IKOM, Nigeria (PAMACC News) - Chiamaka Abraham is a hygiene hero from Ikom LGA, Cross River state, South-south Nigeria. She attends Holy Trinity Academy and she is 8 years old. Chiamaka recently visited another school in her neighbourhood (PCN Primary School, Ikom) to talk about the importance of handwashing with soap or ash and the implication of not practicing handwashing at critical times. She demonstrated how to and supported in constructing a handwashing gallery for the school. She also demonstrated the steps to proper handwashing to the host pupils. At the end of her discourse and demonstrations, she entertained questions from the school kids, and boldly advised the management of PCN Primary school to encourage good hygiene practices such as effective handwashing in the school. On what motivates her, she informed the WASH unit staff that she would not want to contact germs that would lead to illness for her, making her parent spend money in the hospital or she dying as a result. She further said, ‘I want to be part of the campaign to save other children’s lives. I want to advice all children to always wash their hands with soap and water, else they contact germs. If they contact germs, they will fall sick, spend money in the hospital or die. Today I visited PCN primary school, to tell them the importance of Handwashing. I will continue to preach this message to all children around me, to save their lives and save mine too’. Global Handwashing Day 15th October, together with its cousin World Toilet Day on 19th November, brings attention to the most basic issues – hygiene & sanitation – that to our shame still account for two million child deaths a year.A third of the world’s population – 2.4 billion people – live with poor sanitation and hygiene which, according to the World Bank, costs countries $260 billion annually. Every day 2,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday due to diarrheal diseases, the vast majority caused by poor sanitation and hygiene. Diarrhea alone has killed far more young children in Nigeria over the last 12 months – around 150,000 – than Boko Haram’s slaughtering and the wars in Syria combined. Whilst we continue the daily search for even a hint of a resolution to these two brutal and complex conflicts, we already know the simple solution to tackling hygiene and sanitation-related diseases.We know that handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrheal diseases - reducing incidence by up to 47% - and combined with improved sanitation, this is boosted to 68%. We know that in countries with the highest child mortality rates, as few as 1% of people wash their hands effectively and that the global average is only 19%. Most frustratingly, effective tools and participatory methods are readily available and it is estimated that interventions that promote handwashing could save close to a million lives. So why is hygiene promotion not a focus of most development projects?The relative…

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation and the World Bank are working towards an agricultural observatory platform that will enable institutions access high resolution agro-meteorological data. The partnership is to support Kenya Climate Resilient Agriculture (KCSAP) project under the Ministry of Agriculture Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation to pilot the Agricultural Observatory Platform for the sector for one year. The data that will be received from satellites will help policy makers and farmers optimize on data that supports agro weather, market, climate and advisory markets. Speaking during the launch of the pilot Agricultural Observatory Platform, KALRO Director General Dr. Eliud Kireger said the biggest challenge in agriculture performance has been lack of accurate, timely and reliable weather. “This data will be able to give accurate information as it will observe information such as temperature, weather and rainfall that will be availed to scientists to make sense of it and in turn provide digital meteorological information using modern ICT tools,” he said. Kireger added that depending on the focus given through the platform, information collected will also be availed to policy makers and farmers to make timely and informed decisions.For the farmers, the DG said they will be able get information on how to prepare early depending on indication of the weather such as early rainfall, poor rainfall or even lack of and thus plan. He said that the policy makers and through the observatory platform will now be able to advise farmers through the Agricultural extension systems on even the variety of maize they need to plant depending on the area data. Kireger noted that the two-year Agricultural Observatory Platform will be able to aggregate field and farm level data into able information that provides insight in addressing the challenge of where it rained, where crops failed and how many people were impacted. The Lead Agriculture Economist from the World Bank, Ladisy Komba Chengula said that the system will be up and running by end of the month. He explained that with only 23 meteorological sites that are providing agro weather data and mostly concentrated in Central and rift valley the current observatory platform will be providing data on rains, temperature, wind and speed in an area of 9 by 9 kms square. “This access is high resolution, reliable and it means we will be having 7,200 agro weather stations that will be giving data,” he said. Chengula explained that the current 23 Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) owns the ground stations that compliments the data gotten from the satellite and will cost yearly subscription of USD 50,000 which is a subsidy considering one MET stations would cost USD10, 000. “The biggest climate risk Kenya has is drought which alternates with floods even with good rains, this platform will see scientism be able to predict when floods will happen and in which area,” he said. Agronomists says two weeks delay of rains means that 40 percent reduction of yields will occur but with this system one can…

