IDENAU, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Julianna Senze, 40, had been in heavy labour for eight hours when she arrived at the Idenau Health Centre in Limbe, on the southwest coast of Cameroon. Like many women in the country, she had had no prenatal care, so what should have been a routine delivery was now a high-risk medical procedure. The nurses, looking worn and tired, rushed her to the delivery room. “We had to get her here quickly from Batoke village, some eight kilometres away, after receiving an SMS message from the doctor on duty,” said Michael Senze, her husband, his voice strained with worry. Less than an hour later, Senze safely delivered a healthy baby boy. Only a few years ago, Senze’s story could have had a more tragic ending.Michael recollects how his family had to bear lots of pain and a hazardous emotional downtime after the death of their first son at the age of 3 some 17 years ago from malaria. “I was afraid of losing yet another baby or even my wife,” Michael said. Cameroon has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. More than 7,000 women die due to pregnancy-related causes and 58,000 children under the age of 5 lose their lives every year in Cameroon, according to the United Nations Population Fund, UNPF in Cameroon. Most of them live in rural parts of the country with abject poverty and where health services are weakest.According to UNPF, access to clean drinking water, proper sanitation or medicine leading to deadly diseases, some preventable, has become part of their daily lives. But a combination of solar energy and a new mobile phone platform, which gives women access to important health information, is changing that. New renewable energy projects are giving more people the electricity they need to access health information, and giving hospitals power to deliver essential care, experts say. The message that may have saved Senze’s life was sent using Gifted Mom, a mobile platform founded by Cameroon engineer Alain Nteff in 2012. The text-messaging service and app gives women in out-of-the-way rural communities free health advice, sending reminders about prenatal check-ups and children’s vaccinations. It tells users when and where to get the treatment they need, and gives them access to doctors who can answer health-related questions.According to Nteff, Gifted Mom is now used in all 10 regions of the country and has since helped thousands of women, especially pregnant mothers access useful health information to make more informed decision on themselves and their children. “The project has significantly helped mothers and their children and will continue to help reduce the number of Cameroonian women who die during childbirth and the number of babies who die at birth or below the age of five by at least 70 percent by 2020,” said Nteff, talking to the press in Yaounde. But Gifted Mom’s success would be impossible if it weren’t for the other projects tackling another issue that blights the lives of those living…

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (PAMACC News) - Leading non-state actors and civil society groups from across Africa have called on African governments to kick-start the process of designing an African Rule Book for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The book, according to them, will help in galvanising a robust presentation of African perspectives in the Paris Rule Book which is being formulated. The call was made today at the ongoing civil society consultative talks which precedes the 16th session of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) in Libreville, Gabon. Recognising the strategic importance of the Paris Rule Book to the implementation of the climate agreement, the non-state stakeholders urged African environment ministers to ensure that the continent is not left behind in the efforts at crafting the regulatory framework for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. “We want an African rule Book for the implementation of the Paris Agreement that will better measure and manage climate action and support in the light of varying quality and level of information included in countries’ national climate plans (NDCs),” John Bideri, the Co-Chair of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) said. “An African Rule Book will help in scaling up actions and support at the right pace as many of the NDCs submitted by countries are not ambitious enough to achieve the Paris Agreement’s objectives,” Bideri added. The urgency of the call for an African Rule Book is further underlined by the latest UNEP Gap Report which revealed that the climate plans submitted by all parties to the Paris Agreement can only limit global warming to 3o degree C if fully implemented and the conditions highlighted in the submissions are met. This alarming report, according to Yamide Dagnet of the World Resources Institute, justifies the readiness of civil society groups like PACJA and WRI to mobilise resources and partnerships capable of supporting the drafting of the African Rule Book by African governments. The Paris Rule Book At the recent UN climate negotiations in Bonn which featured the 46th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 46) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 46) as well as the session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement, negotiations on the key elements of the Paris Rule Book began in earnest. According to Achala Abeysinghe, a long serving legal and strategy advisor to the Least Developed Countries Group (LDC), “The Paris Agreement is just an empty shell without the rulebook”. The Paris Rule Book seeks to establish the rules and processes needed to provide the operational guidance for fulfilling the ambition of the Agreement and providing clarity on countries’ efforts to reach the global goal. The rule book comes on the heels of the Paris Agreement which created an international framework that outlines what governments and wider stakeholders are expected to do strengthening the global response to climate change and limit the temperature increase to 1.5 - 2 degrees C. It therefore seeks to flesh out how the…

