Anmar Frangoul
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/11/uk-announces-126-million-of-funding-for-renewable-energy-in-africa.html">UK announces $126 million of funding for renewable energy in Africa</a>
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<li>The program currently backs 18 renewable energy projects in countries such as Tanzania, Burundi, Nigeria and Kenya.</li>
<li> The U.K. has made a commitment to invest £5.8 billion in international climate finance by the year 2020. </li>
</ul>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cdn.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/11150230/105620453-1544525720997gettyimages-1067099724.1910x1000.jpeg" alt="Solar Panel detail..." height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="John Greim | LightRocket | Getty Images"/>
The U.K. government has announced £100 million ($126.11 million) of extra funding for renewable energy projects in Africa. The money will be used to support the Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP), which was set up in 2015 and supported by £48 million in initial funding from the U.K. The REPP&#8217;s broad goal is to &#8220;catalyze the growth&#8221; of the renewable energy sector in sub-Saharan Africa by helping developers to &#8220;overcome barriers to finance.&#8221; The program currently backs 18 renewable energy projects in countries such as Tanzania, Burundi, Nigeria and Kenya. These schemes support everything from solar, wind and biomass to hydro and geothermal. The U.K. has made a commitment to invest £5.8 billion in international climate finance by the year 2020. The new tranche of funding, announced Tuesday, will assist up to 40 new renewable energy schemes in sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years, the government said. &#8220;This £100 million will help communities harness the power of their natural resources to provide hundreds of thousands of people with electricity for the first time,&#8221; Claire Perry, the Energy and Clean Growth minister, said in a statement. &#8220;Building these clean, reliable sources of energy will also create thousands of quality jobs in these growing green economies,&#8221; Perry added.

UK announces $126 million of funding for renewable energy in Africa

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-elizabeth-gannon-601360">By Kate Elizabeth Gannon</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science-1219">London School of Economics and Political Science</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/declan-conway-434384">Declan Conway</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science-1219">London School of Economics and Political Science</a>
Climate change is going to have huge consequences all over the world, <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">especially in Africa</a>. Harvests will be affected, threatening agricultural outputs. This could hurt farmers and lead to greater food insecurity.
But there hasn’t been much discussion about what effects climate change will have in other areas – like in the continent’s small and medium business sector. This is a worrying oversight.
Our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-sustainability/article/business-experience-of-floods-and-droughtrelated-water-and-electricity-supply-disruption-in-three-cities-in-subsaharan-africa-during-the-20152016-el-nino/4E87FAB6F1703FB2558CB2D0EE9845E2">research</a>, conducted in Zambia and Botswana, revealed that businesses activities faced major disruptions during the 2015/2016 El Niño event. This was a result of drought-related water supply disruption in Botswana’s capital Gaborone, and disruption to hydroelectricity supplies in Zambia’s capital Lusaka.
<a href="https://www.livescience.com/3650-el-nino.html">El Niño</a> is one of the key drivers of variations in global climate conditions between different years. It recurs every two to seven years and it’s typically associated with reduced rainfall and drought conditions in southern Africa.
Reflecting this trend, the 2015/2016 El Niño was one of the <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0009.1">strongest on record</a>. It brought widespread drought conditions and heat waves to the region.
By impacting urban water and hydroelectricity supplies, this had major consequences for business activities in Gaborone and Lusaka, as our research shows. These cities’ experiences should serve as a warning for others across the continent, and systems should be put in place to protect particularly small businesses from the worst realities of a changing climate.
<h2>Under pressure</h2>
In Botswana, as lake levels in the Gaborone Dam dropped to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017EF000680/full#">historical lows</a>, businesses in Gaborone experienced decreased water pressure. In some cases businesses were completely cut off from piped water supply.
Lack of water for food preparation, butchery, irrigation, laundry, cleaning and sanitation had dire consequences for businesses such as hotels and guesthouses, restaurants, food businesses and other service industries. Hairdressers and car washing enterprises, for instance, came to a standstill as they struggled to provide services to customers or to maintain hygiene standards.
In Zambia’s capital Lusaka, where hydropower accounts for <a href="https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/zambia">94%</a> of the country’s electricity generation capacity, low lake levels in Lake Kariba contributed to unprecedented electricity blackouts, often lasting for eight hours at a time.
In Lusaka, activities reliant on electricity such as manufacturing, processing and communications were interrupted as equipment was immobilised. Assets were lost because they couldn’t be reliably heated or refrigerated. In both cities, supply chains were disrupted.
<figure><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nu5pjijFFa4?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><figcaption>A video explaining the authors’ findings.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Infrastructure issues</h2>
Towards the end of 2016, as El Niño drew to a close, more than half of the 135 micro, small and medium enterprises we surveyed in Gaborone and Lusaka told us their profits would be lower than previous years. Almost a third believed that their business was at risk of closing down. Business owners said disruptions to water supply and power outages, in Gaborone and Lusaka respectively, were the greatest obstacles to them doing business.
The two cities’ experiences, alongside the widely reported “<a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/will-day-zero-loom-again-for-cape-town-20181005">Day Zero</a>” water situation in Cape Town, South Africa, should sound a warning for businesses elsewhere on the continent. Water shortages in Cape Town began during the El Niño, but extended into 2018 as drought conditions persisted.
<hr />
 
 
Read more: 
<a href="http://theconversation.com/day-zero-is-meant-to-cut-cape-towns-water-use-what-is-it-and-is-it-working-92055">Day Zero is meant to cut Cape Town&#8217;s water use: what is it, and is it working?</a> 
 

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Climate change events like droughts are only going to get worse – and urban centres where many small, medium and micro enterprises thrive will be in the eye of the storm. The 2015/2016 El Niño highlighted that even fairly moderate changes in rainfall can have major consequences for businesses in African cities.
<a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/urbanization-sub-saharan-africa">More people are moving to cities</a>, setting up businesses and connecting, often for the first time, to water and electricity grids. This increases demand and places pressure on existing water and energy infrastructure.
At the same time, a complex set of factors has limited the development of new infrastructure and the effective management of existing resources. This means cities are struggling to keep up with the increased demand.
These factors, which include under-investment in infrastructure, policy uncertainty, governance challenges and poor municipal service provision, exacerbated the effect of drought in Botswana, Zambia and South Africa.
<h2>Preparing for a new reality</h2>
So what can be done to address these realities?
First, action is needed across sub-Saharan Africa to increase understanding of the vulnerabilities in existing water, energy and urban infrastructure – alongside the effects of increasing urbanisation and a changing climate.
And, second, small and medium sized businesses, which are <a href="https://www.norfund.no/getfile.php/133983-1484571386/Bilder/Publications/SME%20and%20growth%20MENON%20.pdf">key drivers of economic growth across sub-Saharan Africa</a> and provide many people with a livelihood, need more support from governments and policy makers to help them cope with disruption.
This should include better access to information about the timing and severity of anticipated disruption to water and electricity supplies, as well as support to invest in coping strategies such as alternative sources of energy.
Patrick Curran, a policy analyst at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, also contributed to this article.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107373/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-elizabeth-gannon-601360">Kate Elizabeth Gannon</a>, Postdoctoral researcher, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science-1219">London School of Economics and Political Science</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/declan-conway-434384">Declan Conway</a>, Professorial Research Fellow, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science-1219">London School of Economics and Political Science</a>
This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-businesses-in-africa-will-be-on-the-frontline-of-climate-change-107373">original article</a>.

