NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - More than 2,000 farmers in Kenya have doubled their yields and reduced the amount of money they used to spend on food during drought after adopting an environmentally friendly farming technology.

Ecological farming, a technology that discourages the use of chemicals and genetic engineering in the farm, enriches the soil by ensuring nutrients and water remains in the soil, according to the Institute of Culture and Ecology (ICE).

Josephine Ndambu, an agronomist working in Eastern Kenya says ecological farming encourages farmers to adopt natural approaches that increase their yields such as agroforestry, soil and water conservation, and planting in enriched pits known as Zai pits.

For instance, she says, when it rains, Zai pits can tap the surface runoff and store it for a long time, enabling the plants to survive prolonged stretches when there is no rainfall. They can also tap top soil being washed away.

“The objective of Zai pits is to break the earth pan, conserve water and enable utilization of manure,” explains Ndambu. “They have high and assured yields and can be used for over three years.”

Peter Mutiso has reason to smile after the technology came to his village. When drought struck, he would spend at least $2 (Ksh. 200) every day to buy food for his family.

After adopting the Zai Pit technology at his one and half acre farm in 2014, he can now harvest more than four 90 kilogramme bags of maize where he could get none.

“This is enough to feed my family up to the next harvest,” says the farmer from Eastern Kenya. “Sometimes I can even sell a bag of the harvest to supplement the family income.”

A report by Greenpeace Africa indicates that the ability of farmers in East Africa to produce food is on the decline due to climate change.

In rural households struggling to feed themselves, even small changes in climate patterns could destroy smallholder farmers’ soil and water security, argues the Building Resilience in East African Agriculture report.

“It is important for rural farmers to learn from each other about ecological farming that uses successful strategies that meets local and domestic needs of different communities,” says Iris Maertens, the interim communication officer at Greenpeace Africa, Food for Life campaign.

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - The United Nations secretary general António Guterres, on Thursday April 13 appointed Cameroon born Vera Songwe as the new executive secretary of the Economic Commission on Africa, ECA.

Vera Songwe has been the regional director for Africa covering West and Central Africa for the International Finance Corporation since 2015.

Ms. Songwe joined the World Bank Group in 1998 as a young professional. She worked in the Middle East and North Africa region covering Morocco and Tunisia in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) unit. She later joined the East Asia and Pacific region, PREM unit where she played several roles including Regional PRSP Coordinator, and Country Sector Coordinator and Senior Economist for the Philippines. She has also worked Cambodia and on Mongolia as Country Economist managing different World Bank programs and the economic and growth policy dialogue.

Prior to joining the Bank, Ms. Songwe was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Southern California and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, USA. She has published several articles on governance, fiscal policy, agriculture and commodity price volatility and trade and new financial infrastructure.

Ms. Songwe holds a PhD. in Mathematical Economics from the Center for Operations Research & Econometrics from the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium. She holds a BA in Economics and a BA in Political Science from the University of Michigan.

LIVINGSTONE, Zambia (PAMACC) - The African Development Bank (AfDB) has pledged support to the Batoka Energy Project being spearheaded by Zambia and Zimbabwean governments.

The 2,400-MW Batoka Gorge Hydro Electric Scheme (BGHES)is being constructed by the Zambezi River Authority, an organization equitably owned by the governments of Zambia and Zimbabwe, to develop, operate, monitor and maintain hydropower projects along the Zambezi River shared by the two Southern African countries.

The scheme will comprise the construction of 181m high arch gravity roller compacted concrete dam as well as, two surface power stations located on either banks with an installed capacity of 1,200 Mega Watts each.

According to Zambia’s Minister of Energy, David Mabumba, the project will be one of the least cost generation projects in the region. “Preliminary indications suggest that the Batoka Gorge Hydro-Electric Scheme will havea unit generation cost of 3.6US Cents per kwh compared to the average regional tariffs of8.25US$c/Kwh,”Mabumba said in his remarks to delegates.

The Bank’s Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth Sector Complex, Amadou Hott, reaffirmed AfDB’s support to BGHES and its role as the lead financier of the project.  “The Bank has been working together with Zambia and Zimbabwe on major energy projects such as the transformative Itezhi Power Generation and Transmission Project, and rehabilitation of power infrastructure in Zimbabwe, among others. The Batoka Scheme is in line with the objectives of AfDB’s New Deal on Energy for Africa.”

