<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Watch:</strong> <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></p>
<p>“Climate change is something that is part of the life of the people there” said Kassaye, a geology professor at Addis Ababa University.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Such “geoengineering” proposals include large-scale, controversial projects that aim to dim sunlight or capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>HACKING THE CLIMATE</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But there is little research about the potential effects of some of the technologies on poor countries.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Some climate change-related problems also are left unresolved by climate engineering, experts say.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LEAP IN THE DARK</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But those involved in studying geoengineering have predominantly been from rich countries in Europe and North America, rather than from poorer countries.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>Voices from poor countries have to be more central to discussions about geoengineering, he added.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>A WELCOME DISTRACTION?</p>
<p>One thing many campaigners and scientists agree on is that they don’t know enough about the potential impacts of geoengineering.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>&#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)</p>


Why Africans are wary of re-engineering the climate

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<p>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.</p>


Engie to acquire home solar company Fenix International

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<p>Addressing the global challenge of climate change is one of the topics discussed at the 6th Council for Science and Industrial Research Conference in Pretoria. Professor Bob Scholes, Climate Change expert from Wits University has done a lot of research in this area, as well as on biodiversity loss and land degradation. He spoke to CNBC Africa for more.</p>


Addressing land degradation and biodiversity loss

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<p>According to the state of food insecurity and nutrition report produced by five UN agencies, global hunger levels have risen for the first time in more than a decade, now affecting 11 per cent of the world’s population.</p>


Impact of conflict on food security in Nigeria

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<p>What do the recent hurricanes in the US, the earthquake in Mexico and the mudslides in Africa tell us about climate change?</p>


Is climate change the culprit behind natural disasters?

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<p>Nigeria&#8217;s State governments are blaming the flooding on the poor waste disposal habits of citizens while civil society groups are calling authorities to pay more attention to the effects of climate change.</p>


