising nutritional and environmental profiles.
With their abilities to deliver ‘more crop per drop’ and withstand unpredictable seasonal changes, diversifying what we grow can help meet local and global nutrition needs. In contrast, gene editing or lab grown meats offer to increase productivity, nutrition and tolerance to environmental uncertainties.
Essentially, the future of agriculture doesn’t lie in intensive expansion only — it lies in the harnessing of holistic, precise and tech savvy methods that enhance the production of more nutritious and more climate resilient foods.
IPS: How are ongoing military conflicts, particularly in Asia and Africa, affecting the world’s food supplies?
Demaio: Major regional or national conflicts have often profound impacts on food supplies as they disrupt society. Conflicts often originate from a competition over control of the factors of food production, such as land and water.
A growing global population, lower yields and diminished nutrient content of some crops due to changing climatic conditions contribute to increasing stress, raising the risk of civil unrest or military conflict. Countries under the greatest stress often have the least capability to adequately respond to civil unrest.
Contexts are important and whether it is climate change, food shortages, water crises, ocean sustainability, or geopolitical conflicts — many or most are interlinked.
An example of this is how ocean acidification and warming impacts fishery yields and the redistribution of already overfished and stressed fish stocks, which can cause new geopolitical tensions. Given that many of these challenges are intertwined, they also present common opportunities for co-mitigation.
IPS: What is the primary goal of the upcoming EAT forum in Stockholm, June 11-12? What’s on the agenda?
Demaio: Feeding a healthy and sustainable diet to a future population of almost 10 billion will be a monumental challenge, but it is within our reach. The EAT Stockholm Food Forum is a contribution to solving this challenge. The concept is simple genius — my favorite kind.
Bring together innovators, leaders and forward thinkers who usually rarely meet but are working on interrelated, global challenges — food systems, climate change, food security, global health and sustainable development. Put them in one room and get them to share ideas, share best practice, share the latest research and hopefully reshape the broken systems driving our planetary shortcomings.
This year we’re hosting the fifth EAT Stockholm Food Forum in partnership with the Government of Sweden. We have an incredible line-up of speakers, including: World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva; climate leader Christiana Figueres, an architect of the historic Paris Climate Agreement; Sam Kass, chef and former chief nutritionist to the Obama Administration; plus a host of global food heroes representing twenty-nine countries and six continents.
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Categories: Africa
Hunger and Food Insecurity Plague the Lives of Millions in Africa
President Kenyatta is shown an artistic view of the layout of the multibillion food security project in Galana and Kulalu ranch. Credit: Alphonce Gari
By Moody Awori and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 28 2018 (IPS)
Africa is rising. But at the same time, Africa is the continent with the largest number of people, (390 million) living in extreme poverty.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture organization states in a new report that 124 million people in 51 countries experienced high levels of food insecurity. “Hunger and food insecurity plague the lives of millions worldwide” said EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Mr. Christos Stylianides.
At the core of Kenya’s new and ambitious Big Four Agenda (Food Security, Universal Health Coverage, Affordable Housing and increase to 15% the contribution of Manufacturing to GDP), is a reduction in the number of people living in poverty.
Data from a recent World Bank survey indicates that about 36 % of Kenyans live below the poverty line.
The Big Four Agenda correctly identifies food security as a major pathway for improving the conditions of a majority, of Kenyans.
Moody Awori
As is the case across virtually the entire continent, Kenya is one of the countries where economic prosperity has been accompanied by a rise in the absolute number of poor people. This emerging trend means that the majority of the 1 million youth who enter the job market every year end up in jobs that cannot lift them out of poverty.A World Bank report indicates about 1% reduction in poverty over the last ten years. The key point is not that the absolute numbers have increased but rather that the pace of poverty reduction is too slow to achieve the 2030 SDG goal on poverty reduction
As the country rolls out the Big Four Agenda, we must reflect on those sectors that offer the best pathways for quick wins and determine how the anticipated prosperity can be shared equitably.
Global surveys have unequivocally shown that the agriculture sector provides the best opportunities to create employment and lift people out of poverty.
In Kenya the agriculture sector accounted for the largest share of poverty reduction.
With a growing population and continued land degradation due to overgrazing, poor farming practices, deforestation and climate change, Africa must look to new ways to make farming more productive and profitable.
Akinwunmi Adesina, the President, African Development Bank (AfDB) says agriculture will be a one trillion dollar business in Africa by 2030.
Siddharth Chatterjee
However, a disturbing characteristic of recent growth in African economies is that the rate at which poverty is reducing is lower than the rate at which the population is rising.Even as Kenya seeks to implement poverty reduction strategies, it should fix a keen eye on the rapid population growth.
Consider this. In 1956, Kenya’s population was the same as Sweden – 7 million. Today Sweden is around 10 million people and Kenya is around 46 million people. By 2030 Kenya’s population is expected to reach 65 million and by 2050 around 90 million. Kenya’s total fertility rate stands at around 4.
The Asian Tigers were able to bring down their total fertility rates, and this allowed them to reap a demographic dividend. Gross domestic product increased sevenfold, an economic boom described as the “Asian economic miracle” followed.
Every girl and woman must be supported and allowed to achieve her full human potential, and be educated and empowered and able to join the work force as well as to plan her family. They are the engines of economic growth.
President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the UNDP’s Africa Human Development Report in August 2016. The report shows that Sub-Saharan Africa loses US$ 95 billion annually due to gender inequality and lack of women’s empowerment.
The place to start is with the youth, with the twin goal of getting young people into agriculture-related jobs as well as providing them with reproductive health services and information.
Lack of information and services – and the often-perilous consequences –leads to mistakes that impact the education and employment opportunities for many.
Kenya must create one million new jobs every year for the next 10 years to cater for the rapidly expanding youth bulge.
With agriculture as the country’s economic base, this is the one sector that can absorb most of the unemployed young people in Kenya, both as semi-skilled and highly skilled labour.
The country’s leadership has clearly put in place the right growth momentum with reduction of poverty as the centre of focus. We must all come together to make that growth inclusive, and to leave no one behind.
The post Hunger and Food Insecurity Plague the Lives of Millions in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.
Excerpt:
Honourable Mr. Moody Awori, is the former Vice President of the Republic of Kenya. Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya.
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Categories: Africa
UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science welcomes leading scientists
By WAM
ABU DHABI, May 28 2018 (WAM)
The UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science, UAEREP, has met one of its second cycle awardees, Dr. Paul Lawson, to prepare for an intensive series of research flights to gather data and take measurements during the third quarter of 2018.
Commenting on the visit, Dr. Abdullah Al Mandous, Director of the National Centre for Meteorology, NCM, said, “Dr. Lawson’s research flights mark a major milestone in his highly innovative research project. Through our awardees’ projects, the NCM and the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science are continuing to develop global research networks and leading international scientific and technological innovation in rain enhancement.”
As the founder of SPEC Incorporated and a participant in over 50 international research projects related to weather modification, Dr. Lawson’s research project, entitled “Microphysics of Convective Clouds and the Effects of Hygroscopic Seeding,” is developing a new approach to rain enhancement that leverages ice production processes in cumulus clouds, through seeding in the updrafts at cloud bases, to coalesce frozen water that ultimately could fall as rain.
Set to take place from Al Ain Airport, Dr. Lawson’s flights will involve a custom-designed Learjet research aircraft equipped with sophisticated sensors to gather data and take measurements.
Commenting on the programme, Alya Al Mazroui, Director of the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science, said, “Regular meetings and reports enable us to provide support and pool our joint expertise to ensure that our awardees’ ground-breaking projects will have the maximum impact. The excellent progress already made by Dr. Lawson and his team confirms that the programme is already having a significant impact, in terms of supporting and enabling advanced research in the field.”
Dr. Lawson’s team will plan their flights based on the NCM radar data identifying optimal locations and times of day for missions. The researchers have already completed extensive preparatory work in the US investigating cumulus clouds with a large range of cloud-base temperatures and drop size distributions. Dr. Lawson’s project in the UAE will be followed by intensive analysis of the data gathered during the flights.
In addition to his discussions with the NCM and the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement team members, Dr. Lawson also met officials from the Gulf Civil Aviation Authority, GCAA, to discuss his aircraft’s projected flight paths, as well as other operational issues.
