NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Institutional reform is a key intervention towards ensuring the resilience of African economies and the livelihoods of communities, says the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
According to James Murombedzi, Officer-in-Charge of ACPC, communities have long practiced many adaptation strategies and devised many viable responses to changing conditions.
“However, there are limits to how well communities can continue to practice adaptive livelihoods in the context of a changing climate. They need the support of an enabling environment created by government-planned adaptation,” he observed.
He was addressing a forum on climate governance preceding the Seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-VII) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Conference comes on the heels of the IPCC report on Global Warming of 1.5oC which says the world is heading towards catastrophe if immediate action is not taken to halt greenhouse gas emissions.
“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,” said James Murombedzi. “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 and services”
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms what the impacts of climate change that African is already experiencing.
Mithika Mwenda of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) said the implementation of climate policies remains crucial.
“The successful implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), a set of actions each country has committed under Paris Agreement to combat climate change, will be determined by the policy and legal frameworks which will be laid down by individual countries,” he noted.
African economies and communities are generally dependent on natural resources. The use and management of these natural resources also tends to be characterized by institutional structures which are poor, making them vulnerable to climate extremes.
CCDA-VII will focus on mobilizing action towards the achievement of the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
The ACPC, through the ClimDev Africa initiative, is already exploring the climate governance prospects for Africa structural transformation towards achieving the aspirations of Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“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” said James.
With the support of DfID, the ACPC is also implementing the Weather and Climate Information Services (WISER) which seeks to promote the production and use of climate information, and contributes to building the capacities of hydrological and meteorological authorities across the continent.
The ACPC has also developed a five year programme which seeks to support African countries in building resilient infrastructure and economies.
Climate finance is however a major constraint to climate action.
The ACPC posits that “if local governments access decentralized climate finance, they should be empowered to disburse these climate funds for investment in priorities chosen with communities for adapting to climate change”.
The International community has been reacting positively to the just released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calling for urgent actions to save the planet from worsening climate disasters.
Environment actors say the long-awaited special report on global warming of 1.5C is expected to bring urgency to the upcoming climate talks.
"We need urgent action and the report is timely enough" says Mithika Mwenda, SG of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, PACJA, co-organisers of the seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa October 10-12, 2018.
The IPCC report confirms that limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C would be significantly better than breaching the 2°C threshold, supporting calls for a definitive stop to fossil fuel use and a rapid transition to energy systems based on 100% renewable energy.
Reacting to the IPPC report, the secretariat of the UN Climate Change, UNFCCC welcomes the call that will unlock practical actions and contributions towards the Paris Agreement’s goals, noting that governments have set a deadline for themselves to finalise the agreement’s implementation guidelines at the annual UN Climate Change Conference this December in Katowice, Poland.
“These guidelines will build trust by ensuring transparency. They will enable each country to act and contribute, they will allow all of us to see what each country is doing, and they will allow us to have full clarity on the provision of support, especially climate finance now and in the long-term,” UNFCCC secretariat said in an October 8,2018 press release.
Officials of the World Meteorological Organisation have saluted the report calling on different governments and other actors to act fast.
“ There is need to act fast to save the world from worsening climate disasters,” says Petri Taalas of the World Meteorological Organisation.
The report calls on the need to stop fossil fuel extraction and redirect resources on renewable energy.
“The science in the IPCC report on 1.5°C speaks for itself. Staying under 1.5ºC is now a matter of political will. Burying our heads in the sand cannot be contemplated as an option any longer. The climate crisis is here and already impacting the most vulnerable and the least responsible for creating it. The only way to achieve it is to stop all fossil fuel extraction and redirect the massive resources currently spent on the fossil fuel economy towards the renewable energy transition”.
Apolos Nwafor of OXFAM international says, ” there is need to speed up finances to carry out actions that will benefit of our children, the farmers and many others impacted by the growing effects of climate change.”
Communities worldwide are already resisting fossil fuel development and calling for a deep transformation of our energy systems and economies. Some of these stories of resistance can be found in the newly released People’s Dossier on 1.5°C.