Hott explained that the target for the New Deal for universal access to energy by 2025 requires the implementation of transformative regional projects such as Batoka.

The Investor conference which was held under the theme: Batoka Gorge Hydro-Electric Scheme–Harnessing SustainablePower Generation Potential of the mighty Zambezi river, on 30th and 31stMarch 2017 was also attended by Zambia’s Vice President, Inonge Wina and four ministers from Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The conference was aimed at according stakeholders an opportunity discussed progress and financial support to the scheme, whose estimated cost is about US$3.63 billion.

The governments of Zambia and Zimbabwe have appointed the Bank as Lead Coordinator for the project, to be implemented in partnership with other development partners.

Hott also held separate meetings with Ministers of Finance, Energy, Water and Sanitation and Mines, to discuss the progress made on the proposed Energy Sector budget support to Zambia, the way forward on the Batoka project and to update the Government of Zambia on the implementation of the New Deal on Energy.

He disclosed that the bank is set to approve, by July this year, up to $ 250 million requested by the Zambian government to address the country’s energy crisis.

Hott further held meetings with representatives of the power utility company in Zambia, ZESCO, and the Industrial Development Corporation of Zambia, the Zambezi River Authority and Copperbelt Energy Corporation.

Africa constitutes only about 16 percent of the global population, but 53 percent of the global population is without access to electricity. Per capita consumption of energy in Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) is 180 kWh, compared to 13,000 kWh in the United States and 6,500 kWh in Europe.

Over 700 million Africans do not have access to clean cooking energy, and 600,000 African women and children die annually due to indoor air pollution arising from use of carbon-based fuels such as charcoal for cooking.

The African Development Bank is implementing the New Deal on Energy for Africa, to Light up and power Africa, with the aspirational objective of achieving universal access to energy by 2025. The Bank will invest US$ 12 billion in the power sector over the next five years and aims to leverage US$ 45-50 billion from the private sector.

KUMASI, Ghana (PAMACC News) - President Trump’s Executive Order on Climate Change will have far reaching impacts on many developing countries, especially on the African continent, which is already bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change.
 
African Civil Society, under the umbrella of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), says reversing the Obama climate plan is one of the greatest injustices and an onslaught on Mother Earth, especially in the fight against climate change.
 
The Energy Independence Executive Order, signed by US President, Donald Trump on March 29, 2017, has been hailed by groups in the fossil fuels business, but condemned by environmental campaigners as over a dozen measures enacted by President Obama to curb climate change have been suspended.
 
“Trump’s Climate Change Executive Order is rolling back the many years of global efforts that yielded the Convention and the Paris Agreement. The global community and other world leaders should resist the temptation of following the footstep of Trump to take the world several steps back in the fight against climate change,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA Secretary-General.
 
For a safer world, countries that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement will urgently need to raise their ambition to increase the level of their greenhouse emission reduction targets communicated to the UNFCCC and keeping the global temperature to below 1.5OC.
 
The current aggregate level of the communicated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are estimated to lead to the average global temperature increase above 30C by 2030, unless radical emissions reduction targets are urgently adopted by Parties.
 
The NDC of the United State of America submitted to the UNFCCC on March 31, 2015 commits USA to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 26%–28% below the 2005 level by 2025.
 
The US effort constitutes a part to the global comity of nations’ efforts to keep the planet safe.
 
“As one of the major contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions, the US continues to owe a huge ecological debt that can only be paid by the demonstration that it is committed to servicing this climate debt in an equitable, fair and just manner. Such efforts should align with the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capacity (CBDRC) of the Convention,” said a statement from PACJA.
 
African Civil Society is worried efforts to improve people’s vulnerability to climate change are being eroded by Trump’s Executive Order.
 
Currently, impacts of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa have led to deaths of humans and livestock in the region. Farmers in most parts of the Africa are feeling impacts of the changing climate in their agricultural production and productivity.
 
According to Sam Ogallah, Programme’s Manager at PACJA, Trump's action on climate change is likely to exacerbate the current migrant crisis.
 
"Climate change impacts are pushing many youth out of developing countries in search of better lives in developed countries. Some of these youth in an attempt to migrate to Europe have lost their lives. Addressing climate change in developing countries can go a long way to solving migrant crisis in Europe and other developed countries,” he said.