WAM/Rola Alghoul/Rasha Abubaker
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Categories: Africa
Food Security and Growth in Asia
By Geetika Dang and Raghav Gaiha
NEW DELHI, May 28 2018 (IPS)
A disquieting finding of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017, Building resilience for peace and food security, or (SFSN2017), Rome,is that, in 2016, the number of chronicallyundernourished people in the world increased to 815 million, up from777 million in 2015 although still lower than about 900 million in 2000.Similarly,while the prevalence of undernourishment rose to 11 percent in 2016, this is still well below thelevel attaineda decade ago.Whether this recent rise inhunger and food-insecurity levels signals thebeginning of an upward trend, or whether itreflects an acute transient situation calls for a close scrutiny.
Undernourishment is associated with lower productivity. More importantly, in an agrarian economy with surplus labour and efficiency wages, a weather or market shock could result in rationing out of those lacking adequate physical stamina and dexterity from the labour market. This could perpetuate the poverty of the undernourished, often referred to as nutrition –poverty trap.
By contrast, other indicators of food security have registered improvement. Stunting refers to children who are too shortfor their age. It is a reflection of achronic state of undernutrition.When children are stunted before the age of two, they are athigher risk of illness and more likely thanadequately nourished children to lackcognitive skills and learning abilities in later childhood and adolescence.Globally, the prevalence of stunting of children under five years fell from29.5 percent to 22.9 percent between 2005and 2016. The global average of the prevalence of anaemiain women of reproductive age increased slightlybetween 2005 and 2016. When anaemia occurs duringpregnancy, it causes fatigue, loweredproductivity, increased risk of maternal andperinatal mortality, and low birth weight babies.
Has Asia’s experience been different? It is argued below on the basis of Table 1 that it has been more mixed.
Table 1
Food Security Indicators in Asia
Source: The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017, Building resilience for peace and food security (SFSN2017).
Although proportion of undernourished in different sub-regions of Asia varied within a narrow range in 2004-06, it became narrower in 2014-16. In all sub-regions, the proportion of undernourished fell during this period but slowly, as in Asia as a whole. Under-five stunting is a key indicator of child malnutrition. The range was large in 2005, with a high of 44.6 % in Southern Asia and a low of 9.4 % in Central Asia. The range became narrower in 2016 but Southern Asia continued to have the highest prevalence of over 34 % (but lower than in 2005) and Eastern Asia the lowest of 5.5 % (substantially lower than in 2005). So except for Central Asia which witnessed a slight rise, all other sub-regions recorded reductions in stunting. Prevalence of anaemia among women of reproductive age was widespread with a high of 50 % in Southern Asia and a low of about 19 % in Eastern Asia in 2005. While the prevalence of anaemic women fell in Southern Asia from 50 % to 43.7 % in 2016, this sub-region still had the highest prevalence.
Geetika Dang
Eastern Asia saw a more than moderate rise, South Eastern Asia experienced a negligible reduction, and Central Asia a small reduction. As a result, there was a bunching of high prevalence rate in Central Asia, Eastern Asia and South Eastern Asia, and a consequent rise in prevalence of anaemic women from a high of 33.3 % to 36.6 per cent.SFSN (2017) attributes much of the worsening in food security-especially in Sub-Saharan Africa- to frequency of conflicts, droughts, and fragility of governance, but the analysis is largely conjectural.
As Asia was not so prone to conflicts, we sought to unravel the relationship between these indicators of food security and income growth, allowing for unobservable country –level heterogeneity and residual time effect. Whether the political regime of a country is more inclined to protect the poor and vulnerable -especially children and women in the reproductive age-group- against the risks of undernourishment from weather and market shocks is unobservable but crucial for isolating the effect of income.
Our analysis shows that there are robust relationships between these indicators and per capita income (PPP2011) and the residual time effect. Assessing the effect of income in terms of elasticities, proportionate change in say prevalence of undernourishment/proportionate change in income, we find that the elasticity of undernourishment to income is –0.28, implying that a 1 % higher income will lower prevalence of undernourishment by 0.28 %. A related finding is that the elasticity (in absolute value) rose substantially during 2005-16, implying that a 1% higher income will be far more effective in curbing undernourishment. Moreover, there was a substantial negative residual time effect, implying that controlling for income, other time related factors led to reduction in prevalence of undernourishment.
Raghav Gaiha
The elasticity of under-five stunting with respect to income was also robust, with an elasticity of -0.045, implying that a 1 % higher income will translate into a reduction of stunting by -0.045 %. Compared to the elasticity of undernourishment with respect to income, this is considerably lower. This is not surprising given that stunting is the result of persistent undernourishment over time. In addition, there was a significant negative residual time effect, implying presumably better hygiene and sanitary conditions. The elasticity (in absolute value) rose more than moderately between 2005 and 2016, implying greater sensitivity of under-five stunting to income.Finally, the elasticity of prevalence of anaemia among women in reproductive phase with respect to income was negative but also low (-0.075). So a 1 % higher income is likely to be associated with a reduction in prevalence of anaemia of 0.075 %. The (absolute) elasticity rose slightly between 2005 and 2016. The residual time effect was negative, implying better access to medical services, hygiene and sanitary conditions for women in reproductive phase over time.Although limited in scope, our analysis confirms that income growth is key to food security in Asia. This is not to suggest that other factors (e.g. social safety nets, greater nutritional awareness-especially among women-and education) do not matter. They matter too but call for a broader investigation.
Geetika Dang is an independent researcher; and Raghav Gaiha is currently (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Visiting Scientist, Department of Global Health, Harvard School of Public Health (2015 and 2016).
The views expressed are personal.
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Categories: Africa
DEWA discusses cooperation in renewable energy with Finnish company Valmet
By WAM
DUBAI, May 27 2018 (WAM)
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority; DEWA, has received a delegation from the Finnish company, Valmet in the renewable energy sector.
The delegation included Jukka Hahlantera, Commercial Counsellor of the Finnish Embassy in the UAE; Ari Kokko, Director Technology and R&D at Valmet, and Pasi Lestelin, Energy Sales and Services Operations Southern Europe, Middle East & Africa (SEMEA) at Valmet.
The meeting supports DEWA’s commitment to establish cooperation and joint efforts, and exchange expertise and insights with international organisations.
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer welcomed the Finnish delegation and discussed enhancing cooperation and exchanging best international experiences and expertise between DEWA and Finnish companies in renewable, clean energy and environmental sustainability.
Al Tayer highlighted DEWA’s key developmental projects and strategic initiatives that support the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, which was launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to diversify the energy mix, to ensure that clean energy will generate 75 per cent of Dubai’s total power output by 2050.
“To achieve these goals, DEWA has launched several green programmes and initiatives, including the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Power Park, which is the largest single-site solar park in the world, with a planned capacity of 5,000MW by 2030, and a total investment of AED 50 billion,” explained Al Tayer.
The Finnish delegation expressed interest in participating in DEWA’s clean and renewable energy projects, to promote sustainable development in Dubai and reduce the UAE carbon footprint to achieve a better future for generations to come.
WAM/Hazem Hussein/Tariq alfaham
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Categories: Africa
Chile Debates Whether Citizens Should Profit from Generating Energy
Commercial Habitat, a high-end home appliance store located in the upscale municipality of Vitacura, in the east of the Chilean capital, supplies part of its electricity consumption with energy generated from solar panels installed on its roof. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS
By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, May 27 2018 (IPS)
Chile has become a model country for its advances in non-conventional energy, and is now debating whether citizens who individually or as a group generate electricity can profit from the sale of the surplus from their self-consumption – a factor that will be decisive when it comes to encouraging their contribution to the energy supply.
A Senate committee has analysed whether to eliminate the payments to citizens for their surplus energy established in a law in force since 2012, in response to an indication to that effect from the government of socialist former president Michelle Bachelet (2014-March 2018), which her successor, the right-wing Sebastián Piñera, is keeping in place.
Now it is being studied by the Chamber of Deputies, which has been warned by leaders of environmental organisations that the proposal to eliminate payments to citizens who inject the surplus energy they generate into the grid will sentence these initiatives to death.
Gabriel Prudencio, head of the Ministry of Energy’s Renewable Energy Division, told IPS that the current government aims to make “distributed generation a major element in citizen power generation.”
“We will continue to encourage end users to be able to generate their energy because of the resultant benefits, but we must identify and avoid any inconvenience in terms of economy, especially for those who cannot install these systems, and for the sake of the security of the system,” he said.