The Dossier puts faces and voices onto the facts and data provided by the IPCC special report. It contains the stories of 13 communities fighting on the frontlines of climate change: from young Pacific Islanders trying to stop the Adani mega-mine to fishermen communities in Africa battling against new coal plants; from the struggle to stop a gigantic gas pipeline among the olive groves of Southern Italy to the landowners and Native Americans putting solar panels on the route of the Keystone XL pipeline.
350.org also lauded the report indicating in a release that its activists will also launch a globally coordinated delivery of copies of the IPCC report, demanding that all institutions withdraw their support from the fossil fuel industry and stand up to them before it’s too late.
The IPCC report explores in detail the impacts of a world 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels and the feasibility of avoiding greater increases in temperature, while current national plans -if implemented - are only consistent with a world over 3°C warmer.
Keeping the world from warming over 1.5°C will prevent considerable disruption to all of the Earth’s systems and allow for some ecosystems to partially recover from climate change after 2100, knowing that 20% to 30% of emitted CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for a time ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand years.
The 1.5°C target is feasible, provided enough economic resources are invested early enough to dramatically accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels and the uptake of renewable energy and energy saving technologies across the board. Within the next decade or so, we will need to radically change the way we build our houses, move from one place to another and grow our food.
As development stakeholders meet in Kenya for the seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa, it is expected that the report is a clear call to drive Africa’s nationally determined contributions and define actionable agendas regarding them as proposed by Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) programme.
ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Twenty-seven nations across Africa have now committed to restore 111 million hectares of degraded land as part of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and the Bonn Challenge – exceeding the 100-million-hectare AFR100 target.
In realizing these commitments, countries will spur climate resilience, economic growth and more.
AFR100 was launched in 2015 in response to the African Union (AU) mandate to bring 100 million hectares of land into restoration by 2030. The initiative is led by the African Union’s NEPAD Agency in partnership with 27 participating countries, 27 technical and 12 financial partners. Founding partners include NEPAD, the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), World Resources Institute (WRI), GIZ, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the World Bank.
During the 3rd Annual AFR100 Partners Meeting in Nairobi this August, member country representatives, as well as technical and financial partners supporting implementation, reaffirmed that the initiative is a powerful lever to bring forest landscape restoration to scale.
“It is a testament to the continuing political will to restore landscapes across Africa that the AFR100 partnership has exceeded its 100-million-hectare target in commitments. We must sustain this momentum and move from pledges to implementation. There are already many examples of restoration success underway in African communities from which we can collectively learn, to realize these commitments,” said Wanjira Mathai, Senior Advisor, WRI and Co-Chair, Global Restoration Council.
In the margins of the meeting, two countries pledged to restore a combined 19.6 million hectares of land towards the 100-million-hectare target: Burkina Faso (5 million hectares) and the Republic of Sudan (14.6 million hectares). These pledges follow commitments made by Togo (1.4 million hectares) and Tanzania (5.2 million hectares) in the weeks prior to the meeting.
“Sudan is delighted to be able to commit to restore 14.6 million hectares of degraded land as part of AFR100. Restoration in Sudan will support in the reduction of youth immigration and food security for the poorest communities, as well as help the country to respond to international commitments,” said Ali Hamid Osman, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for the Sudan Sustainable Natural Resources Management Project and Sudan’s AFR100 Focal Point.
“The fight against desertification and land degradation is a major challenge for Burkina Faso's sustainable development and economic vitality. Our 5-million-hectare commitment to the AFR100 Initiative will improve food security and create more robust livelihoods, both of which are conducive to resilient restoration and productive agro-ecosystems. In our context, special attention and effort should be given to sustainable employment and entrepreneurship for young people and women, to provide economic opportunities through the restoration of our lands and forests,” added Adama Doulkom, Coordinator of the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and the Sahel, Burkina Faso.
