BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) In an innovative push to better drive its development projects in the continent, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is looking forward to launching the Africa Environment Partnership Platform in May 2018.

The Platform NEPAD officials say will serve as a coordinating organ to help galvanize resource mobilization efforts and for pursuing resource mobilization strategies, approaches to support the implementation of environmental initiatives, particularly those identified in the Environment Action Plan.

“We have great initiatives on land degradation, like the great green wall, Grow Africa Programme, Africa Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), so we hope this platform will be able to help us better coordinate these different activities,” Estherine Fotabong NEPAD Director of Programmes implementation and coordination said in an interview with PAMACC at COP23 in Bonn,Germany.

The Environment Partnership Platform according to a concept note from NEPAD is in responds to a request from the African Union Summit which mandated African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) to conduct a substantive analysis of the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) Summit and develop a roadmap for the effective implementation of the outcomes in Africa.

“The platform will coordinate, mobilize resources, foster knowledge and align support for the implementation of the Environment Action Plan,” the concept note stated. Additionally, the 14th Session of AMCEN of September 2012, decided to develop and implement Regional Flagship Programmes (RFPs) as a means to ensure the effective implementation of the outcomes of the Rio +20 Summit.

The platform will seek to deliver a paradigm shift in addressing environmental degradation in Africa, in both public and private sectors and to develop innovative models. It will also engender the prerequisite political support, needed institutional structures and adequate human capacity at national and regional levels to ensure integrated environmental management.

The environment, though a cross cutting, will remain distinct and adequately harmonized with other sectors and priorities like agriculture, infrastructure and energy. Climate related risks will increasingly be mainstreamed into development and adaptation actions that will be carried out in priority regions and sectors to meet the need of especially vulnerable rural populations in Africa, according to NEPAD.

The rural populations of Africa are heavily dependent on natural resources for livelihoods with the ecosystem providing food, medicine, energy and construction materials, thus the need to better coordinate project activities geared at guaranteeing food security.

“Food security for Africa is not only derived from agriculture but also from natural resources and the ecosystems,” Fotabong points out. The platform is in response to a strong imperative to adopt a multi-sectoral approach to programme designing and implementation and strengthen the necessary synergies and improve coordination at various levels.

To achieve this, a country-driven and regionally-integrated Initiative that will provide the tools for action and platform for partnerships that will deliver results has become imperative.

Coordinated by NEPAD, the initiative will be fully aligned with and be an integral part of the CAADP framework, as well as cultivating the necessary multi-sectoral engagements, including the environment, natural resources and climate change policies and programmes.

“To support countries, a virtual and physical African Alliance was established where knowledge is exchanged to identify best practice and partnerships across stakeholder groups are catalysed,” she said.

Accordingly,the platform will also foster a coherent African development Agenda as well as sustaining the collective power and urge for action. It will also facilitate assessment of individual (country, region, sector, etc.) performance against continental and even global benchmarks. Fotabong says they hope to get many development partners align in support of the new programme that will also serve as a collaborative platform to identify innovative sources of financing.

“We are also looking forward to the alignment of development partners to support these programmes” Building partnerships is a critical success factor for the sustenance of the platform given the multiplicity of actors and its ability to deliver on the mandate assigned to it by AMCEN. The platform will therefore create an avenue for constructive dialogue, especially as Africa could benefit from the experience of countries across the world that have achieved considerable environmental sustainability.

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - African countries are already spending up to 20 percent of their total needs presently on climate adaptation, which is more than their fair share without any support from the international community, a new study by the United Nations has revealed.

Early findings from the study jointly commissioned by the UNDP Regional Office for Africa, and the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to review African commitment to adaptation has therefore dismissed the insinuation that African countries are not investing in their own climate adaptation responses and are instead waiting on the international community as recipients of support.

“African countries are already spending between 2 to 9 percent of their Gross Domestic Product on adaptation, thus reducing the potential impact of climate change by more than 20 percent,” Dr Johnson Nkem, a Senior Climate Adaptation expert at the ACPC told PAMACC News at the ongoing climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany.

The UN study is being implemented by two United Kingdom centres; Climate Scrutiny and Mokoro, to provide estimates of Africa’s public expenditure on adaptation as a proportion of the total cost for adaptation.

Although the level of investment as a proportion of GDP expenditure varies among countries, it ranges between 2-9 percent of GDP; and represents more than other forms of expenditure in public services such as healthcare and education.

“This contribution is significantly higher than the adaptation resource flow from international sources,” said Nkem.

The study therefore recommends that the disproportionate share of investment in adaptation as opposed to its smallest share of contribution to the global Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, needs to be fully recognised and boosted under global financing mechanism for climate response, especially under the implementation of the nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Some of the study’s key findings are that, African countries are already making a major contribution to adaptation that constitutes; that for Africa as a whole, the estimated adaptation gap is about 80 percent; and that the adaptation gap is greater than 90% in nine countries. Most of these countries face major exposure and sensitivity to climate change risks as well as fiscal challenges.