What are the consequences climate change will have on small businesses in Africa?

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/francis-vergunst-230743" rel="author">Francis Vergunst, </a>Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Developmental Public Health, Université de Montréal, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/helen-louise-berry-8608" rel="author">Helen Louise Berry, </a>Professor of Climate Change and Mental Health, University of Sydney and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/massimiliano-orri-549142" rel="author">Massimiliano Orri, </a>Marie-Curie and CIHR Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill University.
&nbsp;
Extreme heat has gripped the northern hemisphere in recent months, and the year 2018 is on track to be among the hottest ever recorded. Higher global temperatures are expected to have detrimental effects on our natural environments and our physical health, but what will they do to our mental health?
New research from an international team of scientists suggests that one of the most tangible impacts may be an <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0222-x">increase in suicide rates</a>.
Suicide is already among the leading causes of death worldwide. For people aged 15-55 years, it is among the top five causes of death. Worldwide nearly one million people die by suicide each year — <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/more-people-die-from-suicide-than-from-wars-natural-disasters-combined/2438749.html">more than all deaths from war and murder combined</a>.
Using historical temperature records from the United States and Mexico, the researchers showed that suicide rates increased by 0.7 per cent in the U.S. and by 2.1 per cent in Mexico when the average monthly temperatures rose by 1 C.
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0222-x">The researchers calculated</a> that if global temperatures continue to rise at these rates, between now and 2050 there could be 9,000 to 40,000 additional suicides in the U.S. and Mexico alone. This is roughly equivalent to the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4473496/">number of additional suicides that follow an economic recession</a>.
<h2>Spikes during heat waves</h2>
It has been known for a long time that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.106.031948">suicide rates spike during heat waves</a>. Hotter weather has been linked with higher rates of hospital admissions for <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25849087">self-harm</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-681">suicide</a> and violent suicides, as well as increases in population-level psychological distress, particularly in combination with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164190">high humidity</a>.
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.098">Another recent study, which combined the results of previous research on heat and suicide, concluded</a> there is “a significant and positive association between temperature rises and incidence of suicide.”
Why this is remains unclear. There is a well-documented link between <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6151/1235367">rising temperatures and interpersonal violence</a> and suicide could be understood as an act of violence directed at oneself. Lisa Page, a researcher in psychology at King’s College London, notes:
<blockquote>“While speculative, perhaps the most promising mechanism to link suicide with high temperatures is a psychological one. High temperatures have been found to lead individuals to behave in a more disinhibited, aggressive and violent manner, which might in turn result in an increased propensity for suicidal acts.”</blockquote>
Hotter temperatures are <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heat-wave-health/">taxing on the body</a>. They cause an <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180425131906.htm">increase in the stress hormone cortisol</a>, reduce <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427038/">sleep quality</a> and disrupt people’s physical activity routines. These changes can reduce well-being and increase psychological distress.
<h2>Disease, water shortages, conflict and war</h2>
The effects of hotter temperatures on suicides are symptomatic of a much broader and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0102-4">more expansive problem</a>: the impact of climate change on mental health.
Climate change will increase the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32464-9">frequency and severity</a> of heat waves, droughts, storms, floods and wildfires. It will extend the range of infectious diseases such as Zika virus, malaria and Lyme disease. It will contribute to food and water shortages and fuel forced migration, conflict and war.
These events can have devastating effects on people’s health, homes and livelihoods and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20033251">directly impact psychological health and well-being</a>.
But effects are not limited to people who suffer direct losses — for example, it has been estimated that up to half of Hurricane Katrina survivors developed post-traumatic stress disorder even when they had <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276074/">suffered no direct physical losses</a>.
The feelings of loss that follow catastrophic events, including a sense of loss of safety, can erode community well-being and further undermine mental health resilience.
<h2>Building resilience through community</h2>
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0222-x">Scientists caution</a> that there are no quick fixes.
Vigorous greenhouse gas reduction strategies will reduce the chance of dangerous <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115">runaway climate change</a> and help mitigate the worst effects of climate change on mental health, but these efforts may <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/06/domino-effect-of-climate-events-could-push-earth-into-a-hothouse-state">not be sufficient</a>.
Installing more air conditioning units, for instance, may not significantly reduce suicide rates or mitigate the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4446935/">effects of extreme heat on health and well-being</a>. Adaptation, including substantial investment in mental health services, will be essential.
Unfortunately <a href="http://www.who.int/mental_health/action_plan_2013/en/">mental health services remain woefully underfunded and over-burdened</a> in most parts of the world. While government budgets are stretched to cope with front-line disaster relief, communities will bear the burden of responding to these challenges.
Building resilience through increased social connectedness within and between communities will be vital.
<h2>Research is a matter of life and death</h2>
Mental health problems have diverse manifestations that vary across contexts and throughout a lifetime. They are the result of long and intricate causal pathways. Climate change is not an isolated cause of suicide, but one of several factors.
Integrating these pathways into a conceptual framework — for example using <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0102-4">systems thinking</a> — is a crucial step toward developing public policy, practice and research that will equip us to respond to climate change.
Climate change is a daunting global public health challenge without ready solutions and we have been far too slow to take the risks seriously. We have also missed promising opportunities to use climate change as a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10398560903045328">mechanism to promote improved mental health</a>.
There is an urgent need for research that informs our understanding of the mental health consequences of climate change so that we can prepare for the challenges ahead.
For some, it really is a matter of life or death.
International suicide prevention and support hotlines can be <a href="http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html">found here</a>.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102156/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/francis-vergunst-230743">Francis Vergunst</a>, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Developmental Public Health, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/universite-de-montreal-1743">Université de Montréal</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/helen-louise-berry-8608">Helen Louise Berry</a>, Professor of Climate Change and Mental Health, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/massimiliano-orri-549142">Massimiliano Orri</a>, Marie-Curie and CIHR Postdoctoral Fellow, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/mcgill-university-827">McGill University</a>
This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-increase-deaths-by-suicide-102156">original article</a>.

