ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - “The Paris Agreement is somewhat weak in terms of how African countries will attract the required investments to deal with the challenges of climate change…,”says James Murombedzi, Officer in Charge of the Africa Climate Policy Centre of the United Nations economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).While heralded as a landmark global deal on climate change, there remains a feeling of impotence from the Africa group on certain nuances of the Agreement and its implications to the continent’s development agenda.However, signing and ratifying the Agreement is not optional for Parties as it was universally agreed by the then 196 members to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—UNFCCC, in Paris last year.This therefore implies that whatever issues Africa has with the Agreement and its implications, would have to be dealt with at the negotiating table, and this is the point at which the Young African Lawyers (YAL) Programme becomes crucial.Established under the ClimDev-Africa Programme, YAL has the overarching goal of strengthening Africa’s negotiating position and ensuring Africa gets the best at the UNFCCC processes. “Signing and ratifying the Agreement is not optional for us as Africa,” says Natasha Banda, a young Legal Practitioner from Zambia, one of the mentees under the programme. Being part of the legal advisory team for the Zambian negotiators through the UNFCCC country Focal point person, Banda believes ratifying the Agreement is not negotiable and the starting point “because the nature of international Agreements is that you cannot have bargaining power from outside,” and is certain that Zambia, which is yet to ratify, would do so once all necessary processes are complete. In recognition of the importance of addressing the impacts of climate change comprehensively, and the unique roles and responsibilities of lawyers in the process, the Young African Lawyers (YAL) programme brings together young and motivated African lawyers in integrating climate change responses into Africa’s development agenda. According to Dr. Johnson Nkem, Senior Climate Adaptation Expert with the Africa Climate Policy Centre, and Coordinator of the programme, YAL is a crucial component for Africa’s climate governance framework, especially now that the world is moving towards a greener, cleaner future, as espoused in the Paris Agreement. “While providing essential legal support to the AGN, the YAL programme is an important foundation for developing a cadre of African lawyers who are fully engaged in wider climate change issues. Legal advice on low-carbon trading transactions, for example, or integrating climate change into Environmental Impact Assessments are going to be increasingly important as the world heads towards a greener, cleaner future. As Africa anchors itself firmly in this global transition, the YAL programme aims to nurture the legal skills that will be integral to this process,” Nkem explains.As well as the immediate benefits of providing legal support at the climate negotiations, YAL has the longer-term goal of building the expertise of young lawyers, to be applied in broader aspects of climate change policy and law. And Rachael Rwomushana, a Ugandan Lawyer, testifies to the…

Cameroon rice farmers in the East and Northwest regions have recorded significant progress in rice production in the last decade thanks to technological knowledge transfer from China.Chinese rice production scheme introduced in these regions since 2006 has recorded improvement in yields, control of dangerous weeds, the fight against crop diseases, destructive insects and climate stress, agriculture experts say. Cameroon’s vast potential in rice and other cereals production is attracting not only investment from China with the setting up of some large-scale rice farms by the SINO-CAM IKO Agriculture Development Co. Ltd in Nanga Eboko in the East but also providing the opportunity for training and technology transfer in high breed rice farming by rice farmers in Ndop in the Northwest . The scheme is not only boosting rice production in Cameroon but is also helping to improve on the income of rice farmers, as well as add value to the country’s second generation agriculture launched by the government since 2010.“Cameroon rice farmers have really benefitted from training acquired from Chinese rice experts for quite some years now and this are impacting on the production. With high yield rice breed, and techniques to fight against diseases and the effects of climate change, many farmers have mapped out solution pathways to rice production,” says Bernard Njonga, President of ACDIC an NGO that defends the interest of farmers in Cameroon.The Cameroon government says its rice production project with China that started in 2006 are a snapshot of Chinese engagement in agriculture in Cameroon, which is certainly not yet exhaustive. In the longer term, activities may accelerate, as more opportunities open up.“We took the engagement to partner with the Chinese government in rice production not only because of their expertise in this sector but more because of their remarked interest to invest and promote agriculture in Cameroon in general,” says Henry Eyebe Ayisi, Cameroon’s minister of agriculture and rural development in an interview.Today, the Chinese ‘un-whitened’ rice is produced, packaged and sold in different markets in the country for FCFA 300 per kilogram.The rice production is expanding to other areas in the country with about 6,000 hectares in Nanga Eboko and 4,000 hectares in Santchou in the West Region. The company officials say they are producing over 100,000 metric tonnes of rice to feed over 600,000 people and providing employment to some 1,000 workers.The rice production project is the fruit of the Sino-Cameroon relations especially in agriculture. The partnership agreement was signed between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Integrated Industry-Commerce Corporation of the Shaanxi Land Reclamation and State Farms, China in 2006. According to the agreement the latter was granted 10,000 hectares of land for the production, processing and marketing of rice. The agreement was accompanied by the Chinese government’s aid package of 40,000,000 RMB or FCFA 2,8 billion to revive Cameroon’s vast potential in agriculture.According to the ministry of agriculture,a major offshoot of the partnership agreement was the creation of the subsidiary of the Shaanxi Company in Cameroon under…

