DAR-ES-SALAAM, (PAMACC News) – The Government of Tanzania intends to develop a Marine Spatial Plan to guide all economic activities within the Indian Ocean in order to reap greater benefits from a more sustainable blue economy. The Marine Spatial Plan will encompass all activities in the ocean, including fishing (small scale and deep sea), aquaculture and marine products, seaweed farming, construction of strategic infrastructure for ports and sea transport, seafood and fish processing, oil and gas extraction, and beach tourism and water sports. According to the Permanent Secretary, Vice President’s Office, Ms. Mary Maganga, the plan will deliver more benefits from the ocean to communities and the nation through sustainable practices while strengthening the blue economy. To set the foundation for the plan, a pre-feasibility study has been concluded. Commissioned by The Nature Conservancy and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the study reviewed the current status of marine spatial planning in the country and the state of policy, legal and administrative frameworks. It proposes a roadmap for developing the plan. Speaking at a workshop in Dar-es-Salaam to validate the pre-feasibility study, Ms. Maganga said: “The marine spatial planning is part of the solution to bring about the sustainable use of our ocean resources and open economic and employment opportunities based on proper management of the environment and dealing with climate change”. The two-day workshop brought together ocean users, government officials, development partners, as well as local and international NGOs. The Nature Conservancy’s Tanzania Country Director, Ms. Lucy Magembe told the workshop that 25 marine spatial plans have been implemented worldwide and have proven to be a practical approach for engaging communities, stakeholders, and governments to expand marine protection, meet conservation goals, and improve sustainability of both economic and non-commercial activities. "We are working closely with the Government of Tanzania and other partners to manage human activities in the ocean to ensure they are sustainable. The Marine Spatial Plan will ensure that communities around the ocean benefit from it, while protecting the environment," added Ms. Magembe. The pre-feasibility study was funded by the German Government’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety through the International Climate Initiative, as part of a five-year (2021-2025) regional project entitled 'Strengthening the Blue Economy of the WIO through the integration of ecosystem services and effective biodiversity conservation’ covering Tanzania, Kenya, Seychelles, and Mauritius.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Head of one of the leading regional banks on the continent has urged AGRA to use Africa Food Prize laureates as champions to inspire and boost agriculture transformation in different African regions and countries Speaking at the launch of the 2023 nomination process for the prize in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dr James Mwangi, who is the Chief Executive Officer at Equity Bank, said that there is need for the laureates to form regional agriculture advisory boards so as to create interaction between the experts with governments, the private sector and the practitioners. “We need to transform agriculture from the social investment sector where it only attracts grants, to a profitable commercial sector that gives reasonable market returns,” said Mwangi, noting that that can only happen if the continent developed innovative ways of increasing food productivity, and doing value addition. Dr Eleni Gabre-Madhin the Chief Innovation Officer at UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa, and one of the laureates of the Africa Food Prize observed that time has come for building the brand of the prize, so that it works for agriculture. “This award should be a very strong branded event that has to be elevated to global recognition,” she told the delegation in Addis Ababa. According to Mwangi, the award should also be used to impart knowledge to the young generation for them to internalize agriculture as a money making profession at an early stage. “Among all the students Equity Bank has sponsored to higher education, none of them is studying agriculture because the subject has been linked to poverty. Who wants to study so as to become poor,” he posed. He said that the Bank, for example in Kenya is paying school fees for over 40,000 students in high schools, and it would be great if the Africa Food Prize laureates started interacting with them at this very early stage. “I would like to take this as a challenge and we as Equity Bank will be willing to work with AGRA to actualize it,” he said. So far, the bank has launched a private sector focused stimulus package known as ‘Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan,’ which is a USD 6 Billion package to accelerate economic recovery and resilience in the Eastern and Central Africa region as it recovers from the devastating health, social, humanitarian, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘This stimulus package is all about agricultural transformation. If we transform agriculture, we will be transforming the face of the Africa rural woman and the brand of the African child,” said Mwangi. In the same vein, H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, Former Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the current Chair for AGRA Board of Directors pointed out some challenges on the continent, which can easily be turned into opportunities through transformation of the agriculture sector. “Africa will be home to 2.4 billion people come the year 2025. This presents a huge opportunity and market for our own agriculture and food…