Manuel Baquedano, president of the non-governmental Institute for Political Ecology (IEP), said “We hope that this proposal will not succeed and that we can continue with citizen-generated energy. Without the contribution of this sector, the goal of 80 percent non-conventional energy by 2050 will not be achieved.”
The expert believes that the authorities fear that citizen power generation, mainly solar, will become a business in itself and will not be used only for self-consumption and to cut the electricity bills of individuals or small businesses.
“They are legislating against a ghost,” he told IPS. “Energy should be born from thousands of connected points and by a system that allows buying and selling.”
The current installed electricity generation capacity in Chile, a country of 17.9 million inhabitants, is 22,369 MW. Of this total, 46 percent comes from renewable sources (30 percent hydropower), and 54 percent is thermal (21 percent coal).
All electricity generation is in private hands, most of it based on foreign capital. Consumption, which is constantly growing, reached 68,866 GW-h in 2013.
Revolution towards non-conventional sources
Chile’s solar and wind energy potential is 1,800 GW, according to a study by the Ministry of Energy and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GIZ).
If only five percent of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile were used to generate solar energy, 30 percent of South America’s electricity demand could be met, according to the Solar Energy Research Centre (SERC).
During Bachelet’s four-year term, Chile made an unprecedented leap in non-conventional renewable energies (NCRE), which went from contributing five percent of generation in 2013 to 20 percent in 2017.
“Solar energy showed the greatest growth, from 11 MW in early 2014 to 2,080 in late 2017, followed by wind energy, which grew from 333 to 1,426 MW,” said environmental engineer Paula Estévez in the book Energy Revolution in Chile, published by former Chilean Minister of Energy Máximo Pacheco on May 10.
According to Baquedano, “In the country’s energy revolution, the main thing is indeed the change towards renewable energy that took place. Chile’s energy mix is going to be 100 percent renewable at some point.”
Baquedano warned, however, that “the benefits of this energy revolution from the productive point of view have been only for the private sector and have not been passed on to the public sector.”
Prudencio said that “to date, there are approximately 16 MW of installed capacity of systems under Law 20,571 (payments to residential generators), which is equivalent to more than 2,600 operating projects throughout the country.”
A few cases in point
Ragnar Branth, general manager of Commercial Habitat, a high-end furniture and home design store in the municipality of Vitacura in eastern Santiago, installed solar panels on the roof to power a five-kW photovoltaic plant whose generation saves 13.5 percent in annual electricity bills.
“There is a benefit in the monthly fee, but the initial investment is quite significant. We’re talking about more than 20 million pesos (about 32,200 dollars) in the purchase of panels and their installation alone, and that is not compensated in savings until at least the fifth or sixth year of consumption,” he told IPS.
The Canela Wind Farm, with 112-m-high wind turbines and an installed capacity of 18.15 megawatts (MW), generates electricity with the force of the winds coming from the sea in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS
“The government took a good first step with the cogeneration law. However, some adjustments are needed, including the recognition of 100 percent of the energy generated and some kind of benefit in the investment project,” he said.
“If the government wants this to spread and wants there to be significant cogeneration, there has to be a benefit in the investment or some form of tax reduction or benefit,” he added.
In the agricultural county of Buin, south of the city of Santiago, 99 citizen shareholders convened by the IEP financed the community project Solar Buin Uno that built a 10 kW photovoltaic solar plant connected to the grid.
Much of the energy is delivered to the Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST), and the rest is injected into the grid. But the local distribution company pays only up to 60 percent of the value of the kWh billed to the CST. That is, it pays for the surplus only a portion of what it charges its users.
The generation by individuals received a special boost with the Distributed (decentralized) Generation Law, in force since 2017, also known locally as citizen generation.
Andrés Rebolledo, the last energy minister in the Bachelet administration, explained to IPS that this law “aims to encourage and give signals for the generation by citizens and show that homes and small businesses can generate their own energy based on NCRE.”
The former minister said there has been “exponential growth” of citizen generators and stressed that the modification being debated by parliament raises the possibility that they could increase their potential from 100 to 300 kW, favouring small and medium enterprises.
“The objective and vision is that the progress that Chile has made in terms of NCRE generation at the level of large plants can also be taken advantage of at the citizen level and that in this way households can generate their own electricity, save on their electricity bills and at the same time contribute to a more sustainable model,” he said.
“This implies an effort to strengthen the distribution networks, to have another form of measurement so that households can manage their own consumption and generation and, ultimately, so that they can become prosumers, that is, for a household to be both a producer and a consumer of energy at the same time,” he said.
The former minister explained that the request for a debate in parliament “was intended to try to send out signals and offer incentives so that more people could make an investment and this could become accessible to all, always taking care that households do not turn this into a business but rather for their own consumption.”
But non-governmental organisations say it will be a setback if the payment received for the injection of energy into the grid generated by citizens is eliminated.
According to Sara Larraín, executive director of Chile Sustentable, the proposed modification “eliminates the payment for the energy surplus injected by the residential generator over its own consumption.”
That, she told IPS, “discourages households from investing in self-generation and recovering their investment in less time thanks to the retribution for the electricity fed into the grid.”
Speaking to members of parliament, Larraín said that the reform “is a monopolistic distortion in favour of distribution companies that already constitute a monopoly as concessionaires of the distribution service.”
The president of IEP, Baquedano, said that the installation of a second citizens’ plant in the north of the country was suspended pending the legislative decision, “because the model will not work if this legislation is approved.”
“There’s a question mark over what’s going to happen to the energy generated by citizens. The government will have to understand that if citizen energy runs out, the environmental movement will not keep quiet. The conflicts will return, that’s my thesis, and not just my thesis because we are also preparing the scenarios,” he concluded.
Related Articles- Clean Energy Sources Manage to Cut Electricity Bill in Chile
- Ordinary Citizens Help Drive Spread of Solar Power in Chile
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Categories: Africa
Public-Private Pacts Open Doors to Climate Finance in Rwanda and Ethiopia
From left, Anthony Nyong, Director of Climate Change and Green Growth at AfDB, Hyoeun Jenny Kim, Deputy Director General of GGGI, Fisiha Abera, Director General of the International Financial Institutions Cooperation (Ethiopia). Credit: Ahn Miyoung/IPS
By Ahn Mi Young
BUSAN, May 26 2018 (IPS)
The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) presented the African model of a National Financing Vehicle in which the governments of Rwanda and Ethiopia have successfully promoted green growth and climate resilience, at an event May 25 on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Busan, South Korea.
GGGI and AfDB signed a partnership to accelerate Africa’s inclusive and sustainable green growth.
“We will focus on Africa, as we are seeing a huge potential in Africa,” Hyoeun Jenny Kim, deputy director general of GGGI, said in her opening remarks.
“So far, we’ve worked very closely and very extensively with Ethiopia and Rwanda throughout the comprehensive stages of designing and developing projects as well as mobilizing funds,” she told IPS after the side event.
“We’ve so far worked only with a small number of countries… But these climate funding success stories in Rwanda and Ethiopia encouraged us to extend our reach to other Africa countries like Senegal, Uganda or Mozambique,” she added.
After a two-year stint as ambassador to Senegal, Kim, who previously worked at the OECD, joined GGGI in May as its new deputy director general, in charge of planning and implementation of 33 projects in 25 countries.
She emphasized the need for adopting locally relevant green growth paths in Africa, as well as mobilizing funds. “When I was working at OECD, I was seeing the agenda from a global perspective. [While in Senegal as a Korean ambassador], I have seen the unique and particular reality facing each African country. So I understand the need to adapt our climate resilience and green growth initiatives to fit the particular condition of each African country.”
The side event highlighted how Rwanda and Ethiopia have used public investment funding to bring aboard private sector investment with close cooperation with GGGI.
Hubert Ruzibiza, CEO of Rwanda’s Green Fund, revealed how Rwanda has successfully financed green growth and climate resilience through its National Fund for Environment and Climate Change (FONERWA), whose function is to identify and invest in the best public and private projects that have the potential for transformative change that aligns with Rwanda’s commitment to building a strong green economy.
The fund has created about 137,000 green jobs, rehabilitated 19,304 area (ha) of land against erosion, and made about 28,000 families connected to off-grid clean energy.
“FONERWA has a global track record as the national financing mechanism by bringing together public and private sector investment,” Ruzibiza noted.