How climate change impacts mental health, could increase suicide rates

By Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Co-Chair, Global Commission on the Economy and Climate
The world is teetering on the cusp of a new economic era. This comes as major structural changes are shaping the global economy, like rapid urbanisation, major demographic transitions, increasing globalisation, a shift to service-based economies, and increasing automation. Can this tremendous shift deliver strong, sustainable and inclusive growth? Will it make people’s lives better? The decisions we make today will determine the answers to these important questions. 
One thing should be clear to us all and especially to those who will gather next week at the Global Climate Action Summit in in San Francisco: we are all significantly underestimating the economic opportunity that can be gained from cleaner, climate-smart growth. New analysis is finding that bold climate action could yield a direct economic gain of $US26 trillion through to 2030, compared with business-as-usual. And we know that these numbers are likely to be conservative.
We are at a unique “use it or lose it” moment in history. Over the next 12-15 years, we expect to invest about US$90 trillion in infrastructure, more than the total current stock. Ensuring that the infrastructure we invest in is sustainable will be a critical determinant of future growth and prosperity. And the good news is that making it sustainable doesn’t need to cost more, on the contrary, it can lead to real cost savings. Significant technological and market progress over the last decade has already begundriving the shift to a new climate economy, proving that we can have strong growth, while acting on climate change. And we are already seeing real results: new jobs, economic savings, increased competitiveness and market opportunities, and improved wellbeing for people worldwide. 
This period is also essential in terms of climate. The last 19 years included 18 of the warmest years on record. In 2017, weather- and climate-related disasters were responsible for thousands of deaths and US$320 billion in losses. Unless we act boldly on climate now, we will continue to see more frequent and more extreme weather events like these. 
What will it take to unlock this opportunity? Among the most urgent priorities over the next 2-3 years are implementing carbon pricing and removing fossil fuels subsidies. This could generate more than US$2.8 trillion in government revenues in 2030, equivalent to the GDP of India today, for use toward other public priorities or to reduce distorting taxes. Other key priorities that can be catalytic are: accelerated investment in sustainable infrastructure, harnessing the power of the private sector and unleashing innovation, and ensuring a people-centered approach so that the gains are shared equitably and that the transition is just. 
Women especially play a critical role in delivering and benefiting from inclusive, sustainable growth. Greater participation by women in the economy drives growth. And in countries where more women participate in political life, parliaments are more likely to set aside protected lands and ratify international environmental treaties. Given that women are often the most affected by a changing climate, and that they currently represent just 23% of parliamentarians worldwide, there is clearly an important opportunity to enhance women’s leadership in delivering this new growth agenda. 
Accelerating towards a strong, sustainable, inclusive economy requires decisive leadership. Finance Ministers, in particular, play a critical role in guiding investments and setting the right conditions to unlock much-needed private capital at scale. When I served as Finance Minister of Nigeria, for example, we worked to reform petrol subsidies in 2012. Some $13bn worth of petrol subsidieshad been burdening the Nigerian national budget, and we were able to redirect some of those funds to much more productive ends. Within a year, our programme to reinvest the savings from what was previously spent on subsidies meant we could finish renovation of a north-south national railway, as well as introduce improved maternal and childcare services in 500 primary healthcare centres. Others have found similar benefits: in Indonesia, fuel subsidy savings in 2015 were reallocated to major investments in social welfare and infrastructure through increased budgets for ministries, state-owned enterprise, and transfers to regions and villages. Using lessons learntfrom Nigeria, Indonesia and other countries, Finance Ministers can take bold steps to lead whole of government approaches to growth that can deliver development and climate objectives. 
We can eliminate extreme poverty, prevent dangerous climate change, and improve the lives and livelihoods of millions. But only if we set out to do so decisively. Fortunately, we still have a window of opportunity to deliver a better world with more efficient, livable cities;with low-carbon, smart energy, mobility and water for all;and through the restoration of degraded lands while protecting valuable forests. 
There can be no kicking the can down the road. Each effort underway around the world must build on the last to tip the world over the cusp and into a better future for all.

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on why climate leadership is a new growth opportunity for the world

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Rising temperatures are characteristic of the changing global climate and the warnings of the implications that this change could have on production and agriculture, are no longer just hypothesises but a reality for many. Can a climate outlook meeting that opened in Kigali crack the code to the solutions for the challenges that climate change is leaving behind? Dr. Guleid Artan, Director, Climate Prediction and Application Center at IGAD joins CNBC Africa for more.

Climate Outlook forum opens in Kigali: Will it help solve climate problem?

It’s difficult as an individual, a group or a nation to know how to act when faced with climate change problems. As with other global environmental problems, these challenges are economically, environmentally and socially complex. They come with ethical issues and generate disagreement between different groups of people.
This complexity is particularly apparent in cities where many different groups of people with diverse cultures and perspectives live. And cities, of course, are hot spots for the problems related to climate change.
But the good news is that cities also have the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02409-z">potential to produce solutions to climate change problems</a> because they contain dense networks, technologies and groups of people with diverse perspectives. This was a key message which emerged from the first ever <a href="https://citiesipcc.org">Cities Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> meeting, held in Canada recently.
Science alone can’t provide all the answers or solutions for cities grappling with changing climates and extreme weather. Cities’ social, cultural, economic and historical differences should be considered when planning any climate-related response. And it’s residents, citizens and local authorities who have that context.
That’s where <a href="http://www.csag.uct.ac.za/2016/11/11/whats-the-difference-between-knowledge-co-production-and-co-exploration/">knowledge co-production</a> can be useful. It’s an evolving research process that recognises the importance of multiple knowledge types and perspectives to build a holistic understanding of complex problems.
The <a href="http://www.fractal.org.za/">Future Resilience of African CiTies and Lands</a> project uses knowledge co-production by gathering together a number of different people from different areas of expertise and ordinary citizens. This was done across nine African cities: Durban, Blantyre, Cape Town, Gaborone, Harare, Johannesburg, Maputo, Lusaka and Windhoek. These groups then consider people’s priorities, cities’ histories and contexts, and what role climate science factors into decisions.
These questions guide our research objectives as people from government, NGOs, civil society groups and academia gather face-to-face to discuss and explore contextual issues and potential solutions.
<h2>Putting people at the centre</h2>
This process has forced researchers to really take local knowledge into account for each city. We’ve steered clear of a “cut and paste” approach to defining climate risks and responses as much as possible, since each city’s needs and threats are different.
Throughout history, science has informed many development decisions. A dynamic has been set up between those who use science and those who produce it that centres the producers. It’s difficult to shift from this dynamic to research processes that support inclusive conversations about potential solutions, with a diverse set of values and perspectives.
Such conversations place people at the centre of the research process instead of scientific content. These processes also clearly acknowledge the assumptions and limitations of science, and value different forms of knowledge equally.
Research institutions and donor funded programmes generally place scientific knowledge on a pedestal, especially if it is produced in the northern hemisphere. Many of these institutions and programmes also measure success using rigid frameworks that focus more on targets and outputs and less on how people are learning through such dialogues.
What’s been key in our work is that scientific knowledge is not considered more important than the knowledge held by decision makers and civilians. These people understand the effects of a changing climate in context, and can identify the potential responses that fit this context. For example, civilians in Harare have a good idea of how strong political influences intersect with the consequences of severe or frequent drought. People from Botswana can offer knowledge on novel communication approaches to support responses, such as through local community fora called “freedom squares”.
<h2>Solutions are emerging</h2>
The Future Resilience of African CiTies and Lands project is bearing fruit. For instance, scientists and decision makers <a href="http://www.fractal.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/City-Digest-Lusaka-Issue-1-digital.pdf">in Lusaka</a> are in the process of finalising four policy briefs on water issues in the city. They’ve reflected on how climate will affect these issues, and come up <a href="http://www.fractal.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/City-Digest-Lusaka-Issue-1-digital.pdf">with potential solutions</a>. These groups sat for several days in the same room to flesh out contextual issues and potential solutions together.
This is different from the usual approach of climate scientists producing information and then passing it down the chain to users of this information.
In Blantyre, Gaborone, Harare, Lusaka, Maputo and Windhoek, city governments are working with scientists, engineers and civilians to co-produce narratives about the future of their cities in the face of climate change. The Namibian capital will be using their narratives, along with other important climate information, in the development of the City of Windhoek Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98487/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Processes like these help to build relationships between governments, researchers and civilian groups, as well as between different departments within government. These networks will support cities’ climate change conversations long after the Future Resilience of African CiTies and Lands project ends.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alice-mcclure-331153">Alice McClure</a>, PhD candidate at the The Climate System Analysis Group, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cape-town-691">University of Cape Town</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gina-ziervogel-196562">Gina Ziervogel</a>, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Geographical Science and African Climate and Development Initiative Research Chair, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cape-town-691">University of Cape Town</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-african-cities-residents-are-creating-climate-change-solutions-98487">original article</a>.