“Indeed, of all the Bonn Challenge’s regional platforms, AFR100 is the most successful, contributing over half of the current global commitment of 170 million hectares. Ideas can only take root if they are owned and while many have contributed to this momentum we must recognize the fundamental role that NEPAD has played in making this an African led and owned initiative, and particularly the inspiring work of Mamadou Diakhite and his team.” stated Stewart Maginnis, Global Director, Nature-based Solutions Group, IUCN.
Restoration is widely understood as a key pathway to meet climate change, desertification, biodiversity and sustainable development goals in Africa, and to secure vital food, water, and energy resources.
“In times of ever-increasing pressure on land, water, and biodiversity, the restoration of degraded forests and lands is more urgent than ever. Bringing back trees into the land offers multiple benefits for sustainable development, the fight against poverty and hunger, for conserving biodiversity and for adaptation to climate change. Restoration is spectacular in that every $1 invested there is the potential for $27-$35 in return. Seeing communities who restore their land reap a share of their restoration proceeds, is an honour,” said Mamadou Diakhite, Sustainable Land and Water Management (SLWM) Team Leader at the NEPAD Agency, home to the AFR100 Secretariat.
“It was a great success that the Global Landscapes Forum conference in Nairobi took place back-to-back with the third annual AFR100 partners meeting at the end of August there. We have sent a strong signal for the integration of reforestation, restoration and sustainable rural development. The broad concept of landscape restoration provides us with strong ideas in the fight against hunger and poverty through implementing the entire Agenda 2030 – and mainly SDG2 (zero hunger) and SDG15 (life on land),” said Bernhard Worm, Senior Policy Officer at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Participants of the recent AFR100 meeting also endorsed the motion to have the United Nations
General Assembly (UNGA) declare a UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, first proposed in March 2018 by El Salvador’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources – intended to increase the visibility of and resourcing for countries’ restoration efforts.
Nairobi, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Eleven different African institutions have come together through a consortium to build capacities of African scientists who are researching on common diseases, especially those that are transmitted from livestock to human and vice versa through a concept known as ‘One health.’
“Many times we treat tuberculosis in humans, but it doesn’t work because it is originating from livestock animals,” said Dr Bassirou Bonfoh, the Director for the consortium also known as African Science Partnership for Intervention Research Excellence (ASPIRE).
“One health concept therefore recognises that the health of people is connected to the health of animals and the environment, and must therefore be tackled wholesomely,” said Bonfoh.
One Health is therefore defined as a collaborative, multisectoral, and trans-disciplinary approach -working at the local, regional, national, and global levels - with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.
The consortium is currently supporting 60 young African scientists (Master, PhD students and Postdocs) who are currently researching on different diseases that include TB, brucellosis, rabies among many others.
From Kenya for example, James Akoko is one of the fellows studying brucellosis for his PhD at Maseno University.
Brucellosis is one of the neglected diseases, and it is transmitted from livestock to humans through poor meat handling, consumption of unpasteurized dairy products and direct contact with infected animals.
“My study seeks to understand the role of different animals in the treatment of the disease,” said Akoko.
He notes that if one is infected with the disease, then it is important to understand the origin in order to address the disease conclusively.
“In many cases, we treat brucellosis without knowing whether the patient picked it from a goat, a cow or even a camel,” said Akoko. To address this, his study insists on interviewing the patient to understand the very animals they interact with, what kind of meat they eat and also the milk they take so as to know the target for vaccination.
Through the consortium, Akoko is linked to supervisors based in Kenya, Tanzania and Switzerland. “We coordinate through skype meetings, emails, workshops and even conferences,” said the researcher.
Other researchers are focusing on major steps towards elimination of rabies in Africa.
“There is evidence that rabies can be eliminated. But we have not been able to do it,” said Bonfoh.
The scientists are therefore involved in efforts to eliminate rabies in Tanzania, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire using an all inclusive e approach of ‘One health.’
“Governments need to take up the fight against these important diseases, which affect mostly the poor,” said Bonfoh. “But the problem has been that nearly all governments focus on priority diseases while neglecting some very important ones,” he said.