The side event also highlighted the GGGI-Ethiopia partnership to design, develop and implement Ethiopia’s political commitment to CRGE (Climate Resilience Green Economy), as well as its national financing mechanism called the Ethiopia CRGE Facility, which is the country’s primary financial instrument to mobilize, access and combine domestic and international, public and private sources of finance to support the institutional building and implementation of the CRGE Strategy.
“As we are raising the green growth and climate resilient funding, especially from small and medium-sized business that constitutes about 90 percent of our business, so are the number of projects increasing,” said Fisiha Abera, Director General of the International Financial Institutions Cooperation in Ethiopia.
GGGI has been working closely with the government of Ethiopia since 2010 to omplement its CRGE strategy. GGGI supported CRGE to mobilize a 60-million-dollar grant from the Adaptation Fund (AF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), as well as another 75 million in climate finance. Most recently, GGGI helped mobilize 300 million dollars from the international private sector for the Mekele Water Supply Project.
“The CRGE model shows the importance of the government’s political commitment in which the government takes a holistic national approach. So our advisers are working closely with a wide variety of government functions,” said Kim.
The AfDB and GGGI signed an MOU on the sidelines of the African Development Bank Group’s Annual Meetings in Busan to promote programs, conduct joint studies and research activities to accelerate green growth options for African countries, as well as to work together in the GGGI’s cities programs and the AfDB’s initiatives on clean energy, sustainable landscapes, green cities, water and sanitation, with the ultimate goal of strengthening climate resilience in Africa.
The MOU was signed by Kim of GGI and Amadou Hott, Vice-President, Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, AfDB.
Ban Ki-moon, who previously served as the eighth Secretary General of the United Nations, took office as President of the Assembly and Chairman of the council of GGGI on March 27.
Headquartered in the heart of Seoul, GGGI has 28 member states and employs staff from more than 40 countries. Its areas of focus include green cities, water and sanitation, sustainable landscapes, sustainable energy and cross-cutting strategies for financing mechanisms.
AFDB is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the AfDB, the African Development Fund and Nigeria Trust Fund NTF. Working on the ground in 44 African countries with an external office in Japan, the AfDB contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states.
Related Articles- Ethiopia’s Green Growth Goals: A Launchpad for Wider Climate Action in Africa
- Unlocking Private Finance for Developing Countries’ Green Growth
- “Green Development Has to Be Equal for All”
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Categories: Africa
IOM, WHO, DR Congo Ministry of Health Partner to Stop Ebola from Spreading to Kinshasa, Neighbouring
There are concerns that Ebola could spread more widely without proper health screenings at Congo River ports. Photo: IOM
By International Organization for Migration
KINSHASA, May 25 2018 (IOM)
Last week, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), cases of Ebola were confirmed in Mbandaka, a city with a population of 1.2 million people some 150 kilometres from where the outbreak originated in Bikoro Health Zone, Equateur Province.
The fact that Mbandaka is connected by river routes to DRC’s capital Kinshasa as well as cities in the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, has fuelled concerns that the disease could spread more widely.
In order to mitigate this risk, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, the DRC Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted this week joint assessments at various points of entry to the capital to gauge the strength of the area’s epidemiological surveillance system. The assessment focused on migration routes from the affected province of Equateur through the ports of Maluku and Kinkole on the Congo River and at the Beach Ngobila in the capital Kinshasa.
The assessment team found boats in the ports, which often travel between Kinshasa and the Equateur Province, stopping at several ports and carrying a few hundred people at a time. Sanitary conditions were very poor and health screenings non-existent at these ports.
One boat captain told IOM that his “boat carries hundreds of passengers to different localities along the Congo river from Kinshasa, Kisangani through Mbandaka.” He added “I often bring people from Mbandaka and Bikoro (epi-centre of the outbreak) with hunting meat for sale.”
These assessments, carried out with the National Border Health Program, enabled response teams to immediately identify practical measures to strengthen health surveillance around the capital city.
These include training, equipping and deploying response teams to the river ports, whilst carrying out community mobilisation activities in villages upstream on the Congo River.
“There is a need to ensure that there are strong health screening, hygiene and sanitation measures in place in this environment where there is high risk for transmission” said Jean Philippe Chauzy, IOM’s Chief of Mission in the DRC. “These ports do not meet international standards for boarding and disembarking and the lack of effective surveillance could lead to Ebola cases being found in Kinshasa,” added Chauzy.
“It is important that ports in Kinshasa are included in preparedness efforts. Kinshasa is connected to Mbandaka and Bikoro through the Congo River – and Lake Tumba for Bikoro. From Kinshasa, travelers can reach any place in the world. Kinshasa is a home of more than 60 private and small ports along way Congo river. Travel and trade of cities along the Congo, Kasai and Ubangi rivers are intense. Strengthening public health capacities for early detection and response to Ebola, as well as other infectious diseases, is important in points of connection such as these two ports,” said Dr. Teresa Zakaria from the WHO surge team.
As of 22 May 2018, three health zones in the Equateur Province were affected, including Bikoro, Iboko and Wangata, with 58 cases including 27 deaths.
Since the beginning of the outbreak declaration, IOM has been conducting Population Mobility Mapping at the border points and in the affected areas to quantity and gather information on population movement.
IOM is also supporting the deployment of a team of epidemiologists, veterinarians, and hygiene specialists from the Ministry of Health to affected areas and nearby border areas. These teams are currently conducting health screenings and risk communication activities, while also putting in placs infection prevention and control measures at 16 key point of ntry to Equateur, Mai-Ndombe and Kinshasa.
IOM is appealing to donors USD 1.3 million to continue and expand its reponse to the Ebola outbreak.
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Categories: Africa
Pompeo’s Iran Speech a Prelude to War?
By Stephen Zunes
SAN FRANCISCO, May 25 2018 (IPS)
The United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech this past Monday targeting Iran may have created a new benchmark for hypocritical, arrogant, and entitled demands by the United States on foreign governments.
The speech included gross misstatements regarding the seven-nation Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear program, which Trump Administration unilaterally abrogated earlier this month.
More critically, it promised to impose “the strongest sanctions in history” against Iran, including secondary sanctions against governments and private companies which refuse to back the U.S. agenda, unless Iran changed a series of internal and regional policies. With the re-imposition of such sanctions, Iran will no longer have any incentive to stick to its part of the nuclear deal.
Most of the Iranian policies cited by Pompeo are indeed problematic, yet are hardly unique to that country. Furthermore, the failure to offer any kind of reciprocity effectively guarantees that the Islamic Republic will reject any changes in its policies.
For example, Pompeo demanded that Iran withdraw its troops from Syria—which are there at the request of the Syrian government—but made no demand that Turkish or Israeli forces withdraw their troops from Syrian territory. Nor did he offer to withdraw U.S. forces.
Pompeo similarly demanded an end to Iranian support for various militia groups in the region, without any reciprocal reduction of support for rebel groups by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or the United States.
And Pompeo demanded that Iran cease providing missiles to Houthi rebels, who have fired them into Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign and siege of Yemen. There was no offer to end the U.S. policy of providing the bombs, missiles, jet fighters to Saudi and Emirati forces which have killed many thousands of Yemeni civilians.
Pompeo further demanded Iran provide “a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program,” despite the fact that this limited research effort ended more than fifteen years ago. Of course, there was no offer that the United States or its allies rein in their own nuclear programs. Israel, Pakistan, and India have never opened up their nuclear facilities to outside inspections, despite two U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on them to do so.
Though most arms control agreements have historically been based on some kind of tradeoff, Pompeo insists that Iran unilaterally cease its ballistic missile program while making no such demand of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, or other allies in the region. Nor is there any offer to limit U.S. ballistic missiles, even though U.S. missiles are capable of striking Iran while no Iranian missiles have the capability of coming anywhere close to the United States.
And while Pompeo was right to criticize the Iranian regime’s corruption, economic mismanagement, and human rights abuses, he expressed no qualms about the even worse records of U.S. allies in the region
Perhaps the most hypocritical demand in Pompeo’s speech was that Iran “must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government,” which the United States has repeatedly subverted for a decade and a half.
In fact, Iran is already in compliance to some of Pompeo’s other demands, such as stopping production of enriched uranium and allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency full access to its nuclear facilities. The Iran nuclear pact already limits Iranian stockpiles to an extremely low enrichment level of 3.67 percent, well below the 90 percent needed for weapons production, and guarantees extensive and intrusive inspections of all nuclear-related facilities.