Here’s how the residents of African cities are creating solutions for climate change

HARARE, June 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; With increasingly extreme weather taking a toll on farming and incomes, Zimbabwe has released a trio of climate change policies designed to make the country more resistant to climate pressures and help it meet its international carbon-cutting pledges.
The Child Friendly Climate Policy is designed to educate school children about climate change and promote climate-friendly practices, such as protection of forests and wetlands and broader use of low-emissions technologies.
A new Climate Smart Agriculture Policy, meanwhile, focuses on ensuring farmers and agricultural advisers adopt climate-hardy farming practices.
And the country’s first overall National Climate Policy aims to help Zimbabwe put in place the legal structures needed to guide businesses on becoming greener to meet its emissions-cutting promises under the international Paris Agreement, said Washington Zhakata, climate change management director in the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Water.
“The National Climate Policy is the first step towards achieving this,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.
<h3>ADAPTING TO LESS WATER</h3>
Tirivanhu Muhwati, a climate scientist with the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Water, said the national policy will also focus heavily on adaptation to climate pressures, as most of the country’s communities are rural and depend on agriculture even as droughts intensify.
“The policy has a thrust towards promoting adaptation because, as a developing country, our scope for mitigation or reducing emissions is limited because we are not all that industrialised compared to the developed world,” he said.
Approximately 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s rural people depend on rainfed agriculture for a living, making them highly vulnerable to more extreme weather associated with climate change, said Environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri, at the launch of the policies this month.
According to the country’s submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, most of Zimbabwe’s climate-changing emissions come from burning fossil fuels for energy, from agricultural production, and from waste handling and industrial processes.
The new climate change policy aims to help cut emissions by industry, energy producers, agriculture, and deforestation, among other sources.
Muhwati described the Child Friendly Climate Policy as a version of the national climate change policy meant to help students understand climate change issues and also to promote climate friendly practices among young people.
The policy comes on top of other recent efforts to add climate change issues into the new national school curriculum, said Muhwati.
The Climate Smart Agriculture Policy, meanwhile, aims to help university professors and agriculture extension advisers pass on up-to-date information on agricultural practices capable of standing up to climate threats, from worsening drought to flooding.
“It aims to introduce a wholesome change in the way we do our agriculture. The best way to do this is through our agricultural colleges and universities,” Muhwati said.
<h3>PUT TO WORK?</h3>
Peter Makwanya, a communications lecturer at Zimbabwe Open University and a writer on climate change communications issues, said all the three policies could help the country better deal with climate change – but only if they are actually put into practice.
“Climate smart agriculture is a noble idea if implemented sufficiently well but this is an area with lots of challenges, considering how our country manages, monitors and implements agricultural activities,” he said.
“All the three policies can take the country somewhere if implemented properly &#8211; but Zimbabwe is very good at formulating blueprints and very poor on implementation,” he stressed.
Zhakata, however, said the policy was different from past policies that may have been shelved, if only because so many people now recognise that climate change is a problem and require effective guidance to ensure they can adapt.
Shephard Zvigadza, chairman of the Climate Change Working Group-Zimbabwe, a civil society organisation, said he believes the new policies should be combined with Zimbabwe’s 2014 Climate Response Strategy into a national climate change law, with binding provisions for action.
But he said Zimbabwe will require sustained financial and technical support to help it adapt to growing climate pressures.
The national government has said it intends to establish a National Climate Fund that would use 10 percent of the national budget to finance action on adapting to climate change and curbing emissions.
The money would also support efforts to win funding from international climate funds, according to the new National Climate Policy.
The government has said it would also consider a small tax on industry profits to support green growth.
Besides worsening droughts and flooding – which have destroyed roads and schools over the past year – Zimbabwe faces climate pressures including flare-ups in malaria as temperatures rise and rainfall becomes more erratic. (Reporting by Tonderayi Mukeredzi ; editing by Laurie Goering : (Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit <a href="http://news.trust.org/climate">news.trust.org/climate</a>)