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (PAMACC News) - Ahead of the writing of the Paris rulebook and preparations for the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue, Major Groups attending this year’s Pre-AMCEN sessions have called on African governments to take stock of the current status of implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and identify barriers that need to be addressed with a view to enhancing ambition beyond what currently exists as NDCs. Speaking at the African civil society workshop heralding the 16th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in Libreville, Gabon, Sam Ogallah of the Pan African Justice Alliance (PACJA) stressed the need for the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue (FD2018) to specifically highlight potential opportunities where countries can increase their ambition. “The FD2018 process, should as matter of priority recognize that collective ambition in current NDCs remains inadequate to pursue effort to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. It should enhance ambition and commitment from Parties to make new pledges and submit updated or new NDCs ahead of 2020 which should be sufficiently ambitious to close the emission gap, and identify what further work is needed to enable countries to enhance their ambition, especially in countries with lower capabilities” he said. According to Ogallah, “African leaders must use the FD2018 to leverage lessons and best practices, in identifying ways to overcome barriers and opportunities to enhance the enabling environment, and engage in win-win climate and sustainable actions for Africa.” Robert Chimambo of the Zambian Climate Change Network (ZCCN) believes that the facilitative dialogue provides “a veritable opportunity to collectively look into options on how current NDCs can be revised and new ambition generated to strengthen individual Parties’ contributions by 2020.” Chimambo called on African ministers and negotiators to identify ways in which Parties could implement climate action in areas not covered by their NDC or surpass the ambition level outlined therein while exploring ways of fast-tracking the implementation of NDCs and the Sustainable Development Goals. Many of the stakeholders who addressed the workshop urged African leaders, mayors, negotiators, private sectors, and other non-state actors to engage fully into the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue, and lead or champion specific actions and initiatives in various sectors.They also called for the inclusion of non-Party stakeholders who are always at the front-lines of implementation in the facilitative dialogue’s examination of barriers and opportunities for greater ambition. According to the African Major Groups, action from non-state actors can contribute to the achievement of NDCs, and can also increase their level of ambition. 2018 Facilitative Dialogue The Conference of the Parties (COP) at its 21st session in Paris decided to conduct a Facilitative Dialogue in conjunction with the 22nd session of the COP to assess the progress in implementing certain COP decisions. These decisions border on identifying relevant opportunities to enhance the provision of financial resources, including for technology development and transfer, and capacity-building support, with a view to identifying ways to enhance the ambition of mitigation efforts by all Parties, including identifying relevant opportunities to enhance the provision and…

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (PAMACC News) - African Civil Society Organisations on climate have started talks ahead of the 16th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) scheduled for 12th to 16th of June 2017 in in Libreville, Gabon, with main focus on the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2063. Organised by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in collaboration with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Government of Gabon, the workshop is being attended by civil society groups from the five sub-regions of Africa.The workshop aspires to provide an avenue for non-state actors in Africa to interrogate emerging global perspectives and actions on climate change and the implications of the Paris Agreement for Africa as well as the SDGs and Africa's Agenda 2063.According to Sam Ogallah of PACJA, "African civil society groups under the umbrella of PACJA have vigorously engaged with different stakeholders on the urgent need to take forward and internationalise the Paris Agreement, implementation of the African Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa's Agenda 2063."These engagements according to him, are in recognition of civil society's role in informing processes and influencing decisions taken by UNFCCC parties and African member states with a view to driving the implementation of the Paris Agreement."The Pre-AMCEN workshop offers us an opportunity to urge African governments to forge ahead with the implementation of the Paris Agreement regardless of United States' exit from agreement as well as deepen our engagements with regards to the African Policy Dialogue on Climate Change, High Level Policy Dialogue on Sustainable Energy and Energy Access, African Parliamentary Roundtable on Climate Policy and Legislation, and the African Regional Post-COP22 Consultative Forum," Ogallah added.The AMCEN ProcessThis year's AMCEN meeting comes after the 15th Session of AMCEN in Cairo, Egypt March 2016; the UNFCCC–COP22 which held in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016 and the just concluded UNFCCC-Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB46) which held in Bonn, May 2017. The meeting provides an opportunity for African Governments, represented by 55 African Ministers of Environment, to discuss challenges of the implementation of SDGs and Africa Agenda 2063 and a regional stocktaking of their performance at UNFCCC-COP22 and Bonn SB46 on the implementation of the Paris Agreement.Other key focus at this meeting will be on the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), Africa Adaptation Initiative (AAI) and other issues closely related with the Paris Agreement which came into force on the 4th of November 2016.The 2017 Pre-AMCEN Consultative workshop will be held alongside the UNEP Major Groups and Stakeholders Forum ahead of the main 16th Session of AMCEN on 10th -11th June, 2017.Hosting the African civil society workshop at the sidelines of the AMCEN meeting is a recognition of the need to strengthen non-state actors analysis and contributions to respond in a timely and resolute manner to these key issues, focusing in particular on the role they expected to play in influencing governments, African Group of Negotiators (AGN) and related inter-governmental institutions…