ABUJA, NIGERIA (PAMACC News) - As the UN General Assembly convenes in New York, the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group calls on heads of state and government to reaffirm their pledge to tackle climate change by committing to fair and concrete climate solutions that will protect all people and the planet. The theme of this year's UN General Assembly debate - 'Focusing on People: Striving for Peace and a Decent Life for All on a Sustainable Planet' - is a timely and vital reminder of the importance of safeguarding a liveable world for ourselves and future generations. Mr. Gebru Jember Endalew, Chair of the LDC Group, said: "the urgent need for serious climate action has never been clearer. Over the past months we have seen devastating events exacerbated by climate change, from deadly hurricanes and flooding, to wildfires and heatwaves. No corner of our planet is safe from climate impacts. Global temperatures have already risen 1.1°C and the frequency and severity of these events will only worsen with further warming." "Collective commitments by the global community to date are woefully inadequate in the face of our shared challenge of climate change. Current pledges under the Paris Agreement put the world on course for 3.5°C of warming by the end of the century. This is a death sentence for many communities across the world, particularly in poor and vulnerable countries. Humanity cannot afford to delay." "There is a widening gulf between the climate finance that is provided and mobilised and the reality of finance received and needed. Without adequate climate finance and support to developing countries, mainly LDCs and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are left without a lifeline. Many trillions of dollars are required to implement the Paris Agreement." "The LDCs are committed to being at the frontline of the clean energy revolution. The LDC Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Initiative will deliver sustainable climate action and lift communities out of poverty. If we are truly to set the planet on a safe course, all countries, and particularly those who contribute the most to climate change, must follow suit. Renewable energy has the power to place us on a path to a cleaner, fairer and more prosperous world for all." "Spread across Africa, southern Asia, the Pacific and Caribbean, the 47 LDCs all face immense challenges in adapting to climate change and addressing the loss and damage it unleashes. LDCs are taking ambitious domestic action to lead by example, and call on the rest of the world to do the same in line with their capability to respond and responsibility for the problem. State, city and business leaders from around the world have just met in New York for climate week, and the LDC Group urges leaders at the UN General Assembly to carry the conversation forward and inspire real action from all nations across the globe."

ABUJA, Nigeria (PAMACC News) - Following suggestions that Donald Trump could only consider remaining a signatory of the Paris Agreement if new terms were reached, President of France, Emmanuel Macron has declared that the landmark Paris climate deal will not be renegotiated. The French President's comments came during his address to the UN General Assembly amidst renewed hopes that the world's second largest polluter would remain tied to the accord's carbon emission targets.Macron also told his audience at the United Nations General Assembly that "the door will be open" for the United States to return to the agreement if it so wishes."This agreement will not be renegotiated." "We will not retreat" he added.Macron noted that the international community had so far fallen short of successfully addressing major threats such as climate change. Now more than ever before, we need common efforts to tackle environmental challenges and other global issues, Macron said, including war and terrorism. "We can only address those challenges through multilateralism, not through survival of the fittest." Macron also hit back at US President Donald Trump on Tuesday by staunchly defending the Iran nuclear deal at the UN General Assembly, speaking soon after Trump called the deal an "embarrassment to the United States".“Renouncing it would be a grave error, not respecting it would be irresponsible, because it is a good accord that is essential to peace at a time where the risk of an infernal conflagration cannot be excluded,” Macron said.The French president added that he had made his position clear to both Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when he met with them on Monday.