Hit by extreme weather, Zimbabwe takes action

<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221950/original/file-20180606-137301-bcluaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180606 137301 bcluaq.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>It would be in Africa’s best interests to limit a rise in global temperature. 
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shingirai-nangombe-485487">Shingirai Nangombe</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences-857">Chinese Academy of Sciences</a>
At the end of the century, if <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full_wcover.pdf">carbon emissions aren’t reduced faster</a>, the global temperature is likely to be 2.6°C to 4.8°C higher than it was in 1986–2005. Africa could be even hotter than that, to the tune of between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415386.002">3℃ and 6℃</a>.
If the world doesn’t make a bigger effort to cut emissions than it does now, global warming might have a severe effect <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full_wcover.pdf">on sub-tropical Africa</a>.
Our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0145-6">research</a> has found that for Africa, it would make an important difference to limit a rise in global temperature to 1.5°C. That limit would shrink the likelihood of extreme climate events like heatwaves. And that would be good for societies and economies.
A global mean temperature of 2℃ above pre-industrial levels has been under discussion for years as a threshold for <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.457">danger</a>. Many countries already experiencing extreme climate events have raised concerns, though, that a 2℃ target is insufficient to shield them from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2572">these extremes</a>.
These countries welcomed the 2015 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2939">Paris Agreement</a> on efforts to confine global warming and reduce risks of climate change in the future.
Africa is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415386.002">climate change hotspot</a>. But there has been little research on how much difference a lower temperature target would make.
To fill this gap, we explored potential benefits for Africa from limiting global warming to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0145-6">1.5°C compared to 2℃</a>. We used a model that enabled us to simulate how heat and hydrological extremes might change in Africa under stabilised 1.5°C and 2°C scenarios. We focused on the likelihood of seeing a repeat of record-breaking seasons that have already happened.
We found that keeping global warming to 1.5°C could significantly decrease the frequency of extreme climate events across the continent. In particular, the probability of events like the southern African hot December–February <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0145-6">1991/1992</a> and the heatwave in North Africa in <a href="http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1074_en.pdf">December–February 2009/2010</a> would be a lot lower.
<h2>Severe high temperatures</h2>
Over the past decade, Africa has recorded <a href="http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1167_en.pdf">severe high temperatures</a>.
It was particularly hot in North Africa between <a href="http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1074_en.pdf">December 2009 and April 2010</a>. The region observed <a href="https://go.nature.com/2Jngrm0">new records</a> of 47.6℃ for Faya-Largeau in Chad, 48.2℃ for Bilma in Niger and 49.6℃ for Dongola in Sudan in 2010. In 2015 Egypt’s Luxor reached 48.4℃ and South Africa’s Vredendal observed a record <a href="http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1167_en.pdf">high of 47.6℃</a>.
We established that if global warming were to be limited to 1.5℃ instead of 2℃, the chances of extreme heat events in Africa might be reduced. Specifically, the likelihood of annual high temperatures that exceed the 2015 record is estimated to be 100% under 2℃ level, but 91% under 1.5℃ levels.
Under a 2℃ scenario, we projected that there is a 30% chance of occurrence for extreme high temperatures similar to that of 2009/2010 in North Africa. But if temperatures were kept at a projected 1.5℃, there would be only an 11% chance of such an extreme occurring.
<h2>Flooding and droughts</h2>
In February 2000, there was a <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0434%282004%29019%3C0789%3ATCEAIU%3E2.0.CO%3B2">tropical cyclone</a> that brought <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0145-6">unusually high rainfall</a> to southeast Africa and as far west as Namibia. It was also a year when Namibia experienced its wettest summer <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0434%282004%29019%3C0789%3ATCEAIU%3E2.0.CO%3B2">since 1976</a>. It resulted in devastating floods and <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0434%282004%29019%3C0789%3ATCEAIU%3E2.0.CO%3B2">loss of life</a>.
Global climate model simulations in our study estimated that similar extreme events in this region will be rare under low global warming scenarios in the future, with slight difference in occurrence between 1.5℃ and 2℃ warming levels. But in general, global climate models have been known to draw differing results in terms of the direction of future precipitation. That’s why our confidence levels are higher for temperature projections than <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full_wcover.pdf">precipitation projections</a>.
Almost all subsistence farmers in Africa who practise rain-fed agriculture are affected by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/085004">natural climate variability</a>. Increased frequency and severity of droughts is projected in the 21st century over most of the continent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415386.002">because of climate change</a>.
Using rainfall deficits and high temperatures as drought indicators, we explored the likelihood of droughts similar to the 1991/1992 one in southern Africa under <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0145-6">low warming scenarios</a>. We found that, even though the rainfall would be similar in both the scenarios, the high temperatures might increase the probability of such droughts.
<h2>Benefits of a low-warming world</h2>
Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0145-6">study</a> projects that limiting global warming to 1.5℃ instead of 2℃ would have considerable paybacks for Africa. In particular, extreme heat events like the ones in 2015 and 2009/2010 might be reduced by 10% and 20% respectively under 1.5℃ of global warming level compared to under 2℃ level.
Temperatures as high as those in the December–February 1991/1992 southern African drought are estimated to be 25% less likely under 1.5℃ of global warming level compared to under 2℃ level.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97098/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />So, continued efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C may offer considerable benefits to Africa in terms of reduced occurrence of heat extremes.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shingirai-nangombe-485487">Shingirai Nangombe</a>, Doctor of Philosophy, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences-857">Chinese Academy of Sciences</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-africa-stands-to-benefit-if-rise-in-global-temperatures-is-kept-to-1-5-c-97098">original article</a>.

Here’s why it would be in Africa’s best interests for rise of global temperatures to be kept to 1.5°C

<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219916/original/file-20180522-51098-k8fls3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180522 51098 k8fls3.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>Women looking for water in Sudan. Climate change can play a role in forcing people to migrate. 
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-maslin-108286">Mark Maslin</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/ucl-1885">UCL</a>
It seems obvious that climate change has – and will – cause human conflict and the mass movement of people. Look at the effects of the droughts in Syria, Darfur and Ethiopia. The former <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501857.html">UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon</a> even described the ongoing war in Darfur as one of the “first climate wars”.
Various media have even started using terms such as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/02/climate-change-will-create-worlds-biggest-refugee-crisis">climate refugees</a>” and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/21/devastating-climate-change-could-see-one-million-migrants-a-year-entering-eu-by-2100">environmental migrants</a>” to describe people fleeing their homes from these climate-driven conflicts. But is there any evidence for this link between climate change and conflict? There certainly isn’t any consensus in academic literature.
Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to the effects of climate change. The <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2016/">UN Refugee Agency</a> reported that over 20 million people were displaced in Africa in 2016 – a third of the world’s total. The <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/03/19/climate-change-could-force-over-140-million-to-migrate-within-countries-by-2050-world-bank-report">World Bank</a> predicts that this could rise to 86 million by 2050 because of climate change.
East Africa in particular is predicted to experience a dramatic increase in unpredictability of seasonal and <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/">inter-annual rainfall</a>. This is particularly challenging given that the region is heavily dependent on agriculture which is highly sensitive to climate changes. In some countries, like <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ethiopia/overview">Ethiopia</a> and Sudan, agriculture accounts for more than 50% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Agriculture is a sector which has high climate sensitivity.
East Africa is also a region with a long history of conflict and displacement. Sudan and Somalia are current day examples. This makes it a good test case for the climate-conflict hypothesis.
In our recent <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0096-6">paper</a>, my student Erin Owain and I tested this link using East Africa as our focus.
Our study suggests that the failure of political systems is the primary cause of conflict and displacement of large numbers of people. But we also show that climate change can potentially exacerbate situations where social and political systems are fragile. Climate change can play a role in forcing people to migrate.
<h2>No single factor</h2>
To test the climate-conflict hypothesis, we focused on the ten main countries in East Africa: Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219915/original/file-20180522-51135-gzw6o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219915/original/file-20180522-51135-gzw6o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a><figcaption>Climate change can potentially exacerbate situations where social and political systems are fragile. 
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We used a new <a href="http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html">database</a> that records major episodes of political violence and number of total displaced people for the past 50 years for each of the ten countries. We then used statistics to compare these records both at a country and a regional level with the appropriate climatic, economic and political factors.
Our study found that the evidence from East Africa is that no single factor can fully explain conflict and the displacement of people. Instead, long-term population growth, short-term negative economic growth and extreme political instability seem to be primarily linked to conflict. This echoes <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.336">research</a> done in 2015 that suggested socio-political factors were more important than climate change.
Things were different for refugees who were forced to cross borders between countries. Refugees make up a maximum of one third of the total people displaced in East Africa showing that most people are displaced in their own country. But in contrast to total displaced people and conflict, variations in refugee numbers, were found to be significantly linked to the incidence of severe regional droughts. And these droughts can in turn be <a href="https://theconversation.com/droughts-in-east-africa-some-headway-in-unpacking-whats-causing-them-75476">linked to</a> a long-term drying trend coming with climate change.
So, even though displacement of people is linked to poverty and poor governance, it takes extreme weather events to force those people across international borders.
<h2>The case for stable government</h2>
We argue that with good stable governance there is no reason why climate change should lead to greater conflict or displacement of people, despite the World Bank’s dire predictions. International water disputes provide one reason to be optimistic. The <a href="http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/transboundary_waters.shtml">UN reports</a> that, over the past 50 years, there have been 150 international water resource treaties signed compared to 37 disputes that involved violence.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96372/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />We conclude that adaptation to climate change must prioritise good governance above all else. Robust political systems can protect citizens against extreme weather events and if disasters happen, these systems can ensure that people affected have adequate access to water, food, sanitation and shelter. Good governance is about protecting and looking after the most vulnerable people in society.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-maslin-108286">Mark Maslin</a>, Professor of Earth System Science, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/ucl-1885">UCL</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-and-poverty-caused-past-conflicts-in-east-africa-not-climate-change-96372">original article</a>.