It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which the Trump Administration claims the only recourse is war.
No nation can be expected to comply with such unilateral demands, particularly coming from a country which is responsible for far more destabilizing policies, civilian deaths, and weapons proliferation in the region than is Iran. Pompeo made his demands knowing they would be rejected.
And that may be part of a deliberate strategy. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in the not-too-distant future in which the Trump Administration claims that since “sanctions didn’t work,” the only recourse is war.
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Excerpt:
Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco.
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Categories: Africa
Why Would an Immigrant Support Trump?
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Categories: Africa
Digital Revolution Holds Bright Promises for Africa
Techies in Lagos, Nigeria, work on an open-source project. Credit: Andela/ Mohini Ufeli
By Eleni Mourdoukoutas
UNITED NATIONS, May 25 2018 (IPS)
Internet penetration is creeping up in Africa, bringing the prospect of digital dividends to a continent long marked by digital divides.
“Africa has reached a penetration which has broken the barrier of 15 %, and that’s important,” says Nii Quaynor, a scientist who has played a key role in the introduction and development of the internet throughout Africa. He is known as the “father of the Internet” on the continent.
However, Africans have not developed the ability to produce enough software, applications and tools to give economies the dividends they sorely need.
The shift to low-cost submarine connections from satellite connections is less than a decade old. The new undersea fibres have led to a remarkable increase in data transmission capacity that drastically reduces transmission time and cost.
Today 16 submarine cables connect Africa to America, Europe and Asia, and international connectivity no longer presents a significant problem, reports Steve Song, founder of Village Telco, an initiative to build low-cost telephone network hardware and software. This has allowed countries to share information, both within the continent and worldwide, more directly. It has created more space for innovation, research and education.
“Networks have ended the isolation of African scientists and researchers. You now have access to information from the more developed countries, and this is changing the way people think,” says Meoli Kashorda, director of the Kenya Education Network.
Internet penetration on the continent has not kept pace with mobile phone diffusion. In 2016 only 22% of the continent’s population used the Internet, compared to a global average of 44%, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN agency that deals with issues concerning information and communication technologies. And only 11% of Africans could access 3G internet, which allows mobile operators to offer a high data-processing speed.
Access to technology
The ITU notes that the people most likely to have access to digital technology in Africa are males living in urban areas or coastal cities where undersea fibres are available.
McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, estimates that if Internet access reaches the same level of penetration as mobile phones, Africa’s GDP could get a boost of up to $300 billion. Other experts concur that better access to technology could be a game changer for development and the closing of the income inequality gap in Africa.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the richest 60% are almost three times more likely to have internet access than the bottom 40%, and those in urban areas are more than twice as likely to have access as those in rural areas, according to the World Bank’s World Development Report 2016.
The World Bank’s development report of 2016 notes that digital dividends, which it describes as “broader development benefits from using these technologies” have not been evenly distributed. “For digital technologies to benefit everyone everywhere requires closing the remaining digital divide, especially in internet access,” maintains the Bank.
Businesses that incorporate digital technologies into their practices will create jobs and boost earnings, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB). The bank reported in 2016 that two million jobs will be created in the ICT sector in Africa by 2021. Analyst programmers, computer network professionals, and database and system administrators will find jobs in the sector.
Although the World Bank paints a less rosy picture for digital dividends in Africa, the potential for millions of jobs in the sector is encouraging news for the continent’s youths, who make up 60% of Africa’s unemployed and are jobless at a rate double that of adults. Youths can easily take advantage of the jobs that digital revolution brings, says Bitange Ndemo, a former permanent secretary in Kenya’s ministry of information and Communication.
Technology can also help bridge inequalities caused by the education gap. According to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), over one-fifth of children between the ages of six and about 11 are out of school, along with one-third of youth between the ages of about 12 and about 14. Almost 60% of youth between the ages of about 15 and about 17 are not in school.
On the bright side, as mobile Internet access expands, so will the Internet’s potential to narrow the continent’s education gap. E-learning continues to grow due to its affordability and accessibility.
In fact, IMARC Group, a market research company with offices in India, the UK and the US, reported earlier in 2017 that the e-learning market in Africa will be worth $1.4 billion by 2022. It will improve the education level of Africa’s workforce that will contribute positively to the continent’s economies.
Eneza Education, for example, a Kenya-based learning platform, surpassed one million users in 2016. The platform allows users to access learning materials using various devices. They can access courses and quizzes via text messages for only 10 Kenyan shillings ($.10) per week. Eneza caters to students and teachers in rural areas where opportunities are limited.
Also, Samsung’s Smart Schools initiative equips schools around the world with tablets, PCs and other devices, and builds solar-powered schools in rural areas. Currently 78 Smart Schools are operating in 10 African nations, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. The company’s strategy is to encourage underprivileged students to use digital devices.
With women 50% less likely to use the internet than men, some organisations are now making efforts to attract women to the digital world. Digital technologies can provide opportunities for women in the informal job market by connecting them to employment opportunities.
Analogue complements
High digital penetration is good, but good governance, a healthy business climate, education and health, also known as “analogue complements,” will ensure a solid foundation for adopting digital technologies and more effectively addressing inequalities, advises the World Bank. Even with increased digital adoption, the Bank says, countries neglecting analogue complements will not experience a boost in productivity or a reduction in inequality.
“Not making the necessary reforms means falling farther behind those that do, while investing in both technology and its complements is the key to digital transformation,” notes Bouthenia Guermazi, ICT practice manager at the World Bank.
Yet digital migration is receiving pushback from obsolete analogue operators who are concerned about the risks of digitizing. Automation poses a threat to those whose jobs can be done by cheaper and more efficient machines, a phenomenon that primarily affects already disadvantaged groups. For example, many banks and insurance companies have automated customer services.
The United Nations has set the goal of connecting all the world’s inhabitants with affordable, high-speed internet by 2020. Likewise, the African Union launched a 10-year mission in 2014 to encourage countries to transition to innovation-led, knowledge-based economies. This mission is part of its ambitious Agenda 2063, aimed at transforming the continent’s socioeconomic and political fortunes.
Rwanda is leading the charge via its Vision 2020 programme, which aims at developing the country into a knowledge-based middle-income country by 2020. Earlier this year, Rwanda rolled out its Digital Ambassadors Programme, which will hire and train about 5,000 youths to teach digital skills to five million people in the rural areas.
Unfortunately, digitization ranks low on the priority lists of many developing countries. And according to a recent report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), productivity gains from digitalization may accrue mainly to those already wealthy and skilled, which is typical in internet platform-based economies, where network effects (additional value for service as more people use it) benefit first movers and standard setters.
In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, an intergovernmental economic organization of 35 countries, where the digital economy has evolved the most, growing use of ICT has been accompanied by an increasing income gap between rich and poor.
The UNCTAD report also states that developing the right ICT policies depends on countries’ readiness to engage in and benefit from the digital economy, but the least-developed countries are the least prepared. To ensure that more people and enterprises in developing countries have the capacity to participate effectively, the international community will need to expand its support.
Guermazi urges leaders to develop a comprehensive approach to transforming their countries rather than rely on ad hoc initiatives.
“Digital dividends are within reach,” Guermazi insists. “The outlook for the future is bright.”
*Africa Renewal is published by the UN’s Department of Public Information (DPI).
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Excerpt:
Eleni Mourdoukoutas writes for Africa Renewal*
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Categories: Africa
Ethiopia’s Green Growth Goals: A Launchpad for Wider Climate Action in Africa
Landscape of Tetchia in Southern Ethiopia. Credit: GGGI
By Dex Agourides
May 25 2018 (IPS)
The vision for a sustainable future in Africa is being realized at a time of great possibilities and this vision is underpinned by a shift in continental focus towards sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development. This focus highlights strategic efforts towards poverty alleviation, resilience building, promoting sustainable infrastructure and, efficient management of natural resources.
With this, East Africa stands as one of the fastest growing region on the continent, with a projected economic growth rate of 5.9% in 2018 and 6.1% in 2019. Within the region, Ethiopia is amongst the top contributors to this growth, with notable growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) averaging 10.8% between 2003 and 2015 (Second Growth and Transformation Plan – GTP II 2015/16-2019/20).