NAIRIBI, Kenya (PAPACC News) - Many African smallholder farmers and farm communities experience low crop and animal yields but are unaware that this is partly as a result of climate change. In countries like Ghana, many are not aware of what to do to remedy the situation of erratic rainfall, drought and other unfavorable weather conditions. Agriculture across the continent needs to undergo a significant transformation to meet the multiple challenges of climate change, food insecurity, malnutrition, poverty and environmental degradation. A proposed means of achieving such improvements is increased use of a climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach which emphasizes the use of farming techniques that: increase yields, reduce vulnerability to climate change, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Mrs Estherine Fotabong, the NEPAD Agency’s Director of Programme, says the ability of farmers to apply new technologies and innovations is an important determinant of CSA adoption. “Transformative adaptation needs to not only be at larger scale with new innovations, bold enough to take political steps that may not be easy or quick but also transformative adaptation needs to be integrated fully into the big agriculture questions that will really transform Africa’s agriculture,” she said. The decision of African Union to set up an African Climate Smart Agriculture Coordination Platform is a means to pursue the vision to have at least 25 million farm households more practicing Climate Smart Agriculture by 2025. The 2nd Africa CSA Alliance Forum holding in Nairobi, Kenya, is focused on addressing major hindrances limiting the adoption of climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices among smallholder farmers. Under the theme “From Agreement to Action: Implementing African INDCs for Growth and Resilience in Agriculture”, the Forum is looking at the INDCs transitioning to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with key implications for Africa’s development, especially agriculture. The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) represent country-level programmes for climate action presented to the UNFCCC ahead of the COP21 climate talks in December 2015, which produced the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. Dr Abebe Haile Gabriel, FAO Deputy Regional Representative for Africa, has maintained that countries need support in their INDCs, through which the plight of climate smart agriculture came to light. The plight of smallholder farmers was also brought to the fore with a call to promote climate smart agriculture success stories and award them opportunities to sustainably adopt climate smart practices. Mrs Fotabong stressed that knowledge-sharing is key in agriculture and rural transformation, through which indigenous knowledge should not be ignored. “Communities should be fully capacitated in the various areas of crop management, community mobilisation and empowerment, disaster preparedness and have access to robust technologies and information such as new crop varieties that are drought and disease tolerant,” she emphasized. This she said should be the collective effort of government, private sector, NGOs, civil society and donors to ensure communities have greater ability to cope and adapt to climate change and extreme weather events and thus achieve rural livelihoods and food security. Climate Change can no longer be treated as just an environmental…

SIAYA, Kenya (PAMACC News) – When an American investor arrived in Siaya County in 2003 with a promise of transforming thousands of hectares that form the Yala Swamp into an agricultural and fish production potential, Mary Abiero, a mother of five children from Yiro village knew that a new brighter day had come. But today, the 63 years old widow is one of the 280 women camping at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Arusha, Tanzania, representing over one million women in Africa who have been oppressed, and denied the right to own property, in particular land. 38 of the women will climb the mountain to the top as a symbol of elevating women voices to the highest physical location in Africa.When he started his investment, the American farmer who had already acquired the entire Yala Swamp from the government decided to increase the portion from the original 3,700 hectares to 6,900 hectares so as to have enough reservoir of water for irrigated rice farming. And to do so, he offered to buy land from all the neighbouring households at a predetermined price, which some farmers accepted, but others including Abiero rejected. But despite the objections, he went ahead to release water, which covered all the demarcated area including Abiero’s 10 acre (4 ha) piece, submerging houses, thus driving everybody from their private properties regardless whether they sold it or not.Today, despite a court ruling that was issued in favour of the residents, Abiero is among hundreds of residents who watch from afar as someone mint profits from what belongs to them.“We have tried all we can, we have visited administration offices time and again, but nobody seems to be interested in our plight,” said Abiero. “It is in this regard, despite my age, I have volunteered to follow other women and shout from the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro for the world to listen,” she said.In another scenario in Malindi, along Kenya’s coastal line in Kilifi County, the story is no different. In 2001 for example, Chadi Charo Mwaringa, also a widow from Kanagoni Gundasaga village arrived home one day to a devastating reality. Her house, where she had been living with her late husband and children for decades had been pulled down by a salt mining company, which had allegedly bought the place.“I got married here 40 years ago, and you can be sure very few local resident own land title deeds,” said the 67 mother of three grown up children. Along the entire coastal strip covering hundreds of thousands hectares of land, people have always lived a communal lifestyle for ages. The land has always belonged to the community, and not to particular individuals.As a result, private developers have taken advantage to process title deeds for chunks of land, and used the legal document to forcefully evict residents from their ancestral homes.“Lack of legal documents for land ownership is now the biggest problem in this area,” said Katana Fondo Biria, former area councilor who has not been able…