Civil society calls on authorities to pay more attention to climate change

<p>CHILIMO, Ethiopia, July 4 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; Ethiopia is enlisting the cooperation of people in and around its forests to manage woodland better, hoping to protect the country from the effects of climate change while boosting development prospects for its population of 100 million.</p>
<p>The government of Africa’s second most populous country has set an ambitious aim of reducing poverty and becoming a carbon-neutral economy by 2025, in part by transforming the way rural landscapes are managed.</p>
<p>Its Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy aims to meet half of its target reduction in carbon emissions by adding 5 million hectares (12.4 million acres) of forests by 2020 – just three years from now – and restoring 22 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030.</p>
<p>The government sees adding forests as a key way to both curb climate change and help the country adapt to and deal with strong climate change impacts, including droughts, said Yitbetu Moges, the national representative for REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) at Ethiopia’s Ministry of Forestry, Environment and Climate Change.</p>
<p>With water resources under ever greater stress due to the country’s rising population, forests are important to maintaining stable rainfall and building drought resilience, while the carbon they store reduces emissions to the environment, Moges said.</p>
<p>STARTING IN OROMIA</p>
<p>According to the ministry, the biggest forest conservation programmes are taking place in Oromia, which is home to a third of the country’s population.</p>
<p>The 10-year Oromia Forested Landscape Programme (OFLP), which is getting underway this year, is a community-centered programme for sustainable forest management.</p>
<p>The project, with an initial $18 million of funding from the World Bank, aims to reduce deforestation and lower net greenhouse gas emissions resulting from land use.</p>
<p>The programme’s first pilot project launched in early May in the Chilimo Forest Reserve, one of the last remnants of a dry, mountainous forest that once covered Ethiopia’s central plateau.</p>
<p>Located 90 km (56 miles) west of Addis Ababa, the forest currently covers about 5,000 hectares (12,300 acres), down from 12,000 hectares (29,600 acres) in the 1980s, mainly as a result of logging in the early 1990s, officials say.</p>
<p>Under the programme, local community cooperatives have been given the right to protect and manage the forest, which faces encroaching population pressure and illegal logging, and decide on how to use the benefits accrued from it.</p>
<p>The programme encourages cooperative members to harvest stalks and other crop residue from fields for fuel, instead of using wood, and cultivate wild honey and crops like green pepper, onion and potatoes, which can be grown within the forest limits without requiring significant deforestation.</p>
<p>Communities are also urged to plant fast-growing, non-native trees such as eucalyptus to harvest for timber or medicinal purposes as a way of generating income.</p>
<p>Degu Woldegiorgis, a local community leader, is a member of one of 12 forest associations, representing 3,000 residents around Chilimo, that will participate in managing the forest.</p>
<p>He said the community’s decision to help preserve the Chilimo reserve is the result of seeing the problems other communities have faced after destroying their forests.</p>
<p>“The forest is our life. We get many benefits from the forest,” he said.</p>
<p>Woldegiorgis said his community has committed to planting three tree seedlings per community member on deforested land each year.</p>
<p>BENEFITS DOWNSTREAM</p>
<p>Stephen Danyo, an expert in natural resources management with the World Bank’s Ethiopia office, said the forestry management scheme aims not just to secure incomes for local communities but to protect water resources for downstream communities as well.</p>
<p>“Forest is worth protecting and expanding because forest not only provides jobs and livelihoods, it provides water security, it provides food security, it provides climate security,” he said.</p>
<p>Moges said protecting forests would also help ensure more stable harvests by protecting water supplies – a major concern in a country where the government says 7.8 million Ethiopians face food shortages as a result of climate change-related drought and land degradation.</p>
<p>“Agriculture will benefit as it will be less impacted by climate change shocks, creating climate stability, in addition to the forest’s well-known touristic benefits,” he said.</p>
<p>The government estimates that about 15.5 percent of Ethiopia is covered in forests – but the country is losing 92,000 hectares (227,000 acres) of forest annually, and only 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) are being replanted, Moges said.</p>
<p>He said that to protect more forests young Ethiopians need to learn about the value of forest conservation in school, from primary level onward.</p>
<p>Woldegiorgis, on the other hand, thinks tougher punishments for illegal loggers in the Chilimo Forest Reserve are needed. He said that loggers caught by his organisation and handed over to the authorities have received what he sees as lenient prison sentences of only a few months.</p>
<p>POPULATION PRESSURE</p>
<p>Moges also thinks some of Ethiopia’s rural population needs to move to its cities to better protect forests and other land as the country’s population expands. More than 80 percent of the country’s population lives in rural areas, adding to the pressure on forests, he said.</p>
<p>“National planning is needed with regards to population pressure to relieve pressure on land. But we also have to ensure today’s children can migrate to cities, learn in good schools, be employed in industries, and open up business,” he said.</p>
<p>Danyo said such strategies need to start working soon, or Ethiopia may struggle to hold onto its remaining forests as population pressures grow.</p>
<p>“There’s not much left in Ethiopia of the old, native, original forest. It’s disappearing quickly,” he said. “Protecting forests is not just because people love trees and forests but because it’s important for poverty reduction, jobs, water security energy and agriculture.”</p>
<p>Moges said he sees protecting forests as critical to the country’s future success.</p>
<p>“A prosperous Ethiopia is one that protects its forest resources. Preserving forests is creating prosperity,” he said.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Elias Gebreselassie; editing by James Baer and 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 news.trust.org/climate)</p>
<p>© Thomson Reuters 2017 All rights reserved</p>


Ethiopia’s plan to save its dwindling forests

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<p>The African Union and the New Partnership for Africa&#8217;s Development (NEPAD) are aiming to have at least 25 million farm households practicing climate smart agriculture by the Vision 25&#215;25.</p>