East Africa stands as one of the fastest growing region on the continent, with a projected economic growth rate of 5.9% in 2018 and 6.1% in 2019. Within the region, Ethiopia is amongst the top contributors to this growth
Ethiopia’s rapid development is largely attributed to a public investment-led development strategy that has produced tangible growth and has measurably improved social circumstances. These interventions have been guided by a series of targeted macro-economic planning instruments, namely, the First and Second Growth and Transformation Plans (GTP I 2010-2015 >P II 2015-2020), which outline the goals and benchmarks for Ethiopia to reach middle-income status by 2025.
Still, while inclusive growth and development is occurring, it has been differentiated in terms of distribution of gains across geographical regions and socio-economic groups. This is partly attributed to the fact that Ethiopia has one of the most complex and variable climates in the world as a result of its location between various climatic systems and its diverse geographical structure.
Ethiopia, and its expanding socio-economic systems, are thus left vulnerable to adverse effects of climate change. So much so that by 2050, several key shifts in the climate are expected to develop, namely: Continued temperature increases; Annual rainfall variability and; Overall shifts in seasonal rainfall patterns.
Thus, climate change has the potential to leave the goals of reaching middle-income status by 2025, highly susceptible – the negative impact on the GDP is estimated to possibly reach 10% or more by 2050 – leaving the most vulnerable groups disproportionately impacted.
Recognizing the seriousness of this, Ethiopia stands committed to building a Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE), through developing a CRGE Strategy, which has been fully integrated into the GTP II at federal and sector levels. The CRGE embodies a political commitment to green growth nationwide as well as a realization that climate resilience is a core development priority for the future.
The CRGE is anchored in the following pillars: Sustained economic growth, at an average of 11% per annum (in real terms); Protection from the adverse effects of climate change and build resilience and; Limited emissions for this development trajectory and achievement a 64% reduction by 2030. It is based on this that Ethiopia has submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC’s), making it one of the first Least Developed Countries (LDC’s) do this, with one of the most ambitious targets set by any economy globally.
As such, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) has been supporting the Government of Ethiopia since 2010, with the development and implementation of its CRGE vision and strategy – developed at sector level for Agriculture and Forestry (2014) and for Water and Energy (2015). GGGI’s in-country delivery model consists of embedded expert/advisory technical support and capacity building to support CRGE ambitions and remain responsive to the dynamic issues facing its full realization.
Interventions are in fundamental alignment of CRGE strategic priorities, namely incentivizing targeted interventions and focused investment approaches that go well beyond the notion of ‘growth at all costs.’ Interventions are instead anchored in the principle of shared responsibility in building long-term, sector-wide resilience capacity to achieve carbon neutral growth.
To help ensure the bold vision and ambitions of the CRGE are fully realized by all of its principal stakeholders, GGGI supported the establishment and operationalization of the CRGE Facility, the CRGE’s principal national financing vehicle, based in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation (MoFEC).
This work has been focused on supporting the facility with positioning itself to mobilize and channel resources for climate action from domestic, international, public and private sector sources and the capitalize bankable green growth projects. In line with this, in 2015 and 2016, GGGI supported MoFEC attain direct access accreditation by the Adaptation Fund (AF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), respectively.
Further, in 2017, GGGI supported the Facility with the mobilization of USD 60 million from the AF and GCF and mobilization of USD 75 million from bilateral development partners towards Ethiopia’s large scale Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) Implementation Program.
With all that said, as we move forward and continue to build on the milestones reached in Ethiopia thus far, we draw on key lessons to continue to develop, scale-up and replicate climate-smart interventions to collectively achieve transformation and advance green growth development in the country and on the continent at large.
Our work moving forward shall continue to be focused on interventions that: Are aligned with Ethiopia’s key national strategies and implementation plans and anchored by its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); Demonstrate real potential for transformational impact and; Demonstrate replicability/scale-up potential at national and continental levels, towards further unleashing climate smart opportunities in Africa.
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Excerpt:
Dex Agourides is Head of Programs - Africa & Europe, Global Green Growth Institute
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Categories: Africa
Energy Cooperatives, Fogged Mirrors for Latin America
Public buildings and businesses, such as this organic vineyard in the town of Ingelheim-Großwinternheim in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, have embraced renewable energy in Germany to encourage citizen participation, create local employment, promote the local industry and protect the environment. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS
By Emilio Godoy
WÖRRSTADT, Germany, May 24 2018 (IPS)
“It made me angry that a company from outside the region was making money from renewable energy and I wondered why people weren’t getting involved,” says Petra Gruner-Bauer, president of the German co-operative SolixEnergie.
So Gruner-Bauer, founder of the organisation, began to raise awareness among her neighbours in Wörrstadt, a city in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, about what a co-operative was, the importance of citizen participation and community benefits.
“I wrote down on a piece of paper the things that needed to be changed and tried to convince people, and they got involved. It’s the power of people. We are at the same time members and entrepreneurs, we focus on making sure that each person receives renewable energy,” she told IPS in an interview.
The cooperative, which has 116 members, was set up in 2011 and has already developed two solar panel projects and a wind farm, generating more than seven million kilowatt-hours a year, benefiting 5,000 people in a town of 30,000.
To become a co-op member, the minimum investment is 1,022 dollars, and this year the rate of return on capital is less than one percent.
This co-operative is one of 42 of its kind operating in the energy sector in Rhineland-Palatinate, a state that has been a pioneer in the development of alternative renewable energy sources in Germany, generating 10,000 jobs. Nearly 50 percent of the region’s energy supply is based on renewable sources.
At a national level, energy co-operatives currently comprise 900,200 members, with an investment of some 1.83 billion dollars.
In 2016, German individuals and co-operatives owned 31.5 percent of the renewable energy facilities, making it the segment that receives the most investment in the energy sector, according to a study published in February by the German consulting firm Renewable Energies Agency.
German co-operatives have been instrumental in the progress made towards the country’s energy transition by fostering citizen empowerment, producing energy locally, providinga source of socio-economic wellbeing and reducing polluting emissions.
Of the basket of alternative energies, 36 percent of electricity generation comes from renewable sources, such as wind power, biomass, solar, hydroelectric and waste.
The energy transition, through a gradual replacement of fossil fuels with environmentally friendly alternatives, is part of the mechanisms established at the global level to contain global warming.
“Energy co-operatives are a very safe and easy way to participate in the energy transition, investing little money. They are highly decentralised, they help strengthen the local value chain, encourage public support for the transition and unleash financial potential,” Verena Ruppert, president of the Network of Citizen Energy Co-operatives of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, told IPS.
This network brings together 24 members, 22 of which are energy co-operatives, which in turn comprise 5,000 individuals and more than 200 businesses, communities and religious organisations. The members of the co-operatives have invested some 85 million dollars in solar roofs, wind farms, biogas plants and residential retrofit projects.
Based on wind and solar energy, Germany is moving towards a future based on alternative energy sources, such as with this private wind farm in the city of Wörrstadt, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS
These energy cooperatives have a favourable environment in Germany, which facilitates their leadership in this field, as is also the case in Australia, Denmark and the United States, leading models in the industry.
Hurdles faced in Latin America
In contrast to Germany, in Latin America these co-operatives have not taken off, except in a minority of countries, despite the benefits they offer.
In countries such as Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, laws related to co-operatives recognise their role in various sectors, such as energy, but electricity regulations create barriers blocking their development.
The legislation does facilitate a role for co-operatives in countries such as Argentina and the Dominican Republic, while Bolivia, Colombia and Costa Rica also have regulations aimed at promoting such participation.
In Argentina, a country of 44 million people, energy co-operatives date back to the 1990s and already cover 16 percent of the domestic market, with some 500 electric co-operatives comprising more than one million members, according to figures from the Buenos Aires Federation of Electric and Public Services Co-operatives.
In 2016, the government of the northern province of Santa Fe created the Prosumidores– a play on words combining “producers” and “consumers” -Programme, which finances citizens who go from being mere consumers to also becoming producers who generate electricity and sell their surplus to the grid.
Brazil, for its part, has provided financial incentives since 2016 for distributed (decentralised) small-scale solar energy systems to enable individuals and businesses to generate their own electricity.
Costa Rica has also promoted this model, with four co-operatives accounting for nine percent of national power distribution and six percent of Costa Rica’s electricity generation.
This is highlighted in a report published in September 2017, “Renewable Energy Tenders and Community [Em]power[ment]: Latin America and the Caribbean“, prepared by the international Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (Ren21).