Today, food security and nutrition matters are once again taking center stage in African development dialogue. The dialogue is yielding real commitment from public and business leaders; backed by financial pledges. This week alone, during the seventh edition of the African Green Revolution Forum, $ 280 million has been pledged to contribute to transforming Africa’s agriculture across 11 countries.This week too, saw the recognition of efforts by two women — both pioneers in their chosen paths and contributions to transforming Africa’s rural areas by working on matters of nutrition and raising productivity of key food crops. The two — Prof. Ruth Oniang’o and Maimouna Coulibaly — jointly won the Africa Food Prize 2017 . The prize includes $100,000 and an ornate handcrafted glass trophy.Both spent many years and at times their own resources to create enterprises that benefit rural farmers, most of whom are women. They have shown that it is not enough to give women access to improved farm inputs but it is also important to empower them with knowledge on how to produce more food, of good quality. To empower them to feed their families and villages.I first met Prof. Oniang’o (‘Prof.’) nearly 20 years ago, and remember being struck by how different she was from my long-held mental image of what a food science and nutrition professor looked like and worked on. I imagined that they worked in labs, churning out new scientific discoveries, formulae and processes that would contribute to food science and nutrition theory. This was debunked soon after I joined her non-profit — then Rural Outreach Program — and travelled with her to the program sites in rural Kenya. What I saw there amazed me: Prof. was turning textbook knowledge into pragmatic interventions that could be understood and adopted by the village women to improve nutrition outcomes of their families. As she later told me, this was ‘action research’. In the week that I spent in the villages in Butere, in Kenya’s western region, I saw this research translated into action firsthand.Mothers were growing and feeding their families nutrient-packed green leafy vegetables, gifting each other a young heifer to boost family milk supplies, and learning how to ‘feed’ the soil on which they depended good food too. Prof. taught them that the soil and plants needed to be nourished for their good health, just as people and animals did. This was through promoting various soil health management practices such as crop rotation, mulching and intercropping of complementary crops (such as legumes and cereals) to balance out the nutrient consumption-depletion cycles. The desire to bring this knowledge and the benefits of these practices to the village women drove Prof. to knock relentlessly on doors of development partners and global non-profits to support this work.In another part of the village, concrete structures were constructed to protect springs of water which were the community’s lifeline. Village-based extension agents traveled by motorcycle to bridge the gaps in access to extension services; supplying much-needed services and supplies such as…

ADDIS ABABAm Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Promoting a robust infrastructure growth in Africa will be a key driver to the continent’s development agenda, experts say. According to James Murombedzi, coordinator, African Climate Centre, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the solution pathways to the success of Africa’s development agenda lies in infrastructure development to permit for the full exploitation of the rich resource potential the continent is endowed with. In a paper presented under the theme “China-Africa Linkages in the Agricultural Sector and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities” in Addis Ababa, Murombedzi said that poor infrastructure development was a huge setback to agriculture growth, thus a constraint to the fight against rural poverty. “There is need to push for infrastructure development in Africa. Investments in infrastructure are key drivers to the African rural development agenda,” he noted. UN records show that Africa’s infrastructure financing needs are estimated at $135 billion per year. But currently, only around $77 billion is being funded, leaving a financing gap of almost $60 billion. Close to 50% of the current financing is from governments and other public sources, with much of the rest made up by loans and grants from development partners, Murombedzi told media representatives in Addis Ababa. Investments, he notes, are required in order to increase the productivity of agriculture, irrigation, energy, transportation, and marketing. “However, such investments should empower, not dispossess smallholder farmers and the vulnerable communities,” he cautioned. Thus the need to partner with other development actors to better drive the Agenda 2063 and help Africa meet the Sustainable Development Goals. “China and Africa can develop strong partnerships to promote these infrastructure development agenda,” he said. Opening the ceremony of the Media Workshop on “Reporting Africa-China Engagements, Agriculture Developments, Climate Change, Industrialization, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063”,Chen Xufeng Charge d’Affaires of the Chinese Mission to AU, said China was ready to accompany Africa in efforts towards bridging the infrastructure deficient gap. “China has today become Africa's largest development partner, main investor and engineering contractor. China-Africa cooperation faces new historic opportunities geared at accompanying efforts towards development especially in the area of infrastructure” Chen Xufeng said. China he assured was firmly committed to promoting cooperation with the African continent through common, intensive, green, secure and open development and supporting Africa’s efforts to address the main bottlenecks, namely lack of quality infrastructure, professional and skilled personnel and financial resources. “China is ready to help Africa resolve three fundamental issues of employment, food and health by developing self-sustainable system of industrialization, food security, and disease prevention and control system, he noted. China it was announced has completed a number of mega infrastructure projects including the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, the Nairobi-Mombasa Railway in Kenya, and the Abuja-Kaduna Rail in Nigeria. Rapid progress has also been made in production capacity cooperation in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and the Republic of Congo as pilot and pioneering countries and a dozen of priority partners for production capacity cooperation. There is also the construction of…