Combating climate change and drought in Africa

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<p>We all celebrated. Poverty in the world halved in just two decades – historic success, humankind at its best, a world altogether more free, less exposed to disease, less violent. More girls in school, too! We Africans were told that “<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21572377-african-lives-have-already-greatly-improved-over-past-decade-says-oliver-august">war, famine and dictators have become rarer</a>.”</p>
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<p>Today that celebration stops. I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL_JF63tZUw">often speak</a> about how our progress for a better world is threatened by a spiraling gap between rich and poor, withering global governance, climate change and more. Now, in failing to tackle these, something profoundly catastrophic is taking hold.</p>
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<p>The UN sounded the alarm earlier this year, joined by Oxfam and others. Our world of plenty is on the brink of unprecedented famine. Even as one famine in one country should be unacceptable – today we face the risk of four. People are dying and unless political decisions change, deaths will increase exponentially.</p>
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<h2 class="st__content-block st__content-block--heading">An urgent and bold response</h2>
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<p><a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bn-four-famines-190517-en.pdf">Thirty million people across these four countries are severely hungry</a>. Ten million of them face life-threatening emergency and famine conditions. That’s more people than live in London, about the same as populous Jakarta.</p>
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<p>We expect an urgent and bold response to match &#8211; most of all by rich and powerful nations. The last famine, in 2011 in Somalia, should have been the very last: inaction there led to the deaths of nearly 260,000 people, half of them children. We can still prevent a recurrence.</p>
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<figure class="st__content-block st__content-block--image"><img decoding="async" src="https://assets.weforum.org/editor/6Rp4KmH8d0kF8PH0kgHKl6b1AGYWpzKqwb2jdiVVqWY.png" alt=" " /></p>
<div class="image__credit">Image: The Economist</div>
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<p>I have just returned from visiting Nigeria and South Sudan where I met resilient women who told me “we want to walk freely, we want to farm, we want to feed our families.” I joined young people and entrepreneurs helping their communities survive. But even among the local people organizing themselves to share what little food and shelter and resources they have, hope is running out.</p>
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<p>I met women newly arriving, hungry and thirsty, in the small towns of Pulka in northeast Nigeria. Their harrowing journeys lined their faces. The horrors of life under Boko Haram will not leave them. A man who’d been there for three months with his wife and children – like thousands of people – still sleeping in the open. Now the arrival of over a thousand more people this week from Cameroon is pushing services to the brink, and limited water supplies will become even more stretched. Aid agencies like ours can reach these people – we do what we can. But we need to be able to reach people in areas where the potential famine is taking hold.</p>
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<p>In South Sudan – a country in which deadly famine was declared in February – I saw the chilling impact of a civil war. Entire communities have been driven from their homes by <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoHSouthSudan/Pages/Index.aspx">acts of ethnic cleansing</a>. All I have known from war in my own country didn’t prepare me for the carcass of violence I saw. You can’t escape the stench. Malakal used to be South Sudan’s second city; today it’s more a ghost town.</p>
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<p>The women there rationally explained to me how they choose hunger over the certainty of being raped on the journey out to collect food. The UN recently <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20979&amp;LangID=E">found</a>that 70% of women in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, had been raped or abused since the war began three years prior.</p>
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<p>Conflict and callous politics drive famine. In Somalia these conspire with drought and <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-climate-crisis-east-africa-drought-270417-en.pdf">climate change</a> for over three million people who urgently require support – mostly in rural areas, who are difficult to reach. The largest hunger emergency in the world is in Yemen where seventeen million do not know when they will get their next meal. Famines do not arrive like a meteor from the sky. They’re manufactured crises – the cruel consequence of government choices – and we saw them coming.</p>
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<h2 class="st__content-block st__content-block--heading">A fair share</h2>
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<p>But just as political failure led to these crises, political leadership can resolve them.</p>
