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.
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 systems, though, it can also be a risk if we don’t manage it well,” said Desalegn.
He noted that 60% of Africa’s $50 billion annual food import bill is spent on Rice, wheat, maize and oil seed products, all of which we can produce ourselves “This is the latest lesson from the Russia-Ukraine Crisis,” he said.
The incoming Chair of the Africa Food Prize Committee, and the former President of Tanzania said that he will use the prize to seize some of the investable opportunities.
“As I take over the leadership of this esteemed Committee, I am reminded of the fact that African agri-food industry presents a sizable opportunity for investment across value chains from production and processing to packaging and trading,” said President Kikwete.
“This Prize, therefore, is a key contributor to realizing some of these investable opportunities culminating into quality jobs and food and nutrition security in our continent,” he said as he launched the 2023 prize nomination process in Addis Ababa.
The Africa Food Prize, which comes alongside a cash reward of USD 100,000, recognizes an outstanding individual or institution that is leading the effort to change the reality of farming in Africa – from a struggle to survive to a business that thrives.
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, Green Climate Fund, GEF, Forest Carbon Partnership, European Union, USAID, GIZ etc.
The African Forest Forum (AFF) is a pan-African non-governmental organization with its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. It is an association of individuals who share the quest for and commitment to the sustainable management, use and conservation of the forest and tree resources of Africa for the socio- economic wellbeing of its people and for the stability and improvement of its environment. The purpose of AFF is to provide a platform and create an enabling environment for independent and objective analysis, advocacy and advice on relevant policy and technical issues pertaining to achieving sustainable management, use and conservation of Africa’s forest and tree resources as part of efforts to reduce poverty, promote gender equality, economic and social development and protect the environment.
