MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - The African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has congratulated COP 21 President, Ségolène Royal for the success of last year’s climate conference which has culminated into momentum for action as Africa hosts COP 22.
Speaking during a round table meeting when the French Minister visited and met Ambassadors and other senior delegates at the Africa Pavilion at COP 22, ACPC Officer in Charge, James Murombedzi said UNECA was hopeful that the implementation of the Paris Agreement would be inclusive.
“As ACPC-UNECA, we are hopeful that the implementation of the Paris Agreement will be inclusive,” said Murombedzi, adding that Africa would like to see the issue of means of implementation resolved at COP 22.
On its part, “ACPC is ready to support African countries in the revision of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) most of which have been found to be defective,” he added.
Murombedzi further highlighted the need for Africa to integrate climate in its mainstream development planning for a holistic approach.
“We believe there is no room for isolated planning and it is for this reason that at ACPC, we have prioritised climate research to support African countries in integrated planning,” Murombedzi disclosed.
With the eyes of the world on Marrakech, the African Group is hopeful that the unprecedented mobilisation of the international community and political will, which has culminated into the rapid entry into force of the Paris Agreement, would likewise be extended to implementation.
The Agreement entered into force in time for COP 22, where the first Meeting ofthe Parties to the Agreement will open on 15 November, and parties are expected to agree on the rules of implementation of the Paris Agreement and establish a viable plan to provide financial support to developing countries to support climate action.
On her part, Ms. Royal stressed the importance of climate justice, particularly for Africa. “Africa is the great challenge of this Conference,” she said. “COP 22 is an African COP, and that is where the priority and hopeare,” adding that in Africa, climate change is cruel and unfair as the continent suffers the most through no fault of its own.
It is for this reason that an African development pathway that could propel climate-resilient economic growth is possible if an enabling environment that promotes innovation and collaborative actions for climate change solutions is put into place.
And a number of African initiatives on collaborative research and capacity development were highlighted at a side event at the Africa Pavilion on Innovations and African collaborative approaches for transformative climate policy and solutions.
Organized by the UNECA’s Africa Climate Policy Center (ACPC), the events included the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA) Programme for Climate Change Capacity Development (PCCCD) and WASCAL (the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use)
The SARUA Programme for Climate Change Capacity Development (PCCCD), has led to a consortium of seven universities from five SADC countries developing a regional Master’s curriculum in Climate Change and Sustainable Development, based on the principles of trans-disciplinarity and innovation; while WASCAL pools the expertise of ten West African countries and Germany to strengthen climate change research infrastructure and capacity
Ms Penny Urquhart, Independent analyst and member of the SARUA Curriculum Review Team said there is a need for funding in order to scale up these initiatives to a continental scale to support Africa's development aspirations, reduce vulnerability, increase resilience and optimise low-carbon options for growth.
Other speakers included Prof. Daouda Kone, Director of the WASCAL doctoral programme in Climate Change and Biodiversity, Université Felix Houphouet Boigny, Côte d'Ivoire; Dr Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Head of Science, Technical Support Unit, IPCC and; Professor Roland Roesch, Senior Programme Office, International Renewable Energy Agency (IREN? The event was moderated by Mr Linus Mofor, ACPC Senior Natural Resources Officer (Energy, Infrastructure and Climate Change).
In summing up the event, Msn Simbisai Zhanje, Project Manager, south-south-north / The Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) said that while capacity is important, capability is equally significant as the context in which implementation takes place can be an enabler or barrier. Political will is an important capability factor in different contexts.
MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - Climate experts and development partners at the ongoing summit on climate change in Marrakech, Morocco have said that the world needs an integrated approach for climate resilience, and landscape management in order to feed the ever increasing global population.
Speaking at an event alongside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 22nd session of the Conference of Parties (COP 22) on climate change, Rawleston Moore of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) said there is need to sustain ecosystem service flows by ensuring healthy soils and vegetative cover, need to diversify land use so that farmers have options in production systems, and also need to safeguard high value species to ensure availability of adaptive genetic resources for food, fuel and fiber.
“For the world to remain climate resilient, there is also need to preserve local traditional indigenous knowledge in an integrated approach,” said Moore, the Senior Climate Change Specialist for Adaptation at the GEF.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) the world population is expected to grow by over a third, or 2.3 billion people, between 2009 and 2050, with nearly all the growth taking place in the developing countries.
These trends, according to FAO, mean that market demand for food would continue to grow. Demand for cereals for example, for both food and animal feeds is projected to reach some 3 billion tonnes by 2050, up from today’s nearly 2.1 billion tonnes.
Amid the changing climatic conditions, experts have warned that without extra effort and innovative means of adaptation and food production, there will be a huge food deficit in the near future.
As a result, the GEF has released some $120 through Islamic Development Bank to support food security programmes in 12 African countries.
“Projects have been initiated in different African countries, and am very happy that people’s livelihoods have changed for the better,” said Dr Bashir Jama Adan, the Manager, Agriculture and Food Security Division at the Islamic Development Bank. “Those who depended on food aid can now feed themselves, and people are able to generate income from simple climate resilience projects,” he added.
According to Ketty Lamaro, the Under Secretary Department of Pacification and Development in the Office of Uganda’s Prime Minister, dryland food production projects in Northern Uganda have restored peace in areas such as Karamoja, where households who solely depended on pastoralism can now cultivate food as an alternative way of survival.
