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) - Experts at the ongoing climate talks in Marrakech have advocated the development and adoption of a policy and strategic framework that support expansion and mainstreaming of sustainable tourism certification in Africa.

Speaking at a side event in the Africa pavilion on the second day of the COP22 climate conference, water and tourism experts were unanimous in their view that African states should encourage and incentivise green certification of tourism, specifically in relation to monitoring and reducing water and waste.

This, according to them, will set the stage for existing African and International certification programs to have adequate criteria, and established processes and systems for working with the hotel sector to assess and monitor their waste and water management systems.

In addition to other environmental, social and socio-economic components of sustainable tourism, the framework will provide a mechanism to recognise that certification standards use a common and comprehensive approach to sustainability as well as summarise existing monitoring data being gathered by national tourism authorities and international/regional certification bodies specifically relating to the accommodation sector in Africa.

According to Dr. Anna Spenceley, a consultant with the African Development Bank (AfDB), African states can integrate sustainability criteria into their hotel quality-rating programs as a way of supporting Sustainable Development Goal 12 which places emphasis on responsible consumption and production, and also contribute to the objectives of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Tourism.

Jean Michel Ossete, the Coordinator of the African Water Facility, jointly sponsored by the AfDB and the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) believes that the AfDB could support member states to raise awareness on the benefits of sustainable tourism certification in Africa particularly those with currently low levels of certification,improve linkages between established certification programs and member states, where there the program is aligned with the country’s objectives, and providing guidance on the design and implementation of incentives to promote improved waste and water management.

Recognising that sustainable tourism certification provides an independent mechanism for evaluating and measuring water and waste management in African hotels, Oseloka Zikora of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) advocated support for the development of national waste and water management capacity, to ensure that countries are able and willing to establish and enabling policy framework for good practices, and that hotels can implement them.  

“This should be done by providing technical advice and mentoring to governments on how they can promote better water and waste management and certification in the hotel sector through congruent policies, including through incentives, commissioning and sharing research findings on the financial and non-financial benefits of certification, and of good waste and water management practices, that provides clear quantification of the benefits that can be understood by decision makers,” Zikora added.

He further recommended the adoption of a train-the-trainers approach to making the outreach cost effective and locally relevant, as well as establish an online resource library containing tools on waste and water management, training guides and case study examples.

The experts also agreed on the need to develop external coordination and cooperation mechanisms to ensure good communication, linkages and compatible approaches.

Strategic partners identified for this include multi-laterals such as the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), bi-lateral organisations such as GiZ, and NGOs like the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, the Travel Foundation and International Tourism Partnership, and also networks such as the Sustainable Tourism Certification Alliance Africa.

Collectively, the African and international certification programs have certified at least 715 accommodation facilities in 19 African countries, against their environmental, social and economic criteria.

Though the total actual number of hotels in Africa is not known, Booking.com lists 20,844 hotels in 51 of Africa’s 52 countries. It therefore implies that the number of hotels that are monitoring their waste and water consumption, and taking efforts to improve their practices, are a tiny proportion of the number of accommodation facilities on the continent.

MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - The African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change has identified gender integration as a key component to the continent’s implementation of the Paris Agreement (PA).

Chairperson of National Gender and Equality Commission of the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change, Winfred Lichuma said integration is much more meaningful and could lead to positive results as opposed to mainstreaming, which has largely dominated the gender discourse, but with minimal impact.

“To achieve the required responsiveness, we need to move from gender mainstreaming to integration as it is much more deeper and addresses the inadequacies noted especially at implementation of policies and strategies,”Lichuma told delegates at a side event at COP 22 where an analysis of the PA and gender in Africa was presented.

Lichuma explained that integration would ensure that the excluded gender is involved at all levels as opposed to their needs just being mainstreamed in policies and strategies.

Highlighting Agriculture which is believed to be the main source of Africa’s emissions and largely dominated by women, Lichuma bemoaned the failure by the Paris Agreement to include more explicit recognition of the gender dimension.

And representing the Nigerian Minister of Environment on the panel, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC country focal point, Peter Tarfa said ignoring the gender dimension especially women in the implementation of the Paris Agreement would be suicidal.

“Climate Change vulnerability is more pronounced among women who are in the majority in most countries, and should be involved especially on critical issues such as climate finance,” said Dr. Tarfa, adding that Nigeria is reviewing its National Climate Change Policy to make gender inclusivity more visible.