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<p>The fundamental responsibility, yes, lies with those countries and the warring parties across the contexts. They must meet their most basic obligations to protect their people, provide services and uphold the safe passage of aid.</p>
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<p>Yet leaders of the G7 rich and powerful nations, who this week meet in Taormina, Sicily must be responsible to these people, too.</p>
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<p>Their immediate priority must be to save these people’s lives: we are billions shy of the funding target. And money can&#8217;t sit in bank accounts: it must reach those in need as quickly as possible. The UN is asking for $6.3 billion for all four countries but the world has stumped up less than a third of that. Oxfam has calculated a ‘fair share’ of funding that countries should commit to, based on their national income, and so far no G7 country has met this level, even though it is a tiny fraction of their budgets.</p>
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<p>France, Italy, and Japan have not given their fair share for <i>any</i> of the four countries, whilst inhumane proposals to withdraw life-saving aid now menace lives. The Trump Administration must not hold back the US Congress’ $990 million pledge to address famine. Lives depend on it.</p>
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<p>The most resounding plea from <a href="https://twitter.com/Oxfam/status/855747886696550406">women I met</a> – who have borne the brunt of the violence – was for peace. The international community must no longer be so polite. It is time to finally apply all its diplomatic pressure to push the parties towards the hard choices needed to end these conflicts. And if countries and armed groups fight – we’re realists – there are rules of war to fight by. They must too grant safe passage for civilians and access to aid agencies so we can help save lives in safety.</p>
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<p>The G7 are not some passive observers: they’re part of an international community that must also stop fueling these conflicts. Most are selling deadly arms to the parties fighting in Yemen even as they urge a political settlement. The US last weekend announced the sale of $110 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. <a href="https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/oxfam-condemns-PGM-sale-to-saudi-arabia/">Precision-guided munitions</a> that have been used to commit horrific abuses in Yemen are front and center in the sale. The UK has also sold billions of arms to Saudi Arabia, in violation of its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty.</p>
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<p>The G7 and G20 must also know their responsibility when, in the Horn of Africa, they see <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-climate-crisis-east-africa-drought-270417-en.pdf">more intense natural hazards</a>. They’re supercharged by climate change powered primarily by the emissions of rich nations. I see this as cause for more ambition in rich nations’ commitments to the Paris Agreement – not a backslide.</p>
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<div class="st__content-block st__content-block--searchable-list list-group">
<h3 class="list-group__header"><span class="list-group__title">Have you read?</span></h3>
<ul class="list-group__items">
<li class="list-group__item"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/conflict-and-famine-time-for-honesty">The true cause of hunger and famine? War and weak governance</a></li>
<li class="list-group__item"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/nearly-1-4-million-children-at-imminent-risk-of-death">1.4 million African children at imminent risk of starvation</a></li>
</ul>
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<p>Each conflict is of course unique. South Sudan’s neighbors can use their strategic clout to broker peace. In particular we believe Uganda is well placed to do this. But Africa&#8217;s leaders with the African Union must also act. Nigeria spells out clearest the link between economic mismanagement and conflict: this is Africa’s largest economy facing famine. Nigerians living in poverty grew to 43 million in recent years.</p>
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<p>High corruption and the influence of big business and the wealthy elite keeps the poorest Nigerians trapped in poverty and cut-off from the benefits of economic growth and basic services. Some people &#8211; searching for the means to survive &#8211; became vulnerable to groups like Boko Haram. Nigeria’s inequality is but an extreme version of our global economic model that our powerful leaders preside over – one in which 8 men now own as much wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion people.</p>
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<p>Let’s first avoid a catastrophic loss of life. This is happening on the G7’s watch: they must now inject the necessary cash to save lives and make a genuine push for peace. They must, too, choose to be relevant. Otherwise, we will be a long time burying the victims of further inaction.</p>
<p><em>This article first appeared on WEF&#8217;s <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/our-world-of-plenty-is-on-the-brink-of-unprecedented-famine">website</a> on 24th May and is republished with its permission. </em></p>
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Our world of plenty is on the brink of unprecedented famine. We must act now