These Costa Rican entities generate some 400 megawatts – mainly from hydroelectric power plants and a small volume of wind power -, comprise more than 200,000 members, provide electricity to some 400,000 customers and employ almost 2,000 workers.
Since 2015, Chile has also been promoting participatory generation through the government’s Energy Commune programme, which seeks to promote efficiency through the use of local renewable energies and for which it has created a community fund.
So far, the initiative manages eight projects in six municipalities and has organised two calls for proposals for more than 112 million dollars for the benefit of 34 communities.
The German transformation formally started in 2011, based on six laws that favour alternative generation through a surcharge for producers, the expansion of the electricity grid to encourage the incorporation of renewables and cogeneration to take advantage of energy wasted in fossil fuel facilities.
The reform of the Renewable Energy Law, in force since January 2017, set a fixed rate for the sector – fundamental for the progress made in renewables – and created auctions for all sources.
The changes reward those who generate electricity at a lower cost, impose generation caps, and limit the setting of fixed tariffs only for cooperatives and small producers.
But in Latin America, community energy ventures face legal, technical and financial barriers.
In Mexico, the Electricity Industry Law, in effect since 2014, makes it possible to launch local projects generating less than one megawatt, but virtually excludes them from the electricity auctions that the government has held since 2016.
At least 12 countries in the region organise renewable energy auctions that, because of their financial, technical and business requirements, exclude cooperatives, preventing them from further expansion.
That’s not the case in Germany, where they are now aiming for a new stage.
“The transition needs heating and transportation. We don’t want to focus only on power generation, but also on environmental protection,” said Gruner-Bauer, whose organisation is now moving into electric car sharing to reduce use of private vehicles.
Ruppert said they can cooperate with Latin American organisations. “But it’s a decision of the board of directors. We can help, but first we need to know the needs of co-operatives,” he said.
The REN21 report recommends reserving a quota for participatory citizen projects and facilitating access to energy purchase agreements, which ensures the efficiency of tenders and the effectiveness of fixed rates for these projects.
In addition, it proposes the establishment of an authority for citizen projects, capacity-building, promotion of community-based energy projects, and the establishment of specific national energy targets for these undertakings.
This article was made possible by CLEW 2018.
Related Articles- From Mega to Micro, a Transition that Will Democratise Energy in Brazil
- Latin America Faces Uphill Energy Transition
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Categories: Africa
UAE’s FANR signs MoU with China’s Nuclear Safety Administration
By WAM
VIENNA, May 24 2018 (WAM)
The UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation, FANR, signed today a Memorandum of Understanding with China’s Nuclear Safety Administration, NNSA, on the cooperation and exchange of information in nuclear safety regulation.
The MoU was signed on the margins of the 6th Review Meeting of the contracting parties to the joint convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, that is being held in Vienna, Austria from 21st May to 1st June 2018.
The signed MoU establishes a platform of cooperation between the two nuclear regulators to exchange technical information, cooperate in nuclear safety regulation as well as provide training opportunities for FANR’s employees to be trained at the NNSA’s facilities.
The signed MoU establishes a platform of cooperation between the two nuclear regulators to exchange technical information, cooperate in nuclear safety regulation as well as provide training opportunities for FANR’s employees to be trained at the NNSA’s facilities.
Hamad Ali Al-Ka’abi, Permanent Representative of the UAE to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, and Deputy Chairman of FANR’s Board of Management , and Liu Hua, Administrator of NNSA signed the five-year agreement.
“Cooperating with international organisations and advanced countries in the area of nuclear regulation is essential for any nuclear safety regulator. Such cooperation supports FANR’s efforts as the UAE’s nuclear regulator to share experience and continuously enhance its performance. Also, it supports its efforts to build sustainability of the regulatory infrastructure in the UAE,” said Al Kaabi.
Internationally, FANR has over 19 international agreements and MoUs signed with international organisations and regulatory authorities of other countries to build national capacities, exchange of knowledge and information.
NNSA, is China’s government agency that was established in 1984 to conduct independent and an objective nuclear safety supervision of civilian nuclear facilities in China and regulate nuclear safety. China has 38 nuclear reactors that are in operation and 18 under construction.
WAM/Rasha Abubaker/Esraa Ismail
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Categories: Africa
IOM, Partners to Assist Business Leaders in Combatting Human Trafficking
The Interactive Map report gives an overview on the current stakeholder landscape on human trafficking. Photo: Modernslaverymap.org
By International Organization for Migration
LONDON, May 23 2018 (IOM)
The Interactive Map for Business of Anti-Human Trafficking Initiatives and Organisations was launched yesterday (22/05) at the British Telecom Centre in London.
IOM, the UN Migration Agency, as part of the RESPECT Initiative, joined the Global Business Coalition Against Trafficking (GBCAT), and the United Nations Global Compact through its Action Platform on Decent Work in Global Supply Chains organizations in launching this platform.
The Map is designed as a knowledge-sharing hub for countering human trafficking and will provide companies and other stakeholders with a global list of initiatives that can help them combat this abuse in their operations and supply chains.
IOM has an ongoing relationship with private sector leaders to address human trafficking. In 2017, the Organization partnered with the Global Initiative against transnational organized crime (GI) and Babson College’s Initiative on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery to form the Responsible and Ethical Private Sector Coalition against Trafficking (RESPECT).
The launch event included a keynote speech by Baroness Philippa Stroud. IOM was represented by Sarah Di Giglio, IOM UK.
“In our globalized economy, the demand for cheap labour and services is what is driving human trafficking. Yet, the responsibility of the industries and consumers demanding cheap labour and cheap goods often goes unrecognized,” said Di Giglio. “Until we, the global community, address this demand and recognize that goods are sold cheaply because of the exploitation of workers including migrant workers, our efforts to end human trafficking will be wholly inadequate,” she added.
As a unified resource of information, the Interactive Map includes a repository of best practices and a stakeholder mapping report to serve as a primary resource for businesses engaged in combating human trafficking and forced labour.
Since 1994, IOM has worked extensively to combat human trafficking. For the past 14 years, the Organization has implemented more than 2,600 projects in over 150 countries and has assisted tens of thousands of trafficked persons.
To learn more about the Interactive Map, please visit: http://www.spumma.com/modernslaverymap/
For more information, please contact Jorge Galindo, IOM HQ, Tel: +41227179205, Email: jgalindo@iom.int
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Categories: Africa
Unlocking Private Finance for Developing Countries’ Green Growth
St. Vincent and the Grenadines has installed 750 kilowatt hours of photovoltaic panels, which it says reduced its carbon emissions by 800 tonnes annually. Credit: Kenton X. Chance/IPS
By Friday Phiri
PEMBA, Zambia, May 23 2018 (IPS)
Climate finance has never been more urgently needed, with massive investments in climate action required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid the devastating effects of a warmer planet.
However, it is an open secret that public financing mechanisms alone are not enough to meet the demand for climate finance, especially for developing countries whose cost to implement their conditional Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and transition to low-carbon economies is pegged at 4.3 trillion dollars.Scaling up and accelerating innovative approaches to climate finance from multiple sources, including the private sector, has emerged as a key strategy to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
This is a huge price-tag when compared to the Green Climate Fund (GCF’s) current coffers, which are still being counted in billion terms. The GCF is one of the designated UNFCCC financial instruments created at COP 17 in Durban, South Africa.
Therefore, scaling up and accelerating innovative approaches to climate finance from multiple sources, including the private sector, has emerged as a key strategy to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement through long-term and predictable climate-smart investments.
It is for this reason that the World Bank and partners has been organising platforms in which ways of leveraging public resources with private sector financing are discussed.
One such platform is the Innovate4Climate, launched in 2017 in Barcelona. It serves as an integral part of the global dialogue on climate finance, sustainable development, carbon pricing and markets.
This year’s event, set for Frankfurt from 22-24 May, with four thematic areas, convenes global leaders from industry, government and multilateral agencies for a one-day Summit, workshops and a Marketplace, to work and dialogue on development of innovative financing instruments and approaches to support low-carbon, climate-resilient development pathways.
The Business Case for Climate Investment
Under this pillar, the focus is on the important role of the private sector to fight climate change. It explores climate-related business opportunities such as how to create markets for climate investments, and which approaches are effective in de-risking investment opportunities.
At the meeting, this stream is set to showcase sustainability and climate-resilient initiatives of business associations and industries, present models of collaboration and partnerships between public and private sector, as well as analyse trends and new initiatives in mobilizing development/climate finance, to match developing country investment needs with private sector capital.