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - African Civil society organisations (CSO’s) have raised concerns on lack of follow up and implementation of environmental policies by African governments.
In a statement to the 7th special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), the CSOs observed the need to move away from talk shows where policies are discussed but little or nothing is done in terms of implementation.
With reference to the theme of this year’s AMCEN, “turning environmental policies into action through innovative solutions”, the CSOs called for coordinated approaches in the implementation of activities, and avoid a stand-alone working culture by government ministries, which they said, was currently the case in most African countries.
They bemoaned most governments’ insistence on the top to bottom approaches and disjointed policy implementation.
“We have been part of this process for a long time and having policies after policies at both local and national levels but what we have had challenges with is how to implement these policies,” said Mithika Mwenda, Secretary General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). “It doesn’t matter so much that we meet every year and do a declaration, what we are looking at is how to put these issues into action.”
Citing the food systems sector, the CSOs urged governments to embrace innovations that link agriculture to all related natural resources and environmental management policies.
“We urge governments to link agriculture policies to land tenure systems, farmer cooperatives, extension and advisory services and adopt policies that allow small scale farmers to get easy access to farmland, integrating policies for national security such as export policies, energy policy, water policy, seed policy, post-harvest wastage, health of soils and organic methods such as Agro ecology,” read part of the statement.
And in support of addressing the perennial market access challenge especially among smallholder farmers, the CSOs believe the promotion of public- private partnerships and platforms in marketing of agricultural products among government ministries, could help farmers move up the economic ladder.
Another issue of concern for African CSOs, which formed part of their two day consultation prior to the AMCEN, is resource and waste management. Under this pillar, they called for life cycle approaches, urging governments to integrate informal sector such as private waste collectors into formal policies and laws, monitoring and promote the principles of extended producer responsibility and encourage take back schemes combined with financial incentives to encourage recycling programmes.
“We further urge the governments to integrate sound waste management practices at school curricula and integrate these into education policies to encourage attitude change,” they said.
And with the realisation that Africa was a net importer of goods and services, the CSOs called for development of a cost effective way of protecting Africans from chemical hazards in the imported goods.
“To regulate such, we urge African ministers to support the establishment of a new global framework for plastic pollution and nominate African experts to the ad-hoc expert working group on marine litter and micro plastics mandated by UNEA 4,” they proposed.
According to available statistics, air pollution is believed to contribute to over 9 million premature deaths (16% of all deaths globally), especially linked to inefficient waste management such as open burning.
On this score, the CSOs said they would like to see air pollution control as a high priority for African governments through integrated planning, health surveillance, and transparent reporting mechanisms, not only to slow the pace of climate change but also control non-communicable diseases.
The civil society organisations were drawn from across Africa under the umbrella of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - It is imperative for African Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to advocate for innovative solutions to overcome environmental challenges facing Africa, UN Environment regional director for Africa, Juliette Biao Koudenoukpo said on Sunday.
“This continent has the capacity and the knowledge to innovatively overcome our environmental challenges. We need to move faster from the ‘business as usual’ approach and devise ways and means to address issues such as rising energy costs, poverty, environmental degradation, pollution and social inequality or changes in legislation” Koudenoukpo told a cross-section of CSOs in Nairobi during a two-day consultations to prepare for the seventh special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) and the fourth session of the UN Environment Assembly. The meeting, co-organized by UN Environment and Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) brought together 120 participants from accredited organizations across Africa.
“African countries need, more than any time before, to invest in innovative solutions to unlock its economic and social potential and create inclusive wealth for the wellbeing of their populations” she emphasized adding that innovation should happen at the policy, finance, market and partnership levels.
“Remember that people, especially youth, should be at the heart of driving this process. Our youth have so many innovative ideas and initiatives that can make a difference in transforming our societies” Koudenoukpo said.
The commitment and genuine involvement of all social groups are critical to the effective implementation of the policies and projects in the field of environment and sustainable development, Koudenoukpo said.
