PAMACC News
UNEA-3's Opening plenary UNEA-3's Opening plenary Over 4,000 stakeholders today converged on the green terrains of the UN office in Nairobi, Kenya to witness the opening ceremony of the 3rd United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA3).
This year’s edition of the assembly, which is the highest –level decision-making body on the environment, aspires to consider new policies, innovations and financing capable of steering the world “Towards a Pollution-Free Planet.”
The UNEA-3 brings together governments, entrepreneurs, and activists who will share ideas and commit to taking positive action against the menace of pollution. UNEA-3 aims to deliver a number of tangible commitments to end the pollution of air, land, waterways, and oceans, and to safely manage chemicals and waste, including a negotiated long-term programme of action against pollution that is linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The High-Level Segment of UNEA-3, which will take place from 5-6 December, is also expected to endorse a political declaration on pollution, aimed at outlining policy measures for, inter alia: addressing pollution to protect human health while protecting the developmental aspirations of current and future generations.
The ministerial segment will debut the interactive ‘Leadership Dialogues,’ aimed at providing participants with an opportunity for high-level engagement and discussion on how to achieve a pollution-free planet. Other UNEA-3 outcomes will include voluntary commitments by governments, private sector entities and civil society organizations to address pollution, and the ‘#BeatPollution Pledge,’ a collection of individual commitments to clean up the planet.
Discussions at UNEA-3 will draw on a background report by the UNEP Executive Director, titled ‘Towards a Pollution-Free Planet.’ The Report explores the latest evidence, as well as responses and gaps in addressing pollution challenges, and outlines opportunities that the 2030 Agenda presents to accelerate action on tackling pollution.
Welcoming delegates to the assembly, Prof. Judy Wakhungu, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Natural Resources, declared that the assembly’s focus on beating pollution is very timely as pollution increases with every effort to provide services to our citizens.
“It is time, the world addressed this challenge without delay and agree on a common goal as a pollution-free planet cannot be achieved without working together,” she said. The environment is our responsibility; it is the source of our well-being. The fate of our world depends on the quality of the care we give it,” Prof Wakhungu added.
“Our collective goal must be to embrace ways to reduce pollution drastically,” said Dr. Edgar Gutiérrez, Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica and the President of the 2017 assembly. “Only through stronger collective action, beginning in Nairobi this week, can we start cleaning up the planet globally and save countless lives.”
New report on the environment
According to a new UN Environment report, everyone on earth is affected by pollution. The report entitled “Executive Director’s Report: Towards a Pollution-Free Planet” is the meeting’s basis for defining the problems and laying out new action areas.
The report’s recommendations – political leadership and partnerships at all levels, action on the worst pollution, lifestyle changes, low-carbon tech investments, and advocacy – are based on analysis of pollution in all its forms, including air, land, freshwater, marine, chemical and waste pollution.
Overall, environmental degradation causes nearly one in four of all deaths worldwide, or 12.6 million people a year, and the widespread destruction of key ecosystems. Over a dozen resolutions are on the table at the assembly, including new approaches to tackle air pollution, which is the single biggest environmental killer, claiming 6.5 million lives each year.
Over 80% of cities operate below UN health standards on air quality. The report reveals that exposure to lead in paint, which causes brain damage to 600,000 children annually, and water and soil pollution are also key focus areas.
Also, over 80 percent of the world’s wastewater is released into the environment without treatment, poisoning the fields where we grow our food and the lakes and rivers that provide drinking water to 300 million people. According to recently published report by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, welfare losses due to pollution are estimated at over US$4.6 trillion each year, equivalent to 6.2 per cent of global economic output.
“Given the grim statistics on how we are poisoning ourselves and our planet, bold decisions from the UN Environment Assembly are critical,” said head of UN Environment, Erik Solheim. “That is as true for threats like pollution as it is for climate change and the many other environmental threats we face.”
Corroborating the report, Ibrahim Jibril, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Environment in his statement at the plenary averred that “pollution affects the air, soil, rivers, seas and health of Nigerians in an adverse way even though the actual cost has not been determined. Trans-boundary pollution, according to Jibril, “accounts for 28% of disease burdens in Africa.” The UNEA-3 will run from 4-6 December.
A framework aimed at expanding the frontiers of African women's involvement in renewable energy is to be launched tomorrow in Nairobi, Kenya.
The framework, which seeks to reduce the access to energy deficit suffered by African women, is an initiative of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with UN Women, the African Union and the Pan African Parliament.