However, for communities to respond well to climate resilience programmes, Moore said that there must be political goodwill.
“We need policies to promote incentive mechanisms for good practices that deliver environment and development benefits at scale,” he said.
The Islamic Development Bank provides interest-free financing to vulnerable communities, where profits are shares equitably with the beneficiaries, and losses shared if at all they occur.
MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - Climate experts and development partners at the ongoing summit on climate change in Marrakech, Morocco have said that the world needs an integrated approach for climate resilience, and landscape management in order to feed the ever increasing global population.
Speaking at an event alongside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 22nd session of the Conference of Parties (COP 22) on climate change, Rawleston Moore of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) said there is need to sustain ecosystem service flows by ensuring healthy soils and vegetative cover, need to diversify land use so that farmers have options in production systems, and also need to safeguard high value species to ensure availability of adaptive genetic resources for food, fuel and fiber.
“For the world to remain climate resilient, there is also need to preserve local traditional indigenous knowledge in an integrated approach,” said Moore, the Senior Climate Change Specialist for Adaptation at the GEF.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) the world population is expected to grow by over a third, or 2.3 billion people, between 2009 and 2050, with nearly all the growth taking place in the developing countries.
These trends, according to FAO, mean that market demand for food would continue to grow. Demand for cereals for example, for both food and animal feeds is projected to reach some 3 billion tonnes by 2050, up from today’s nearly 2.1 billion tonnes.
Amid the changing climatic conditions, experts have warned that without extra effort and innovative means of adaptation and food production, there will be a huge food deficit in the near future.
As a result, the GEF has released some $120 through Islamic Development Bank to support food security programmes in 12 African countries.
“Projects have been initiated in different African countries, and am very happy that people’s livelihoods have changed for the better,” said Dr Bashir Jama Adan, the Manager, Agriculture and Food Security Division at the Islamic Development Bank. “Those who depended on food aid can now feed themselves, and people are able to generate income from simple climate resilience projects,” he added.
According to Ketty Lamaro, the Under Secretary Department of Pacification and Development in the Office of Uganda’s Prime Minister, dryland food production projects in Northern Uganda have restored peace in areas such as Karamoja, where households who solely depended on pastoralism can now cultivate food as an alternative way of survival.
However, for communities to respond well to climate resilience programmes, Moore said that there must be political goodwill.
“We need policies to promote incentive mechanisms for good practices that deliver environment and development benefits at scale,” he said.
The Islamic Development Bank provides interest-free financing to vulnerable communities, where profits are shares equitably with the beneficiaries, and losses shared if at all they occur.
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Agricultural experts and leaders from all over the world have developed an ambitious plan to transform global agriculture, responding to the challenge of climate change and real threats to the production of the planet’s major crops in a hotter world.
This is an outcome of a recent roundtable interaction held in Nairobi seeking to create a roadmap that will implement the Global Action Plan for Agricultural Diversification (GAPAD), which is a declaration agreed upon by world leaders during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 21) in Paris in December 2015.
The GAPAD initiative had earlier been designed to support the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, and to responds to the Declaration on Agriculture Diversification before it was adopted by the United Nations in September 2015.
“Currently, over 7 billion people depend on just four major crops to supply three-quarters of their food,” said Dr Dennis Rangi, the Director General, Development, at the CAB International. And according to studies, the population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050.
“It is therefore becoming increasingly accepted that in a hotter world, options for agricultural diversification are needed that include a wider range of crops and cropping systems,” said Rangi, noting that there is need for increased species diversity and more resilient agricultural ecosystems that include new crops for food and non-food uses.
The GAPAD initiative is therefore addressing six of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 2 ‘zero hunger’, 7 ‘affordable and clean energy’, 12 ‘responsible consumption and production’, 13 ‘climate action’, 15 ‘life on land’ and 17’ partnerships for the goals’. Agricultural diversification will also eventually contribute to achieving SDG 1on ‘no poverty’.
Among the leaders and experts who deliberated on the initiative included representatives from the African Union Commission (AUC), the Sustainable Development Goals Centre for Africa and the Australian High Commission, representatives from research and development organisations and a host of journalists drawn from different media organisations.
According to Ruth Oniang’o, a Kenyan Professor in Food Science and Nutrition, agricultural diversification can improve nutrition, enhance food security and help alleviate poverty amongst other benefits.
The experts have therefore developed GAPAD targets based on each of the eight SDG2 targets but focused on the role of agricultural diversification, and have identified the priority activities needed to achieve these targets.
The next step will involve a small group of eminent, respected and highly qualified individuals who will distil and refine the output of the Nairobi roundtable, and integrate these with the distilled and refined outputs from the roundtables that addressed the other five SDGs being addressed by GAPAD.
The result is expected to be a compelling, credible, inclusive, authoritative and investable global plan for agricultural diversification in a hotter world, which has the support of all the relevant institutions.
It is anticipated that GAPAD will be formally launched in mid-2017. At the same time the bold plan for agricultural diversification will be submitted to the secretariat of UNSDA 2030.
In the meantime, GAPAD will seek to build a network of experts, stakeholders, institutions, governments, regional and international organisations, and distinguished individuals to support and champion this urgent and important initiative.