A classic example under this theme is the GCF blended model—the use of four financial instruments: concessional loans, equity, grants, and guarantees that can be used through different modalities and at various stages of the financing cycle. Debt and equity instruments help close a specific financing gap for specific projects and programmes, thus bringing more projects and programmes to fruition, while guarantees help to crowd in new private sector financing from multilateral development banks, national development banks, and others.
“We are starting to see it already with the GCF,” says Fenella Aouane, Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI’s) Principal Climate Finance Specialist. “They put out the 500-million-dollar private sector facility…they have gone into the market for the entirety of the private sector globally, they put out a call for proposals to spend up to 500 million. Now relate that to the fact that in a single board meeting in February, they approved projects worth 1 billion.”
NDC Implementation—policies and finance
Another central theme of the Innovate4Climate conference this year is focusing on improving access to finance and support for capacity building to successfully implement countries’ NDCs. This stream targets initiatives aiming at getting “further-faster-together” for NDCs implementation.
The key questions revolve around how to improve access to available funding and mobilize new sources, to strengthen climate finance readiness and accelerate disbursement of climate finance, how to increase and sustain ambitions, and ensure accountability and how to reduce transaction costs through standardisation and simplifying processes.
Innovation for Climate Resilience
Technology is a crucial component of the Paris Agreement’s means of implementation pillar. There is no question that innovative technologies and financial instruments are changing the narrative of climate change resilience. Thus, this stream presents achievements and models in climate smart agriculture, climate action in cities, and disaster risk management among others.
And in relation to the theme of technology, Tony Simon, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), recently emphasised the importance of adopting locally-relevant options that enhance agricultural productivity, for example, in relation to climate change adaptation and mitigation through exploring innovative finance instruments.
“Explore innovative finance instruments,” said Simon at the UNFCCC organized first regional Talanoa which was part of the Africa Climate Week, held in Nairobi in April 2018. “Private equity offers a huge amount of money. Use the money from CTCN and other sources to pull in other funds and use that as an opportunity to blend financing for climate change initiatives.”
Climate Market and Metrics
Under this theme, the focus is on the contribution of market-based approaches to efficient and cost-effective climate change mitigation. Delegates will discuss current and future trends around practical outcomes of international negotiations on Article 6 (voluntary cooperation on mitigation and adaptation actions). The theme also seeks to understand what can be expected from aviation and shipping.
“One area where forestry hopes the private sector may be interested is—the airline industry is currently trying to decide how it will offset its emissions as an industry and one way that might do this is through the purchase of carbon offsetting assets so that could be forestry in the form of some level of carbon credit,” GGGI’s Fenella told IPS. “If they do this, then there will be a possible clear return for investors.”
While the Innovate4Climate conference gets underway in Frankfurt next week, it seems the private sector approach by GGGI is already paying dividends. According to its 2017 Annual report, GGGI helped mobilize over half a billion dollars for green investments that aim to support developing countries and emerging economies transition toward environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive economic growth.
It contributed to the mobilization of 524.6 million dollars in green investments in Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Rwanda and other countries in which the Seoul-based international organization operates.
“This is a record achievement for GGGI, representing more than 11 times the organization’s actual budget in 2017,” said Dr. Frank Rijsberman, GGGI Director-General. “Working closely with partner countries over the years to develop and implement policies that enable the environment to for green growth investment, GGGI is now demonstrating its growing capacity to access and mobilize finance for projects that deliver strong impact.”
With GGGI technical support to design and de-risk bankable projects, of the total amount mobilized, 412 million came from the private sector.
And just to highlight some countries in Africa, in Ethiopia, GGGI produced a pipeline of projects for the Mekelle City Water Project that helped attract 337 million dollars from the international private sector, while in Rwanda, GGGI catalyzed a 60-million investment from the private sector for a Cactus Green Park Development Project in Kigali, to support Rwanda’s secondary cities program.
Role of Multilateral Banks
The discussion on green economic growth and the increasing need for private sector climate financing cannot be complete without mentioning the role of multilateral banks. According to the World Bank, concessional climate finance is one critical strategy under this pillar, to support developing countries to build resilience to worsening climate impacts and to catalyzing private sector climate investment. Through this approach, collectively, the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) increased their climate financing in developing countries and emerging economies to 27.4 billion dollars in 2016 – including more than 11 billion from the WBG.
From an African perspective, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has been instrumental to the green growth discourse and the need for African countries not to follow the fossil fuel development pathway.
And in its efforts to foster a green growth economic pathway, in 2014, the AfDB released the first-ever Green Growth Framework—to function as a foundational reference document for its work on green growth. The bank was therefore instrumental in the formulation of Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI).
The initiative, which came out of COP21 and subsequently approved by the African Union, aims at delivering 300GW of renewable energy by 2030.
The AfDB also played a key role in de-risking one of Africa’s gigantic multi-billion-dollar solar power investment in Ouarzazate, Morocco, an example of a green growth economic model, which requires multi-million-dollar investments that cannot be done by public financing alone.
Mustapha Bakkaoury, president of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN), told delegates at COP 22 that his country’s renewable energy revolution would not have been possible if multilateral partners such as the AfDB had not come on board to act as a guarantor for financing of the project.
About the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)
Based in Seoul, GGGI is an intergovernmental organization that supports developing country governments transition to a model of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive.
GGGI delivers programs in 27 partner countries with technical support, capacity building, policy planning & implementation, and by helping to build a pipeline of bankable green investment projects.
More on GGGI’s events, projects and publications can be found on www.gggi.org.
Related Articles- When Two Becomes One: Blending Public and Private Climate Finance
- Africa Gains Momentum in Green Climate Solutions
- Climate Finance: The Paris Agreement’s “Lifeblood”
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Categories: Africa
Ministry of Climate Change and Environment hosts upcycled food Iftar
By WAM
DUBAI, May 23 2018 (WAM)
In a departure from norms for the Holy Month of Ramadan, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, MoCCAE, hosted an upcycled food iftar utilising food that would have otherwise been wasted if it was not consumed during this event for high-level public and private sector officials.
The iftar was held in partnership with food tech company, Winnow, and leading UAE-based global property developer, Emaar.
The creative healthy and tasty iftar dishes, for example, featured underutilised cuts of meat and overripe fruits, sending out a powerful message to local and global communities to prioritise judicious food consumption and eliminate food wastage.
One-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year approximately 1.3 billion tonnes is either lost or wasted. In the UAE, food wastage costs the national economy around AED13 billion annually.
Highlighting the idea behind the unique event, Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, pointed out that the Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, of the United Nations reported that roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year approximately 1.3 billion tonnes is either lost or wasted. In the UAE, food wastage costs the national economy around AED13 billion annually.
Dr. Al Zeyoudi said, “Today, I am pleased to reaffirm the UAE’s commitment to meeting the global target to reduce food loss and waste by 50 percent by 2030 as per the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 12 that underscores sustainable consumption and production. As part of this priority, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment is working closely with local authorities and the private sector to reduce food loss through the production and consumption cycle.
“I am also pleased to announce that UAE-based hospitality companies are ready to take on the challenge to reduce food waste and are pledging tonight to save one million meals by end-2018. This target will be increased to two million meals in 2019 and three million meals in 2020. Companies that are already onboard this noble mission include Emaar, Majid Al Futtaim and Rotana. I invite others ready to participate in this pledge to sign-up throughout this evening and beyond.”
Olivier Harnisch, Chief Executive Officer of Emaar Hospitality Group, said, “This is a remarkable initiative that not only underlines the UAE’s commitment towards a sustainable future but is also a tangible step in preventing food wastage. The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment’s focus on helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 12 serves as an inspiration for every section of the community, especially for the hospitality sector that can lead the change through measures that promote the judicious use of food resources. At Emaar Hospitality Group, we are honoured to be partnering in this event, and will continue to promote sustainable food management across all our hotels.”
Marc Zornes, Co-Founder and CEO of Winnow, said, “The hospitality sector in the UAE is spearheading the global fight against food waste. We are incredibly proud of the fantastic results the chefs partnering with Winnow have achieved. These pioneers have proved that it is possible to do the right thing for both business and the planet. However, we are really just getting started, and we look forward to scaling our impact with our partners as we work towards an ambitious target of saving over one million meals a year from the bin.”
WAM/Esraa Ismail/MOHD AAMIR
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Categories: Africa
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