<p>Deforestation remains a persistent environmental challenge in Africa. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that between 2010 to 2015 alone, the continent experienced a net loss of around 17 million hectares of forests. To put this in perspective, this is equivalent to more than 1.3 times the total land size of England. It is also a major driver of carbon emissions.</p>
<p>A narrative has developed that suggests there is a trade-off between sustainable land use and local economic growth, and particularly in low-income countries, it is clear which one will prevail. However the current debate is dominated by anecdotes rather than compelling, broad-based evidence. The challenge in conducting this analysis is that in many of these forest-frontier regions, economic data is often absent or not particularly robust. In addition, there are issues with the lack of a sufficiently long time series to understand impact or a control group to measure progress against.</p>
<p>A recent study conducted to explore the available evidence and identify innovative approaches for reconciling competing social, economic and environmental objectives challenges the view that a trade-off between local prosperity and environmental outcomes is inevitable. In fact, in a number of African countries, a range of sustainable land use initiatives have deployed (ranging from smallholder yield improve to land degradation prevention) that have boosted local incomes while protecting the environment. The real question is whether these can be scaled up to a meaningful level? There is no point in having an oasis of green in a desert of deforestation. This is where jurisdictional programs hold great potential. Jurisdictional programs are sustainable development programs that take place at a scale that matches the administrative boundaries of sub-national or national governments (Exhibit 1).</p>
<p><strong>Exhibit 1</strong></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-122439" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Exhibit1.jpg" alt="" width="1365" height="1024" /></p>
<p>Liberia is one such example. The West African country is at a critical juncture in its economic and environmental development. Deforestation has been increasing and the total tree cover loss between 2001-2014 was over 711,000 hectares. The country has also earmarked over 930,000 hectares of land for palm oil cultivation.  Managed poorly, the environmental consequences could be detrimental to one of the continent’s biodiversity hotspots. In response, Liberia has developed a national-level jurisdictional program, which aims to reduce deforestation, create verified deforestation-free commodity producing areas, and also support local prosperity.</p>
<p><strong>EXHIBIT 2</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-122440" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Exhibit2.jpg" alt="" width="1365" height="1024" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Liberia’s jurisdictional program is still in its infancy, but holds great promise (Exhibit 2). The study has identified several challenges in Liberia that will need overcoming, which are similar to other jurisdictions examined .</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Aligning incentives:</strong> while jurisdictional governments have committed to sustainable development pledges, communication, consensus building, and resilience to stay the course can be challenging. In Liberia, a particular challenge is encouraging local communities to participate in conservation efforts.</li>
<li><strong>Developing operational frameworks</strong>: that can clearly translate sustainable land use goals into practice.</li>
<li><strong>Implementation</strong>: particularly in regards to land use planning and resolving conflicting land right claims.</li>
</ol>
<p>Despite these challenges there are programmes that are being implementing, showcasing different approaches and strength of multistakeholder partnerships.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Liberia Forest Sector Project. </strong>The World Bank implemented this programme in April 2016. It aims to support the government’s efforts to manage and improve the forest sector and protects nearly 1.5 million hectares of the country’s remaining natural forest.<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[i]</a> Initiatives from the programme include:
<ul>
<li><em>Forest investment project</em>. The project aims to strengthen regulatory and institutional systems to improve the management of forest landscapes and complete the process of legal reform and enforcement. It will also enhance the landscape management of protected areas and community managed forests. Other components of the project include the operationalization of a measurement and reporting system for forests and emissions reductions, reference level development, and an information system for safeguards.</li>
<li><em>Rubber production through private-sector partnership.</em> This project provides financing to smallholder farmers to replant and renovate ageing rubber plantations and adopt sustainable agronomic practices (see the “Environmental Benefits” section of this chapter).</li>
<li><em>Payments for verified emissions.</em> This project provides financial payments for successful implementation of activities that lead to measured, reported and verified emissions reductions.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Africa Palm Oil Initiative in Liberia.</strong> The APOI brings together TFA 2020 partners and collaborators within governments, companies, civil society, and indigenous and local communities to prioritize sustainable palm oil development in Africa. The goal of APOI is to develop and support the implementation of a set of regional principles for responsible palm oil development that accounts for the ambitious development plans of countries in Africa. This approach aims to balance forest conservation, community development and commercial interests while supporting the protection of high forest cover landscapes. Specific to Liberia, APOI has conducted national workshops on Liberia’s to develop actions plan for sustainable palm oil production and is working on an implementation framework to guide the expansion of sustainable palm oil cultivation in the country.</li>
<li><strong>Smallholder productivity and forest protection programme.</strong> NICFI and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) are supporting a programme to achieve forest conservation in commercially productive landscapes in Liberia. The programme aims to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, increase prosperity and create verified deforestation-free commodity producing landscapes. Partners in the programme include the Government of Liberia, ArcelorMittal (mining), Sime Darby (oil palm and rubber), GVL (oil palm), local communities and civil society. The initiative, which began in March 2016, also endeavours to pioneer an investment model where investments in agricultural intensification are tied to forest conservation goals. Core activities of the programme include developing land use plans consistent with commercial and conservation goals; signing protection agreements that commit participants to sustainably produced commodities; enabling investments in outgrowers (which are financially risky); and enforcing forest conservation policies.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[ii]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The success of these efforts depends greatly on the multistakholder approach. Liberia, and other African countries, are on the road to act as leading examples of how environmental preservation and economic prosperity can go hand in hand.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[i]</a> Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF),<em> “</em>The Liberia Forest Program”, 2015.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">[ii]</a> IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, <em>Green Growth: Achieving forest conservation in commercially productive landscapes in Indonesia, Liberia and Brazil,</em> 2015.</p>
<p><em>This article was supplied to CNBC Africa by WEF as part of our collaboration.</em></p>