Countries that have reduced the potential impact of climate change by more than 20 percent, include those with low climate change risks like Liberia, Namibia and Zimbabwe; high expenditure, for example Ethiopia, Gambia, Zambia; and lower risk and good expenditure countries like Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda.

The objectives of the Review of African Commitment to Adaptation was to provide some initial estimates of the current spending on adaptation by African governments, and to assess the extent to which this funding meets the scale of the adaptation challenge as determined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other assessments.

According to Nkem Ndi, there is a growing political will and socio-economic motivation in addressing climate change in Africa’s development agenda as demonstrated by the level of public expenditure on adaptation to climate change in the continent.

He pointed out that most adaptation expenditure in Africa is primarily linked to development expenditure that provides good benefits with current climate conditions.

Estimates of the adaptation expenditure were provided by classifying the most recent public finance data, preferably actual expenditure data rather than budget data, if it is available.

Actual data for 10 countries, and data obtained from the internet for additional 24 countries were used for the analyses in this study. The entire analyses in the study does not include expenditure by development partners that is outside the budget.

The study notes that despite its miniscule share of responsibility for the causes of climate change, Africa has always been labelled as a tenuous recipient of development assistance, with unending expectations of support in addressing climate impacts on its development.

While this stigma is baseless, it remains to be fully disbarred using empirical studies demonstrating regional investments for climate adaptation by the countries.

 

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - Regional and local leaders attending COP23 in Bonn have made it very clear that global warming is worsening, and that its consequences are upon humanity.

At a moment of escalating environmental crisis on land, air and sea, leaders including those from Africa signed the Bonn-Fiji Commitment on Sunday November 12,2017 at COP23 in Bonn, to take further, faster action to deliver the Paris Agreement at all levels of government.


“The truth is undeniable,” said Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace international director. “The escalating environmental crisis again expose the dire threat to people on the frontlines of climate change.”

But the African civil society groups are wary of the multiplicity of commitments, calling on the Global community to instead take a common stand against Trump and his allies.

" We are tired of signing commitment after commitment. It is time to classify the global community into two: those for the people and planet, and those for Trump and Profit," says the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance.

"Unless we see accelerated action on the implementation of the Paris Agreement pursuant to Marrakech Action Plan by industrialised countries, signing commitments for faster climate action without kicking Trump and his allies from climate negotiations turns logic on its head," PACJA's Mithika Mwenda said.
 
Humans themselves, through a combination of deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transportation, are almost entirely at fault exposing human habitat to climate threats, thus the need for a critical self examination, the leaders emphasized.

With more than half the global population living in cities and expected to approach two thirds by 2050, the Bonn-Fiji Commitment of Local and Regional Leaders to deliver the Paris Agreement pushes forward efforts to advance sustainable urban development as an integral part of  urgent global climate action and the inter-linked goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“This is particularly focused around Sustainable Development Goal 11 – to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable,” the commitment stated.

It notes that urgent action is needed as extreme weather events and disasters are undercutting food security for millions around the world, especially among poor developing nations in Africa and South America, adding that 23.5 million people were displaced in 2016 by weather-related disaster, creating a flood of climate refugees throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
 
Worse as this is, the commitment believes it is "merely a harbinger of things to come,”

The leaders commit to build resilient, low carbon communities to permit urban areas play an influential role in the course of global development.

“City and regional governments are pushing ahead, with an acute sense of their role in building a resilient, low carbon society,” said Ashok Sridharan, Lord Mayor of Bonn, Germany;
 
“Urban areas will play an influential role in the course of global development. By making urban sustainability a core part of national climate action, countries will be in a better position to meet and exceed their national climate goals,” he noted.

The commitment encompasses 19 initiatives, including creation of the African Sub-national Climate Fund to bridge the gap between infrastructure demands and the low number of bankable projects reaching investors, by providing ready-to-invest projects and funds to support the implementation of at least 100 infrastructure projects by 2020.

It also include the creation of Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy - the largest coalition of over 7,400 cities from six continents and 121 countries to reduce emissions and make societies and economies resilient to climate change.

Cities are responsible for as much as 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels used for energy and transport, and 13 percent of the global urban population lives in vulnerable low-elevation coastal areas, the commitment initiative stated.

The Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA), a regional body of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, is opening the door for more Sub-Saharan cities to join efforts to expand access to sustainable and efficient energy services.

 The Urban Climate Change research network says an estimated 80 percent of the costs of adapting to climate change are needed in urban areas. But much of the estimated $80 to 100 billion financing needed per year remains inaccessible to city governments and there is also a lack of bankable local projects reaching investors.

It is against this backdrop that the leaders have called on Planners for Climate Action, from UN-Habitat, to help ensure urban and regional planners play a strong role in advancing global climate and sustainability goals. To this end, this initiative will improve urban and regional planning practice and planning education.