In attendance at today's panel sessions on "innovative solutions to empower African women in energy sector" and "the implementation of of the Libreville outcome statement" were representatives of UN agencies, African Union and its organs, development partners, regional economic commissions, private sector, women entrepreneurs, scientists and African civil society groups led by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).
Dr Joanes Atela of the African Center for Technology Studies said over 70 per cent of Africans don’t have access to clean and sustainable energy, adding that this energy poverty is driven by economic poverty.
“There is a close relationship between access to energy and socio-economic development,” he said.
Dr Atela noted that women are at the center of energy needs in Africa, adding that women’s needs are much more critical in national and regional development.
Panelists and participants identified access to finance, high interest rates, absence of enabling policies and poor implementation of existing policies as some of the challenges facing African women in the energy sector.
African women's involvement in decision-making and policy processes in the energy sector remains very low in spite of increased focus on the sector.
According to experts, African women disproportionately bear the burden of energy poverty as they face significant health and safety risks from household air pollution, heavy fuel loads and lack of lighting.
Women, experts agree, can become powerful agents of change in the transition to clean energy by assuming roles in sustainable energy entrepreneurship. They can also become essential drivers in avoiding future emissions by actively contributing to climate change mitigation.
Some of the solutions the framework seeks to provide include investing and promoting clean energy and energy efficiency; innovative financing schemes; and education, research and development.
Others are technology development and transfer; partnership opportunities to finance innovation; policy harmonisation; institutional and legal measures and reforms. The framework is expected to also tackle issues of land and environment degradation, pollution, social inequality and poor legislations.
Today's sessions acknowledged the urgency in building synergies on sustainable access to finance, leveraging on cross-cutting policies where technology and finance can work together; and building the capacity of institutions that are good in generating data that can influence policies.
The framework will be launched on Sunday the 3rd of December 2017 ahead of the UN Environment Assembly, the world's highest-level decision-making body on the environment, which will hold in Nairobi, Kenya, from 4-6 December 2017.
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - A Swedish development agency has released a challenge fund worth $48 million to help over 50 private companies with innovative ideas reach the market with various off-grid power products and clean cooking solutions for poor rural families in seven African countries.
The Sweden International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), on November 30, 2017 signed an agreement with the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), through which companies in target countries will submit their business proposals for vetting, starting from June 2018.
“The idea is that companies supported (by this initiative) are (being) prepared to take risks, which they otherwise would not take,” said Anna Jardfelt, the Swedish Ambassador to Kenya, adding that successful companies must provide at least 50 % of the proposed budget.
The initiative known as Renewable Energy, Adaptation and Climate Change Technology (REACT) will see small and medium size companies receive up to $1.5 million grant each to implement projects that will largely benefit women and children in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
“We hope that the new business models developed in East Africa, providing electricity to millions of people off the national grid, will rapidly be taken up in Liberia and generally in West Africa, promoting learning across the continent,” said Elisabeth Hårleman, the SIDA Head of Development Cooperation – Liberia.
The background to REACT is that around 510 million people, who form 60% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity and are forced to rely on karoseene, fire wood or batteries – solutions that are expensive, unreliable and environmentally unsustainable.
According to Victor Ndiege, the Portfolio Manager for REACT, it is evident that the population without electricity will increase steadily until at least 2025. “To worsen the scenario is the high cost of grid extension to remote areas of the continent,” he said.
Studies have shown that African households and small businesses spend over $17 billion on lighting, mainly kerosene, with many households spending up to 30 percent of their disposable income on fuel purchase.
Studies have further demonstrated that wood and charcoal make up about 90 percent of the primary energy supply in Sub Saharan Africa, presenting environmental and livelihood challenges as nearly 4 million hectares of forest are lost each year, adding to the degradation of water catchments and soil erosion.
The REACT programme therefore targets scalable renewable energy technologies in hydropower, solar energy, biomass and wind generation.
“Although the private sector has had some success in developing business models and technologies to address these issues, they still face high risk and market failures that limit innovation and slow down the scale-up of proven business models and technologies,” said Ndiege.
According to AECF, innovation to improve market access for the poor in Sub Saharan Africa is hampered by a wide range of challenges amongst them: a poor investment climate, lack of competitive pressure for businesses to innovate; pervasive market failures and a lack of information on the needs of the poor; and uncertainty over the commercial returns to pro-poor innovation.
The AECF and Sida will therefore work with private sector companies to improve market systems and facilitate the impactful exchange of quality renewable energy products in rural areas within the target countries.