Op-ed: Over 5 years Africa has lost forests the size of England, this is how to create a trade-off

<p>“Du-u-u-ck!” we’d yell out to warn those further down the bus roof each time another electrical wire came dangerously close to our heads. Seconds later, the slogans would resume again, “Sundarban amar ma / ujar hote debo na!”.</p>
<p>Sundarban is my mother / won’t tolerate her smother!</p>
<p>As the exuberant cavalcade headed towards the Sundarbans mangrove forest in southwest Bangladesh, in town after town our youthful uproars made roadside observers curious, and they read our fliers describing the dangers of the massive Rampal coal-plant being built beside the forest. The three-day ‘long march’ concluded with a fiery speech by renowned economist and organizer Anu Muhammad to rally local communities near the Sundarbans. His leadership was instrumental in making the march, and the broader resistance, a powerful force.</p>
<p>Wherever you look, such age-diverse partnerships are at the frontlines of the climate struggle. Levi and Ridhima are only 9, but half a world apart, they are respectively taking the governments of the US and India to court for climate inaction, sparking what could develop into historic legal rulings. They couldn’t have done it alone — climate scientist James Hansen and Ridhima’s activist father have been crucial architects.</p>
<p>And just this week, the People’s Climate Mobilization marking President Trump’s 100 days in office is a bold statement against the administration’s dangerous denialism. It builds on marches in 2014 and 2015 that brought a combined 1.5 million people on the streets in over 2,000 cities worldwide, thanks largely to agile coordination by organizations like 350.org. 350 started when author-turned-activist Bill McKibben co-founded it with some of his students from Middlebury College. A youthful staff base has enabled such organizations to leverage the Internet to mobilize people more effectively and build power.</p>
<p>The examples above demonstrate three key ways that young people can and are speeding up the response to climate change. The young plaintiffs bring to light a profound moral clarity by highlighting the intergenerational injustice of society’s inaction on climate change. From the streets of Bangladesh to the halls of power at Paris COP21, youth have channeled that moral clarity with disruptive energy to challenge the status quo and expand the boundaries of dry political feasibilities. And finally, rising movements are employing youth who can drive digital innovation to exponentially improve coordination and generate greater impact.</p>
<p><strong>FOR MORE WEF AFRICA CONTENT READ:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cnbc.africa/category/insights/world-economic-forum/wef-africa-2017/">WEF AFRICA 2017</a></p>
<p>All three come together in the fossil fuel divestment movement, the fastest growing such movement in history. Sparked off by college students just six years ago, it has already galvanized over 5 trillion in dollars divested! The argument for divestment has a moral core: that endowments of educational institutions should not be used to sabotage their students’ futures. To highlight this, students have occupied president’s offices and disrupted the comfort of trustee boardrooms, forcing conversations that were unthinkable mere months ago. And they have been able to grow the movement rapidly by sharing knowledge and strategizing effectively with the help of digital technologies.</p>
<p>However, the youth struggle has a crushing limitation. Aside from rare exceptions, each dollar divested required a non-young decision-maker to make that final judgment, whether from a place of aligned values or under pressure. Youth are usually not in positions of power, or even offered a seat at the table of decision-making conversations.</p>
<p>And while youth have always played critical roles in driving conversations and values forward — such as the divestment movement against apartheid half a century ago — we still have to rely on incumbent authorities in boardrooms, parliaments, and public offices to unlock substantial progress.</p>
<p>Yet, the three dimensions discussed above empower youth with a compelling arsenal that can be leveraged to bypass this limitation by partnering with allies in positions of higher authority, and change the climate in which decisions around climate change are made, thereby steering the outcomes themselves.</p>
<p>The People’s Climate March 2014 right before the New York UN Climate Summit demonstrates this. An infusion of youthful organizing energy and smart digital strategy in the preceding months fueled a historic turnout of 400,000 filling the streets of Manhattan, making international headlines. The Heads of State speeches at the Summit made clear that after years of stagnation, country leaders realized there was a massive constituency on climate change. This invigorated the negotiations in pursuit of an ambitious deal in Paris in 2015.</p>
<p>I cried when the gavel finally came down on the Paris Agreement after a grueling two weeks. It was a tremendous, albeit overdue, achievement of multilateralism, and youth played a significant, though often overlooked role in the ecosystem. Since then, a heartbreaking political abandonment of basic science in several countries has cast a dark cloud over its fate. As the urgency grows, apparently the lunacy does too.</p>
<p>McKibben once said, “&#8230;as the planet runs its spiking fever, the antibodies are starting to kick in.” I think this metaphor captures the role of youth well. The combination of moral outrage, courage to disrupt, and organizing tech-savviness places youth in an important nexus at a time when political authorities are failing to curb the fever. You can count on youth to put our bodies on the line to stop every coal plant to bend down the emissions curve if we have to.</p>
<p>But while antibodies are vital in times of war, they are not sufficient to hold peace. Perhaps the defining role today’s youth can play is to grow into a generation of wise decision-makers who take to heart the Iroquois wisdom to deeply respect the consequences of our actions seven generations into the future.</p>
<p><em>This article was supplied to CNBC Africa by WEF Africa. Watch our coverage from 3-5 May 2017</em></p>