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - The African Forest Forum (AFF) has embarked on a journey to impart relevant knowledge and skills to players in African forestry sector to be able to mobilize adequate resources for different projects. According to Professor Louis Defo of the University of Dschang who is one of the trainers, the objective of the training was to enable stakeholders “mobilize resources by developing bankable projects whose implementation could improve the climate change resilience and livelihoods of forest-dependent communities.” “ AFF is hoping this will result to better understanding of climate change and the associated problems in the forest sector as well as climate finance,” Professor Defo said. Experts say Climate change presents a US$3 trillion investment opportunity up for grabs in Africa by 2030 with the private sector expected to lead in driving green investment and development. According to Barbara Buchner, the Executive Director for Climate Finance Program at Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) who lent her voice to those of other experts at the Finance day event organize by the African Development Bank during COP24 in Poland, “Africa has to seize the available opportunities to obtain financing of their projects” Even though opportunities exist to finance climate change projects, African countries still find it hard accessing climate funding experts say. One of the key reasons according to experts is that stakeholders in the forest sector don’t fully master what funding opportunities exist, and how to draft bankable projects to attract such funding. “African Forest stakeholders have to be abreast with the different skills on drafting bankable project,” says Takam Michel of Action for Equitable, Integrated and Sustainable Development, known by its French acronym ADEID. Takam who is one of the training facilitators presented a paper under the theme,” Theorie du Changement” AFF points out that among the constraints that impede efficient and adequate climate finance mobilization by most African countries are insufficient domestic capacity at technical, institutional and financial levels to the development of quality project proposals that respond to investment criteria of climate funds, the laying down of sound implementation mechanisms as well as the establishment of a functional reporting systems. It is against this backdrop that AFF in collaboration with experts is training forest stakeholders on available funding openings and the techniques of drafting bankable projects. These challenges were also highlighted by Lucie Tengoua, lecturer in the University of Dschang who also presented a paper on “Financing Climate Change” “There is need to work in synergy and master the different avenues or pathways to climate financing to be able to succeed,” she cautions. The participants at the Yaounde workshop are, drawn from governmental / forest administration and non-governmental organizations. The papers presented by the different resource persons all highlighted globally the multiple climate funding opportunities and institutions as well as the potential project proposals need to address to be able to attract funding. Funding institutions among others included the World Bank,UN-REDD, LCDF( Fund for less developed countries, Multilateral Development Banks like AfDB, West African Bank,…

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - The African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN) has committed to multistakeholder engagements for the development of Africa’s unified position regarding the continent’s climate change and development aspirations as the continent looks forward to COP-28 later in the year. Speaking at a Multistakeholder consultation and strategy for COP-28 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, AGN Chair, Ephraim MwepyaShitima said the African group remains committed to engaging with, and providing technical guidance and support to all stakeholders ranging from political leaders, civil society and other development actors to ensure Africa’s success at climate change negotiations. Mr. Shitima noted the importance of continuous engagements among stakeholders to ensure that Africa remains united and speaking with one voice. “As AGN, we take stakeholder engagements and consultations very seriously as they provide us with different views and positions that we have to advance in the negotiations, thereby cementing our legitimacy to speak for the continent,” said Shitima adding that the AGN is “determined to build on the successes we achieved at COP-27 and strengthen areas where we did not do well as we head to COP-28 and will rely on inputs from all stakeholders.” The AGN Chair also emphasised the group’s desire and strategy to increase the number of women negotiators in support of gender equality and in view of the unanimous agreement that women are on the frontlines of climate change not only in Africa but globally. “In order to ensure that we grow the AGN and in support of gender equality, we are partnering with UNDP to host a capacity training workshop for young negotiators, focusing mostly on young women. This is important as the strength of any group lies in grooming young people. In view of the importance of gender equality, we have given priority to young female negotiators as it is unanimously agreed that women are on the frontlines fighting climate change impacts. We thus believe that increasing the number of female negotiators adds to our strength as a negotiating block,” said Shitima. And speaking at the same function, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) Executive Director, MithikaMwendapaid tribute to the AGN for its continued key role in pushing Africa’s agenda in the climate change negotiation process and called on African governments to get actively involved in the technical processes to ensure unity of purpose. Dr. Mwenda said PACJA wishes to see a unified approach at both the technical and high-level engagements to ensure that there is no misrepresentation of Africa’s interests and aspirations. “The Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) played a key role in the negotiations at COP27; we therefore encourage everyone to be fully involved in the negotiations so as to have a stronger voice in the negotiation rooms. This meeting is therefore important to put in place a strategy to ensure unity of purpose as Africa heads to COP28,” said Dr. Mwenda. Earlier, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA’s) Director for Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources management, Jean Paul…