Politics and poverty caused past conflicts in East Africa – not climate change, but is this about to change?

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Small-scale farmers on the continent continue to endure losses, as most of them do not have the resources to mitigate the effects of climate change. According to the World Economic Forum, cereal production in Sub-Saharan Africa has decreased by about 20 per cent due to unpredictable weather patterns. CNBC Africa’s Charles Gitonga spoke to Samir Ibrahim, CEO, and Co-founder of Sun Culture, a Kenyan startup that’s helping farmers install solar-powered irrigation kits.

Kenyan startup offers solutions to boost farmers’ productivity

By Leonie Joubert
Every morning, Maria Petrus* (*name has been changed) needs to be at the communal water tap in her village in Onesi Constituency, close to the northern Namibian border with Angola. She will unlock the faucet for about two hours while her fellow villagers come along with 25 litre cans, to collect their day’s water. Later that afternoon, Petrus will be back at the tap for another couple of hours, overseeing more water collection.
The 46 year old woman is a member of the village’s Water Point Committee (WPC), volunteers who manage the government’s water delivery to this rural community. She will keep a meticulous record of how much water individual households collect over the course of each month &#8211; there are about 70 households in her village &#8211; and, come month-end, the association’s secretary will collect payment for that month’s water purchases.
Sometimes the water collection points in these villages are little more than a single tap; sometimes they are a more sophisticated setup. But to do this job, Petrus and her fellow  committee volunteers must be able to read and write, and they must be young enough, and in good enough health, to get the site each day.
Volunteering comes with its own risks, too: it can keep the committee members from their crops or livestock, which are the bread-and-butter of this farming-dependent community.
They’ll also have to handle the difficulties that arise if people arrive late for water collection, after walking long distances to get their daily allocation. Or they’ll have to deal with possible conflict when cash-strapped families &#8211; possibly even their friends or neighbours &#8211; can’t service their debt, come pay-day.
Petrus’s story demonstrates the lived experience of a typical rural community in Namibia, where national government policy has passed the daily management of water distribution and payment on to local villagers as part of a move to boost water service delivery in this semi-arid part of Southern Africa.
‘This policy was part of Namibia’s attempt to improve water delivery through more inclusive governance since independence in 1990, and yet many such communal water systems in the north have been shut down because people can’t afford to pay for the state-supplied water,’ explains Irene Kunamwene, a doctoral researcher  working with the African Climate &amp; Development Initiative (<a href="http://acdi.uct.ac.za/">ACDI</a>)  at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. ‘When that happens, villagers rely on hang-dug wells near their homes, and draw their own free water during the dry season.’
This comes with significant risks, she says: the water may not be safe to drink, or children may fall into the wells.
Namibia embarked on a deliberate process of decentralising its water distribution and management, something which is part of a global trend towards a more inclusive approach to resource governance and management, according to another ACDI researcher, associate professor Gina Ziervogel.
However, when Kunamwene and her team visited villages in the Onesi Constituency in northern Namibia between 2015 and 2017, to test whether this management approach was working, they found that in many cases the committee volunteers who found themselves responsible for managing water distribution and payments did not have the skills, time, or capacity to fulfil their roles effectively.
‘In semi-arid parts of Southern Africa, like Namibia, water resources are already pressured,’ explains Ziervogel, ‘and things will get tougher in future as the climate here becomes hotter, drier, and less predictable.’
Ziervogel and Kunamwene’s findings draw a stark lesson for water managers in similar near-desert countries across the region: governments need to find appropriate and inclusive ways to manage a resource as scarce and susceptible to change as water. The better they handle the processes of managing water resources now, the better they’ll be able to adapt to the impacts of climate change on the resource in future.
Call for inclusive governance of scarce water resources 
After independence in 1990, Namibia’s national government began rolling out an expanded water infrastructure system, installing boreholes, communal taps, and shared animal water troughs in many remote villages. At the same time, the national government implemented the management system that decentralised the day-to-day administration of these water points to local communities.
When the ACDI researchers visited these communities, where employment is often low and people rely on farming and social grants to pay for state-supplied water, they found that this system of management had not necessarily helped to improve water delivery.
In a village like Petrus’s, the water point committee is made up of about seven members, who will need a range of skills in order to be effective.
The committee members must first consult with the community about how to structure water payment: should everyone pay a flat rate for daily water access, regardless of how much each person uses? Or should each person pay for what they take from the communal tap each day?
‘In some communities, you might have a powerful, rich person lobbying the committee to pay a flat fee per person,’ explains Ziervogel. ‘But this individual might have a large herd of cattle, and might want to take much more water each day than a poorer household with no livestock.’
Researchers found that this sort of situation quickly showed up the potential tensions in a community where people are already vying for a scarce resource, a situation which might become even more pressured in times of drought. When rainfall drops in semi-arid regions like Southern Africa, there is usually a decreased recharge of groundwater, which causes water to become brackish, or taps might even run dry.
‘Many of the communities we visited have chosen to charge each individual for the quantity of water they take from a communal tap over the course of a month. But this also results in its own management challenges, such as when poorer families can’t pay at the end of each month for the full amount they’ve taken, or the volunteer needing to capture exactly how much each household takes through the course of the month.’
The ACDI researchers, working alongside colleagues from the University of Namibia (UNAM), also unearthed the difficulties of the day-to-day management of the communal water points, such as that described by Petrus.
The person who volunteers for this job needs more than just numeracy skills to handle the payments. They need basic stationary. They also need specific mediation and management skills to oversee who takes how much water, and how to negotiate a situation where someone can’t afford to pay but still has a constitutional right to access water, explain Kunamwene and Ziervogel.
‘You can’t just hand this kind of responsibility to someone on the ground, with only a few days’ training, and expect them to know how to handle the situation,’ says Ziervogel.
When the infrastructure breaks, water point committee members often don’t know who they should report this to, don’t have the skills or means to make repairs themselves, or government response will be slow.
‘There’s a great deal of political will among local communities to take responsibility for their own communal water point management, but there often isn’t the skill or capacity to do so,’ says Ziervogel.
If countries in semi-arid climates around the world are to be more responsive to the challenges faced in the area of water management as climate shifts in future, they need to get a handle on these on-the-ground management issues today.
‘What comes through from this research is that the principle of decentralisation for water governance is good on paper, but in reality it’s very difficult to implement effectively and meet national service delivery goals,’ explains Ziervogel.
The ACDI findings show that when it comes to governance issues in managing increasingly pressured water resources in semi-arid countries, local communities should be included in governance processes, but that they need skills training and resources. Decision makers need to understand the unique context of each community situation. All involved parties need to meet regularly in order to build trust and agree, together, on appropriate water governance solutions. And all involved government departments need to work together to coordinate their joint responses, as the impacts of climate change on water resources are seldom the mandate of one department.