Op-ed: Youth are the antibodies defending our feverish mother earth

<p>A lot has changed in the world in the past year.  Not all of it good, particularly the growing threat of protectionism.  But one thing, which has not changed is the urgent need for low carbon energy for the world to have any chance at all of averting dangerous climate change and keeping the rise in average temperature &lt; 2C.  The electricity generation industry has to eliminate carbon emissions almost completely by 2040.</p>
<p>One more thing that hasn&#8217;t changed is that the only reliable source of low carbon base load electricity is still nuclear power.   Let&#8217;s be clear &#8211; renewables make a very important contribution.  Nobody welcomes the fall in the cost of solar, wind and other renewable energy more than me and my organisation NNWE.  Renewable energy complements nuclear but it cannot replace nuclear as a supplier of baseload electricity.</p>
<p>One day perhaps a form of flexible long-term low-cost electricity storage may become available but there&#8217;s no sign of it yet and it would be recklessly irresponsible for any country to make energy policy on the basis that it will happen soon.</p>
<p>So we come back to nuclear as an essential part of the energy mix that applies just as much here in SA as it does in UK, EU, US, China, Korea, Russia and dozens of other countries around the world which plan to keep nuclear in that mix.</p>
<h3>Need to cut carbon emissions</h3>
		
				
		