“Endorsements, financial and technical support to innovative business ideas by a credible intermediary like the AECF, largely contribute to offsetting cycling business risk associated with rural markets.” said Ndiege.
Overall, the funding challenge, which is also open to companies based elsewhere but are willing to invest in target countries, is expected to stimulate impactful benefits to over 300,000 households in the region.
The support is part of Sweden’s special efforts to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency in Sub Saharan Africa and its commitment to mobilise one billion dollars over the next ten years as per the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
(PAMACC News) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number six is about ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
However, the noted increase of droughts, both in frequency and intensity blamed on climate change have resulted in increased incidences of water related conflicts due to high demand.
Some of the noted misunderstandings and conflicts range from, and are a result of water blockages in form of weirs for gardening, overgrazing, to river bank cultivation leading to silting, threatening the very existence of particular water bodies on which the communities depend for their domestic use, and in some cases, animal drinking points.
With this in mind, experts believe support and strengthening of the participation of local communities in water and sanitation management—a key strategy under SDG six, should be a matter of urgency. Therefore, as the global community raises water to the top of its agenda, countries are following suit.
“The new water Act empowers the community to have a greater say in the management of water resources in their catchment,” says Rowen Jani of the Water Resources Management Authority, an established national Agency charged with the responsibility of planning for, and ensure the sustainable and rational utilisation, management and development of water resources.
Jani, who is Manager for the Kafue River catchment, adds that climate change has added extra pressure and demand for water among different users, hence, “the Act’s insistency on community participation in the management of these resources.”
Until 2011, Zambia’s water governance system remained centralised such that there was little involvement of the local communities in the management of water resources in their localities.
But the reforms in the water sector, allowed for the 1949 Water Act to be replaced by the Water Resources Management Act No 21 of 2011 which provided for the establishment of WARMA.
It is this Act which provides for decentralisation of water resources management. And at the lowest community level, it provides for the establishment of Water Users Associations (WUAs)—non-profit organisations that are initiated, and managed by a group of primary water users and other interested water stakeholders, along one or more raw water sources (hydrological sub systems) regardless of the type of use.
“The objective of the WUAs is to ensure the management, development and protection of raw water sources and their ecosystems within designated boundaries,” explains David Banda, Community Engagement Officer at WARMA’s Kafue Catchment management office based in Mazabuka, Southern Zambia.
Other than understanding the actual problem and the urgency of solutions, WUAs present a platform for different water users (regardless of size) to come together to establish their water priorities and jointly agree on respective actions to ensure water is accessible in good quantity and quality, thereby preventing and reducing possible conflicts.
According to Emmanuel Mumba, Acting Director of Legal Services at WARMA, once the Statutory Instrument (SI) is issued, “some of the key functions of WUAs would be to promote the participation of the community in water resources management and ensure gender mainstreaming in decision making processes relating to the use of water; and investigate and deal with disputes relating to the use of water as may be prescribed.”
And the traditional leadership is elated by this policy reform which they believe would dramatically transform the management of water resources in their localities, which has been a historical preserve of the central government.
“I must commend government for this remarkable decision to undertake reforms in the water sector,” said Tyson Hamaamba, Ngambela for Chieftainess Choongo, during a community stakeholders’ meeting to prepare for the formation of WUAs for various water resources in Southern Zambia’s Kafue Catchment. “It is the first meeting of its kind where we are called as community members and traditional leadership to plan and get involved in the management of our water resources.”
With Agriculture dominating rural life, one of the hardest people with climate induced water challenges among community water users are smallholder farmers, and improving water security for this group has become a pre-occupation of most development actors as they aim to safeguard food and nutrition security.
And one such organisation is SNV—the Netherlands Development Organisation which is implementing a Water Smart Use project, supporting 1, 200 small-holder farmers in the Lower Kafue sub-catchment.
“The main objective is to strengthen local water resources management and enhance climate sensitive water use at farm level,” says Nina Mukubesa, Water Governance officer at SNV. “We aim to establish demonstration sites and train farmers in water harvesting, storage, and irrigation, as well as soil management and agroforestry, with a focus on water use efficiency for their crop production,” emphasising the importance of adaptation to the changing weather pattern.
Whereas the SI is yet to be issued, partners such as GIZ, the German Society for International Cooperation, stepped in to offer support to WARMA to undertake community stakeholder meetings in readiness for the formation of Water Users Associations.