Why decentralised water could be the solution to Namibia’s water crisis

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As more than two-thirds of Kenya&#8217;s electricity supply is sourced from geothermal &#038; hydropower, plans are underway to add natural gas to the mix. Karthik Sathyamoorthy, President, AG&#038;P LNG Marketing joins CNBC Africa to unpack the role of renewables.

Diversifying East Africa’s energy mix

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At the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, CNBC Africa&#8217;s Chris Bishop caught up with Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Co-chair of Global Commission on the economy and climate for what the forum is doing about climate change.

Ngozi Okonjo Iweala talks climate change at WEF

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Nigeria’s Ministry of environment department of climate change, deputy director Halimat Bwari, says the green bonds demonstrate efforts of Nigeria’s leadership to meet commitments made to climate change.

Federal Ministry of Environment’s Halimat Bwari speaks on Nigeria’ green bond

Leah Samberg, University of Minnesota | The Conversation Africa
Around the globe, about 815 million people – 11 percent of the world’s population – went hungry in 2016, according to the latest data from the United Nations. This was the first increase in more than 15 years.
Between 1990 and 2015, due largely to a set of sweeping initiatives by the global community, the proportion of undernourished people in the world was cut in half. In 2015, U.N. member countries adopted the <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">Sustainable Development Goals</a>, which doubled down on this success by setting out to end hunger entirely by 2030. But a recent U.N. <a href="http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/">report</a> shows that, after years of decline, hunger is on the rise again.
As evidenced by nonstop news coverage of floods, fires, refugees and violence, our planet has become a more unstable and less predictable place over the past few years. As these disasters compete for our attention, they make it harder for people in poor, marginalized and war-torn regions to access adequate food.
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188049/original/file-20170928-2939-dzc3wr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188049/original/file-20170928-2939-dzc3wr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a><figcaption>
<a class="source" href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-I7695e.pdf">FAO</a></figcaption></figure>
I study decisions that smallholder <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9579-7">farmers</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-017-9891-8">pastoralists</a>, or livestock herders, make about their crops, animals and land. These choices are limited by lack of access to services, markets or credit; by poor governance or inappropriate policies; and by ethnic, gender and educational barriers. As a result, there is often little they can do to maintain secure or sustainable food production in the face of crises.
The new U.N. report shows that to reduce and ultimately eliminate hunger, simply making agriculture more productive will not be enough. It also is essential to increase the options available to rural populations in an uncertain world.
<h2>Conflict and climate change threaten rural livelihoods</h2>
Around the world, social and political <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343316663032">instability</a> are on the rise. Since 2010, state-based conflict has increased by 60 percent and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343311431598">armed conflict within countries</a> has increased by 125 percent. More than half of the food-insecure people identified in the U.N. report (489 million out of 815 million) live in countries with ongoing violence. More than three-quarters of the world’s chronically malnourished children (122 million of 155 million) live in conflict-affected regions.
At the same time, these regions are experiencing <a href="https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/">increasingly powerful storms, more frequent and persistent drought and more variable rainfall</a> associated with global climate change. These trends are not unrelated. Conflict-torn communities are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters, and crop or livestock failure due to climate can contribute to social unrest.
War hits farmers especially hard. Conflict can evict them from their land, destroy crops and livestock, prevent them from acquiring seed and fertilizer or selling their produce, restrict their access to water and forage, and disrupt planting or harvest cycles. Many conflicts play out in rural areas characterized by <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124010">smallholder</a> agriculture or pastoralism. These <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.041">small-scale</a> farmers are some of the <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-6_Investing_in_smallholder_agriculture.pdf">most vulnerable people on the planet</a>. Supporting them is one of the U.N.‘s <a href="http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/suc2014d5_en.pdf">key strategies</a> for reaching its food security targets.
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190031/original/file-20171012-31440-8u6mdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190031/original/file-20171012-31440-8u6mdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a><figcaption>In September 2016 Viola Tabo fled her home in Lanya village, South Sudan, after government troops executed three of her brothers. She now cultivates vegetables to supplement refugees’ diet of maize and beans at Bidi Bidi camp. 
<a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/S9zWCL">Trocaire</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Disrupted and displaced</h2>
Without other options to feed themselves, farmers and pastoralists in crisis may be forced to leave their land and communities. Migration is one of the most visible coping mechanisms for rural populations who face conflict or climate-related disasters.
Globally, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2017/02/GPI-2016-Report_2.pdf">doubled between 2007 and 2016</a>. Of the estimated 64 million people who are currently displaced, more than 15 million are linked to one of the world’s most severe conflict-related <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/20170328_Full%20Report_Global%20Report%20on%20Food%20Crises_v1.pdf">food crises</a> in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia.
While migrating is uncertain and difficult, those with the fewest resources may not even have that option. New research by my colleagues at the University of Minnesota shows that the most vulnerable populations may be “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su9050720">trapped</a>” in place, without the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/psp.2033">resources to migrate</a>.
Displacement due to climate disasters also feeds conflict. Drought-induced migration in Syria, for example, has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-drought-a-spark-in-igniting-syrias-civil-war-38275">linked</a> to the conflict there, and many <a href="http://www.africareview.com/News/Climate-change-fuels-Nigeria-terrorism/-/979180/1334472/-/vq4tja/-/index.html">militants in Nigeria</a> have been identified as farmers displaced by drought.
<h2>Supporting rural communities</h2>
To reduce world hunger in the long term, rural populations need sustainable ways to support themselves in the face of crisis. This means investing in strategies to support rural livelihoods that are resilient, diverse and interconnected.
Many large-scale food security initiatives supply farmers with improved crop and livestock varieties, plus fertilizer and other necessary inputs. This approach is crucial, but can lead farmers to focus most or all of their resources on growing more productive maize, wheat or rice. Specializing in this way increases risk. If farmers cannot plant seed on time or obtain fertilizers, or if rains fail, they have little to fall back on.
Increasingly, agricultural research and development agencies, NGOs and aid programs are working to help farmers maintain traditionally diverse farms by providing financial, agronomic and policy support for <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/user_upload/online_library/publications/pdfs/The_impact_of_Bioversity_International_s_African_leafy_vegetables_programme_in_Kenya_1418.pdf">production</a> and <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/user_upload/online_library/publications/pdfs/Bioversity_-_Andean_lost_grains_in_Bolivia_and_Peru_1947.pdf">marketing</a> of native crop and livestock species. Growing many different locally adapted crops provides for a range of <a href="https://hivos.org/sites/default/files/web_nourishingdiversity_briefing_final.pdf">nutritional needs</a> and reduces farmers’ risk from variability in weather, inputs or timing.
While investing in agriculture is viewed as the way forward in many developing regions, equally important is the ability of farmers to diversify their livelihood strategies beyond the farm. Income from off-farm employment can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060946">buffer farmers against crop failure or livestock loss</a>, and is a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518384112">key component of food security</a> for many agricultural households.
Training, education, and literacy programs allow rural people to access a greater range of income and information sources. This is especially true for women, who are often more vulnerable to food insecurity than men.
Conflict also tears apart rural communities, breaking down traditional social structures. These networks and relationships facilitate exchanges of information, goods and services, help protect natural resources, and provide insurance and buffering mechanisms.
In many places, one of the best ways to bolster food security is by helping farmers connect to both traditional and innovative social networks, through which they can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2011.09.003">pool resources</a>, store food, seed and inputs and make investments. <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2015-10-16/food-and-transformation-africa">Mobile phones</a> enable farmers to get information on weather and market prices, work cooperatively with other producers and buyers and obtain aid, agricultural extension or veterinary services. Leveraging multiple forms of connectivity is a central strategy for supporting resilient livelihoods.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84506/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />In the past two decades the world has come together to fight hunger. This effort has produced innovations in agriculture, technology and knowledge transfer. Now, however, the compounding crises of violent conflict and a changing climate show that this approach is not enough. In the planet’s most vulnerable places, food security depends not just on making agriculture more productive, but also on making rural livelihoods diverse, interconnected and adaptable.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leah-samberg-410210">Leah Samberg</a>, Research Associate, Institute on the Environment, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-minnesota-1271">University of Minnesota</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-hunger-is-increasing-thanks-to-wars-and-climate-change-84506">original article</a>.