LAGOS, Nigeria (PAMACC News) - Mariam Shuaibu, is one of the 845 victims of insurgency residing at the Gongola Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp, in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory. Mariam, like other peers suffering the same fate, finds succor in this camp, after activities of insurgency in Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State, made them flee their homes in 2015, being ravaged by terrorists. At a visit to the temporary make-shift community along airport road, one could see the untold hardship glaring, with look of despondency, not knowing where the next meal or succor would come from. Narrating her ordeal was a tale of dashed hopes of resettlement and rehabilitation of their home in Madagali Local Government Area in Adamawa, North-east Nigeria.According to her, several attempts at relocation to their base met a brick wall, following continuous insurgent attacks. Mariam noted that the camp which had become home to her family and other settlers, was being neglected by the government of the day, noting that these was evident without access to potable water and sanitation facilities. ``We don’t have any good source of water here, all we use is the stream that is a kilometer away, there were two occasions when two women going to fetch water were bitten by snakes. ``This is not the first time that this has happened, we had to take them to the health center in Karamajiji Lepers village, a distant community to assess first aid care for them.Mariam, a mother of four, also bemoaned the lack of toilet facilities at the make-shift community, saying they had to make use of surrounding bushes to defecate in the open.Another settler, Hannatu Peter, worried about continued cases of occurrence of infection women suffer from lack of toilet, saying the cost of hospitalization was taking its toll on them. ``We go to the stream, we don’t have water here, even toilets, it is the use of bush, a woman was bitten by a snake while defecating in the bush, and another one was bitten when she went to pick firewood for cooking. ``We want them to help us, especially on this toilet and water issue, some women urinate anywhere and get infected, majority of us are having infections, to treat it in hospitals is expensive,” Peter said. Curious to know the hygiene situation of the community, I had the opportunity to witness poor living conditions, with the smell of open defecation permeating the air.Without been told, one would believe that open defection practice in that community was the reason why a large number of the children had bouts of cholera.The camp Chairman, Mr Joseph Jauro, noted that there was the need for immediate interventions from the relevant stakeholders, saying this was necessary to forestall future occurrences. He recounted numerous cases of diarrhea and cholera cases and deaths among under-five children, saying this was been linked to poor sources of drinking water.Jauro narrated the difficulty in getting water, adding that water vendors usually came around to sell…

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - I have the honor to represent the African Climate Policy Centre in this esteemed gathering, the first National Climate Governance Conference, which has been convened by our partner organization, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, to discuss national issues relating to the governance of the climate response in Kenya. We are extremely grateful to PACJA and to the Kenyan Government for hosting this conference. Kenya has developed a sophisticated framework for the governance of climate change in the Country. The Kenya Green Economy Strategy and Implementation Plan (2016-2020) is designed to guide the country’s transition to a low carbon, resource efficient, equitable and inclusive future. The plan recognizes that in order to succeed, substantial resources are required in the form of finance, investment, technology development innovation and transfer, and capacity building. It further recognizes that integration of Green Economy in the national and county planning and budgeting processes are also crucial. Climate change is cross cutting. It affects every aspect of life, and our ability to achieve the SDGs or indeed any of the aspirations of agenda 2063 is constrained by climate change. Because of its cross cutting nature, climate governance is complex. It requires the participation of multiple stakeholders, with sometimes conflicting interests. The world is heading towards catastrophe if immediate action is not taken to halt greenhouse gas emissions. As we all are aware, the IPCC yesterday released its 1.5degrees report in South Korea. The report confirms what we are already experiencing iun Africa, and is a cause for serious concern. Last night I took time to skim through the report. Some of the major findings of the report include the following: Climate change is happening at a rate much faster than previously estimated. Global warming is outstripping all our efforts to resolve it. The impacts of global warming are also already much greater than predicted, particularly in developing countries to avoid passing he 1.5 degrees guardrail, we need to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030 – we have under 12 years to achieve that. And to have a 50% chance of staying within the 1.5 degrees threshold the world must become carbon neutral by 2050, in only in only 32 years. Avoiding a catastrophe will require a major transformation of society and the world economy on an unprecedented scale Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees will cost $2.4 trillion of investments in the global energy system every year between 2016 –2035 (this is equivalent to 2.5% of world GDP). He cost of not doing anything will be much, much higher We must all get involved in resolving this challenge We have adequate knowledge of the causes of global warming, and the science is conclusive. There is no room for climate deniers in this discourse However, the inaction that we have seen is not because there is insufficient knowledge or technology or finance. We have enough of these to be able to change the way in which we produce, distribute and consume goods…