Meanwhile, representing the African Union Commissioner, Olushola Olayidehad some good news for theAfrican Working Group on Gender and Climate Change, announcing that the African Union’s Climate Change Strategy is almost ready to be tabled for adoption.

“The AU Climate Change Strategy is almost ready, and will soon be tabled to the high level organ for adoption. I therefore encourage you to keep pushing the gender agenda at the negotiating table and ensure that it is part of the strategies for the implementation of the Paris Agreement,” she said.

Africa’s Agenda 2063 has a clear aspiration on gender, which is linked to youth development as the two have been identified key components to unlock Africa’s development potential.

Representing youths, Zambia’s Abel Musumali of Green Enviro Watch said “the implementation of the Paris Agreement will not be possible without women and youths” saying the two have a symbiotic relationship of mother and child, and are usually the face of climate change vulnerability in Africa.

And Tabi Joda, another youth ambassador on climate change concluded that a well-developed Agricultural system which accommodates the young people’s innovations, is the solution to youth and women vulnerability to climate change.

“Women and youth carry the burden of Africa’s poverty, destitution but the solution lies in empowering these two groups with agricultural solutions that work; all it requires is commitment,” said Joda, explaining his involvement in the promotion of climate smart agricultural innovations to entice youths into agriculture.

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Experts drawn from different institutions under the umbrella of the Association of International Research and Development Centres for Agriculture (AIRCA) have commenced on a journey towards implementation of Sustainable Development Goal number 2 (SDG 2), which calls for diversification of agriculture and nutrition.

During the 21st session of negotiations on Climate Change – Conference of Parties (COP 21) in Paris, France last year, research leaders agreed on a Global Action Plan for Agricultural Diversification (GAPAD) to address sustainable development through agricultural diversification beyond only major crops.

However, Dr James Nyoro, an agricultural economist, formerly a Senior Food Security and Climate Change Advisor to the Presidency – Government of Kenya, has warned that such efforts will terribly fail, if there will be no political goodwill.

Nyoro told agriculture and nutrition experts during a roundtable event organized by CAB International in Nairobi that there is evidence to show that where the government takes the driver’s seat, and sets the agenda for agricultural development and transformation, there has always been a positive change.

“Majority of our governments today have no political goodwill for the agricultural transformation agenda,” said Nyoro. Unless that is addressed, he added, “We can hold these meetings until cows come back home,” he said.

He referred to a recent report released during the 2016 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), which showed that countries that adopted the policies promoted by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) not long after it was created by African Union governments in 2003 saw productivity on existing farmlands rise by 5.9 to 6.7 percent per year.

By contrast, countries that sat on the sidelines saw farm productivity rise by less than 3 percent a year and Gross Domestic Product by just 2.2 percent, said the Africa Agriculture Status Report 2016.

It was in the same regard that Her Excellency Mrs Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, the Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission observed that key indicators of success and likely impact of GAPAD will be the number of countries that endorse the plan, along with the number that elect to develop a National Plan of Action for its implementation.

“The Paris Climate Agreement has given us a clear roadmap for sustainable development in the years to come, but without meaningful implementation on the ground, these goals will [only] remain aspiration in nature,” she said.
John Feakes, the Australian High Commissioner said that given the changing global climatic conditions, countries cannot afford to get it wrong. “Climate is changing, and it is posing significant challenge to achieving sustainable development,” said Feakes. “Many decisions being made today have long-term consequences and are sensitive to climate conditions – water, energy, agriculture, fisheries and forests, to name but a few. We simply can’t afford to get it wrong,” he told the experts at the GAPAD meeting.

Dr Dennis Rangi, Director General, Development, CAB International, noted that there was an immediate need to diversify and supplement the only four crops that feed the whole world.

“From over half a million plant species on the planet, we currently rely on  wheat rice, maize and soybean for more than three-quarters of our food supply,” he said noting that the crops are grown in a limited number of exporting countries, usually as monocultures, and are highly dependent on inputs such as fertilisers and irrigation.

“With climate change, these crops alone cannot feed a hotter world. We need options for agricultural diversification that include a wider range of crops and cropping systems,” said Dr Rangi.

The forum brought together representatives from governments, research institutions, Nongovernmental organisations, and intergovernmental organisation.