World hunger is increasing, this is why

BERLIN, Oct 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; As a child during Ethiopia’s deadly famine of 1984, Asfawossen Kassaye remembers watching people from the countryside flock to his town, desperately looking for food after a drought devastated their fields.
He knows first-hand how much damage climate change has done to his region of East Africa, where scientists say it is making droughts worse, longer and more frequent, putting millions at risk of hunger.
Watch: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/videos/2017/09/14/is-climate-change-the-culprit-behind-natural-disasters/">Is climate change the culprit behind natural disasters?</a>
“Climate change is something that is part of the life of the people there” said Kassaye, a geology professor at Addis Ababa University.
The growing risks are driving a small but increasingly vocal group of researchers to explore using technology to reduce the threats, in essence by re-engineering the climate.
Such “geoengineering” proposals include large-scale, controversial projects that aim to dim sunlight or capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The proposals &#8211; some of which sound like science fiction &#8211; are for the most part still in early stages of testing. But campaigners say poor countries might, once again, suffer the most devastating consequences if some of the technologies are used.
Poor countries have disproportionately born the brunt of climate change even as they had little to do with causing it. In 2015, the United States alone emitted more planet-warming carbon dioxide than the African continent’s 54 countries.
The build-up of climate-changing gases in the atmosphere has driven unusual and extreme weather linked to climate change across the globe, bringing record floods and droughts and more severe storms.
But poor countries have suffered the most serious economic damage and loss of lives, in part because they have limited resources to prepare for and cope with the changes, experts say.
“This is something that we haven’t caused, that we are paying a bigger price for,” Kassaye, of Ethiopia, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at a climate conference in Berlin.
The question scientists are now trying to answer is: Could geoengineering methods leave people in poor, climate-vulnerable countries better off than unabated climate change?
“What the African farmer wants it to know is if there will be rain next year, if that rain is going to come at a predictable time, and if it’s going to be enough for the crops,” Kassaye said.
HACKING THE CLIMATE
Worldwide, rising temperatures are now on track to exceed goals set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Those excess emissions are blamed for stoking heatwaves, downpours, more powerful storms and a rise in sea levels.
As a result, research into geoengineering is ramping up and scientists say large-scale projects to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere will be needed by the 2030s to hold the line against climate change.
If geoengineering solutions fulfill their promises, they could reduce global warming, limit sea-level rise, and make extreme weather events such as hurricanes and droughts less frequent.
But there is little research about the potential effects of some of the technologies on poor countries.
Some studies have suggested, for instance, that spraying sun-dimming chemicals into the upper atmosphere could affect global weather patterns and shift monsoons that are vital for millions across Asia and Africa.
“Geoengineering is a humanitarian concern,” Pablo Suarez, a researcher for the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Berlin. “It is not only about degrees Celsius and global temperature. It is about people.”
Other ideas for easing climate impacts include planting carbon-absorbing forests across large areas of the world, then harvesting the wood for energy, with the emissions produced pumped into storage underground.
Such a process could suck carbon out of the atmosphere and is likely to feature in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report next year.
But scientists say planting forests on the scale needed to limit global warming could take up to a third of the land that can be used to grow crops, threatening food security and land rights, particularly of poor people.
Some climate change-related problems also are left unresolved by climate engineering, experts say.
Dimming sunshine to cool the planet, for example, would not reduce the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, something that is making oceans more acidic and threatening sea life that millions rely on for food.
LEAP IN THE DARK
While many scientists have studied the potential for engineering solutions at a global level, models used to predict climate change and weather patterns in the future are not precise enough yet to predict regional changes accurately, experts say.
And different regions have different priorities when it comes to fighting climate change. Scientists in east Africa, which often struggles with long droughts, for instance, are worried about the impact that efforts to reflect more sunlight away from the planet could have on rainfall.
In the Caribbean, just battered by a series of deadly hurricanes, the focus is on the potential for geoengineering making extreme weather events less &#8211; or more &#8211; frequent.
South Asian researchers, whose home countries saw over a thousand die this year after the worst flooding in a decade, are interested in the impact of the new technologies on monsoons.
But those involved in studying geoengineering have predominantly been from rich countries in Europe and North America, rather than from poorer countries.
Last week, a new research fund aimed at scientists from developing countries was launched to help them study the impact of “solar radiation management” &#8211; or reflecting away more sunlight &#8211; on their regions.
“Developing countries are typically on the frontline of climate change. They are more vulnerable to environmental change &#8211; change caused by global warming or by geoengineering,” said Andy Parker, a project manager at the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative, which launched the fund.
Voices from poor countries have to be more central to discussions about geoengineering, he added.
“Nobody likes to be a rat in someone else’s laboratory,” Suarez, of the Red Cross’s Climate Centre, said at last week’s Climate Engineering Conference 2017 in Berlin.
“There is a symbolic difference between (change) happening as a by-product of people using their cars, heating their homes or chopping their trees versus someone intentionally changing the climate,” he said.
A WELCOME DISTRACTION?
One thing many campaigners and scientists agree on is that they don’t know enough about the potential impacts of geoengineering.
But some fear that pinning hopes on technology to fix the climate is a distraction from making needed emissions cuts and could divert funding from pressing efforts to adapt to the changes underway.
“To prevent more droughts, you need to think about alternatives, about solving the causes of the problem with agriculture, restoration of forests,” said Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America director at environmental group ETC, which opposes the use of geoengineering technology.
&#8220;That doesn&#8217;t only provide environmental benefits, it also provides food and employment for many people,&#8221; he said. (Reporting by Anna Pujol-Mazzini @annapmzn, Editing by Laurie Goering. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian news, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org)

Why Africans are wary of re-engineering the climate

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French multi-national Engie has announced full acquisition of solar home system provider Fenix. The deal makes Fenix the first SHS company to join a major worldwide energy company.

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UK announces $126 million of funding for renewable energy in Africa

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Politics and poverty caused past conflicts in East Africa – not climate change, but is this about to change?

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Why decentralised water could be the solution to Namibia’s water crisis

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Engie to acquire home solar company Fenix International

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