ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Extreme weather is becoming commonplace as the world warms. With rising temperatures, the signs of climate change are everywhere – as more people feel the devastating impacts of stronger storms, droughts and burning heat waves.Indeed, excessive floods are wreaking havoc on people’s lives around the world. In the last few weeks alone, Cyclone Idai has impacted the lives of millions, killing more than 1,000 in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The affected countries will need over $2 billion to recover, according to World Bank estimates.Even before the affected receive support, cyclone Kenneth is making a dangerously unprecedented strike in Northern Mozambique.The economics of climate change is staggering. In 2017 alone, natural disasters – from floods to fires – caused record losses of $330 billion.The need for people to take bold action in response to the devastation is now louder than before.When local people are hardest hitSaturday, July 14, 2018 went down as a solemn day at the Asokore Mampong community in Ghana’s Ashanti region.Tears flowed uncontrollably as the mortal remains of three children and a woman, all victims of floods, were conveyed for burial after an emotionally-charged requiem service.A day after torrential rains, the bodies of Christian, Louisa, Liza and Susana were recovered by officers of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).The four were among more than 15 people in the region who were swept away by high currents of flood water, following incessant downpour in June 2018.The situation was dire in other parts of Ghana, including the capital, Accra, which experience perennial flood disasters.Questions have been asked if such deaths could have been averted. But the rains will not wait for answers before resuming the onslaught in 2019.Severe rainstorms in the month of April alone have wrecked havoc in parts of Ghana, killing people and displacing hundreds in schools, homes and communities.Unabated Flood DevastationIn years past, the sign of rains brought joy as children had fun bathing in the heavenly showers of blessings.Today, many a community in major cities in Ghana begins to panic when the clouds get dark. People run for cover when the clouds gather for fear of losing lives and property to the rains.Floods have ravaged communities, caused havoc to roads and collapsed bridges. Residents have been displaced, communities cut off, and socio-economic livelihoods impacted negatively. The worse impacted are farmers – some farms in lowland areas get submerged in high volumes of flood water, after a downpour. Instead of counting their blessings of bumper harvest, farmers wail because they are unable to cart their harvests from farmlands to the market because of bad roads.The Ghana Meteorological Agency anticipates more rainstorms and floods in 2019, and has warned farmers and residents in flood prone communities to stay alert.There are likely agricultural losses with dire food security implications, as prices of foodstuff like maize, cassava, plantain and vegetables shoot up on the local market.Driving FactorsRecent rains in Kumasi have been described as ‘unprecedented’ by residents. Streets and homes have been inundated as vehicles,…

AMMREN PRESS STATEMENT: World Malaria Day The celebration of World Malaria Day today, is another opportunity for stock taking of global efforts to win the war against the world’s oldest and deadliest disease. Since 2000, a lot of efforts have been made to eliminate malaria, a disease that can be prevented and treated. Global efforts have saved 7 million lives from malaria and prevented more than 1 billion cases. More countries than ever before, are now are closer to elimination. These gains, however, do not appear to be holding as current report shows that new malaria cases are on the rise in the highest burden countries. The 2017, World Health Organization (WHO) showed the largest reversal of progress against malaria in years, estimating 5 million more cases than in the previous year. According to the WHO, progress has stalled after a decade of success against the disease. Half a million people still die from malaria every year, most of them children under five. Africa carries more than 90% of the global malaria burden, causing over 400,000 deaths and 200 million cases each year and costing the continent an estimated US$ 12 billion annually in direct losses. Many reasons have been attributed to change in fortunes in the fight against malaria, notable among them, being stagnation from traditional sources for funding for malaria and lack of political will. The African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN), while acknowledging that efforts are being made to raise funds for the malaria elimination agenda, notes that there is also an urgent need for education to get people to take personal responsibility for malaria prevention and treatment. The 2019 World Malaria Day theme “Zero Malaria Starts with Me” is apt, as it is a call to action. It reminds citizens everywhere, and particularly in malaria burdened countries, that they not only have personal responsibility in protecting their families, communities and countries from this preventable disease, but also the power to hold leaders accountable for meeting their commitments to end the disease. “Zero Malaria Starts with Me” is also a continent-wide campaign for a malaria-free Africa. Co-led by the African Union Commission and the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, the campaign will support African nations in their efforts toward malaria elimination through: high-level engagement with government, the private sector, and civil society leaders; The "Zero malaria starts with me" campaign aims to engage all members of society: political leaders who control government policy decisions and budgets; private sector companies that will benefit from a malaria-free workforce; healthcare providers working towards controlling and eliminating malaria and most importantly communities affected by malaria, whose buy-in and ownership of malaria control interventions is critical to success. Specifically, the Zero Malaria Starts with Me campaign focuses on three groups of stakeholders critical to a sustainable and ultimately successful fight against the disease: political leaders, the private sector, and communities. Each group has a unique yet complementary role in the fight. The campaign seeks to identify each group’s interest in malaria…

PROFILENAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Joseph Mithika Mwenda never expected to be named among the world's 100 most influential people in climate change policy this year.Despite being the executive director of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), a civil society organization that champions for a healthy earth, Mwenda never thought that he was on the same level with some of the prominent people in the world. So when the announcement by Apolitical, a global network for governments came, last month, Mwenda’s name was among the 100nominated by hundreds of public servants from around the world, including experts at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Harvard University, Oxford University, Bloomberg Philanthropies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The list has people currently making the biggest impact on climate change policy including government ministers, academics, environmental activists and the church where Catholic’s Pope Francis is from. The list recognizes include high-profile advocates whose work is indispensable to raising awareness and demanding change. Others are young rising stars who are making their mark in local communities and are a driving force behind governmental progress. “I was in Ghana attending a climate change conference and when this announcement was done I didn’t have an iota of imagination that I could be in such a distinguished roll. I learnt of it in a peculiar way people were greeting me…congratulating me on the accomplishment. That’s when I learnt that I was in the same league with top celebrities, religious leaders and politicians in the world. It is still a humbling recognition,” Mwenda said.Mwenda, who comes from Meru County said he has dedicated the last decade in building PACJA since a small group of people met at Johannesburg’s suburb of Sandton, South Africa in 2008 and expressed desire to have a unified platform on climate change and environment in Africa.“It has been a fulfilling journey, a journey of ups and downs but we eventually arrived where we wanted. Am happy I have contributed, together with my colleagues and partners across the continent, the most formidable environmental movement in Africa. We most of more than 1000 organisations in 48 countries,” Mwenda said.He said Kenya can be considered a first mover in matters climate change and a pacesetter in policies to address the scourge. “It became the first country in Africa to enact the most comprehensive law on climate change, the Climate Change Act, 2016 which was signed by President Kenyatta in May 2016,” he said. Mwenda said the law puts in place a framework which defines actions to be undertaken by stakeholders to mainstream climate change in the entire political economy of the country. “In addition, several Policies to mainstream the problem have been put in place, including the National Climate Change Action Plan 2018 – 2022. There is also the National Adaptation Plan, the National Green Economy Implementation Strategy, among others,” Mwenda said.He revealed that he and PACJA have played a key role in helping the Kenya government draft climate change legislation.“Together with some colleagues, we reached out to…

OPINIONNAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) – As President Uhuru Kenyatta gave the 2019 Kenya’s State of the Nation Address, he failed to acknowledge a fact that some pastoralist communities were starving due to tough climatic conditions, and also he did not talk about any kind of future intervention to protect livestock in those counties.Despite the little attention it gets, the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO) reports that the livestock sub-sector contributes over 30 percent of the farm-gate value of agricultural commodities, about 10 percent of the national GDP and at least 50 percent of the agricultural GDP, thereby employing about 50 percent of the total agricultural labour force.Indeed, the Kenyan president has put food and nutrition security as part of the Big4 Agenda. However, this may not come to pass if nearly all the investment is to be directed to crop production without investing substantially in livestock, especially among pastoral communities who bear the brunt of climate change.Livestock remains the main source of livelihoods for millions of residents in Arid and Semi Arid Land (Asal) communities. These communities feed the 6 million Nairobians with meat every day, whether at the household level or nyama choma in thousands of social joints sprawling across the city and its environs.It therefore means that if the sub-sector was given just a little attention to make it climate smart, and to ensure proper control of emerging pests and diseases, then nobody will die of hunger within the pastoral communities, and the country will possibly earn billions every year from the export market.There are a number of climate smart techniques, of which, if scaled up especially at the county level, then starvation in pastoral communities will become a thing of the past.First, pastoralists need not to rare cattle, but instead, they should be producing cattle. However, this can only happen if county governments or private investors invested in feedlots or feed yard, which is a type of animal feeding operation that is used in intensive animal farming for finishing livestock, notably beef cattle, but also swine, horses, sheep, turkeys, chickens or ducks, prior to slaughter.In feedlots, the animals are not given grass. They are fed on dry protein rich feeds often made of sunflower cakes, barley, soybeans, dried Lucerne grass among others, and water. One acre feedlot for example, can accommodate up to 500 mature cattle, and all of them can be served by two or three people. With protein rich feeds, an animal that was received with say 200 Kilogrammes can easily double it to 400 or even 450 Kilogrammes in just 90 days, depending on its genetic make-up.With this system, pastoralists can now concentrate on keeping animals that can produce calves to be sold to feedlots at an early stage for finishing instead of raring them, then losing them to drought thereafter. This will reduce the population of animals in the rangelands, thereby availing enough pastures for the remaining productive animals.Botwana is one of the African countries that have tried this climate smart…