<p>My support for nuclear energy in the last 25 years has been closely linked to my firm conviction about the need to cut carbon emissions in order to address climate change.  But in the last few years, the need to phase out fossil fuels has become urgent for another reason.  That&#8217;s to address health concerns about air quality.  In some places this is now the biggest and most urgent driver of energy policy.</p>
<p>Last week I was in China where this overriding concern about air pollution has recently led to the closure of every single coal-fired power station in and around Beijing.  Here in SA air pollution doesn&#8217;t pose quite such a desperately urgent threat to human health. But even here thousands of avoidable premature deaths are caused by poor air quality.  So until we have an economically viable form of carbon capture and storage there cannot be any long-term role for coal, as many investors around the world have already concluded.</p>
<p>China is switching away from coal as fast as it can and it can only do so because alongside the world&#8217;s largest renewable energy investment programme, it also has the world&#8217;s largest domestic nuclear programme but coal consumption isn&#8217;t the only source of air pollution.</p>
<p>Vehicle emissions from cars and trucks are a substantial additional cause in every country, and particularly in every city in the world.  Many people have recently been taken by surprise by the speed of the fall in the cost of solar power.  I urge SA not to be caught by surprise by the speed of the switch away from petrol or diesel powered vehicles to electric ones.  A switch, which the residents of every major city will soon be clamouring for, for the sake of the children and grandchildren.  Of the millions of prosperous and influential middle-class citizens who see the life expectancy of the next generation threatened by a reduction, if immediate action isn&#8217;t taken to clean up the air they breathe.</p>
<h3>Slower growth in electricity consumption by 2030</h3>
<p>This new trend will be led by the great cities in Asia but I&#8217;m certain that just up the road from here the citizens of Johannesburg will be hot on their heels.  This new trend, currently still in an embryonic state is directly relevant to another part of the debate here in SA.  Much interest has been sparked by the recent downward revision in the predicted demand for electricity but I seriously doubt that the forecasts of slower growth in electricity consumption in 2030 take sufficient, or even any, account of the possibility of a big extra demand for power as vehicles switch away from petrol/diesel to electricity.</p>
<p>Last year I identified cost as the only significant barrier to the rapid expansion of nuclear power because nuclear is already proven to be a reliable, clean and secure energy source with a safety record that is among the best in the whole energy sector.</p>
<p>But while fossil fuel prices remain low and the cost of renewables is still falling the need for nuclear to demonstrate that it is cost competitive is as strong as ever.  The good news is that cheaper nuclear energy is quickly becoming available.</p>
<p>Within the next 12 months, the first of four new Korean nuclear reactors will start producing electricity in UAE at a price, which will be cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation.</p>
<p>Or consider the case of Rosatom, which is building more latest generation reactors globally than any other vendor.  Rosatom appears to have managed to make it to the stage where the learning curve and the economies of scale enable it to enjoy falling costs too.</p>
<p>As for China&#8217;s Hualong One reactor which in the UK has just started to go through the rigorous GDA process required by the UK ONR in preparation for being built at Bradwell in the UK.  Given the size of China&#8217;s domestic market, I wouldn&#8217;t bet against that design also generating cost competitive electricity before the end of the 2020s.</p>
<h3>Nuclear opponents site high upfront costs</h3>
<p>I&#8217;m aware that some of the strongest opponents of nuclear argue that SA can&#8217;t afford the big upfront costs.  I don&#8217;t believe that they have recognised the extent of the fall in the price of nuclear, which the offerings from each of these vendors may well provide for the benefit of SA consumers.  What&#8217;s more these offerings aren&#8217;t necessarily limited to the technologies available.  The accompanying financial packages are also important.</p>
<p>The terms of any loan for nuclear new build projects have a big impact on the eventual cost of the electricity generated.  So the question isn&#8217;t &#8220;Can SA afford to invest in nuclear?&#8221;.  It&#8217;s &#8220;Can SA afford <strong>not </strong>to invest in nuclear?&#8221;</p>
<p>This imminent prospect of affordable new nuclear power means that the time for decisions about South Africa&#8217;s energy infrastructure is now.  This economy, blessed with great natural resources and a talented workforce has not fulfilled the high hopes, which accompanied the arrival of democracy in the last few years of the last century.  Capital investment has recently lagged all the countries in the region apart from Zimbabwe.   And not surprisingly in the last five years SA&#8217;s GDP growth has been around half of its neighbours.</p>
<p>The Government&#8217;s National Development Plan has rightly recognised that investment in infrastructure is necessary to support development and should be prioritised.  Investment in nuclear will therefore not only guarantee a supply of secure reliable low carbon electricity, it will also give the economy a much-needed shot in the arm.</p>
<p>But to capture these benefits this decision must be taken very soon.  SA can&#8217;t afford to wait until 2037 for its first new nuclear units come online.  Since I spoke at Nuclear Africa last year the future of nuclear here seems to have taken two steps forward and one back.</p>
<h3>Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity</h3>
<p>At a difficult economic time, the Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity published last November effectively set back the wider adoption of new nuclear.  So I hope the Government will now consider the representations from across the energy sector urging revision of the Plan to prioritise development of new nuclear.</p>
<p>The deadline for submission of the new nuclear build programme means certainty is needed to facilitate investment and progress.  According to the conclusions of the report which NNWE commissioned from Trusted Sources, the multiplier effect of investment in nuclear would be 3.4 x the monetary value added would amount to US $77 billion.  That&#8217;s close to a quarter of SA&#8217;s current GDP.<br />
By contrast, much of the economic benefit of additional investment in renewable energy goes to other countries, mostly in Asia from where the bulk of the components have to be imported.</p>
<p>The consequence of delaying new nuclear build until the late 2030s means slower economic growth, fewer high quality jobs and a less reliable power supply.  Furthermore investment in new nuclear offers SA the chance to develop a local supply chain network which in due course will have potential export markets across Africa and further afield.</p>
<p>Skills development in the STEM subjects will grow to meet the demand triggered by the investment in energy infrastructure.  The opportunity, which this creates for a new generation of black industrialists who can participate in and lead the building of the power plants and the supply of goods and services to the nuclear industry, is substantial and attractive.</p>
<p>There are potential supply chain participants attending this event. I urge them to join me in proclaiming to the business world, to the trade unions, to the politicians the public value of nuclear to SA. This isn&#8217;t just about the profits of a few companies.  It&#8217;s about jobs, about growth, about health.  These voices need to be heard.  And heard now</p>
<p>Energy investment decisions cannot be short term.  The impact of how SA decides in 2017 to meet its future energy needs will be felt right through to the second half of this century.  The energy problems which Germany now faces after its mistaken decision to shut down its nuclear fleet in the wake of Fukushima are a testament to the dangers of becoming too reliant on energy sources which are beyond a country&#8217;s control.</p>
<p>The key to making the right choices for SA are to recognise that thinking of SA&#8217;s energy needs, only in terms of today&#8217;s demand, or even the next five years demand, would be to rob the country of the future it deserves.</p>
<p>Nuclear energy will provide SA with a low carbon base load power source at a predetermined cost that will help transform the entire country.  With countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana moving ahead with nuclear ambitions and leading nations like UK, the US, France, China and Canada continuing with their nuclear energy programmes, it&#8217;s time for SA to follow suit or risk being left in the dark.</p>
<p><em>Speech delivered to Nuclear Africa 2017 Conference, South Africa by </em><em>Tim Yeo, Chair: New Nuclear Watch Europe (NNWE)</em></p>

Can SA afford NOT to invest in nuclear energy?

<p>Just a few weeks after the <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php">Paris Climate Change Agreement</a> officially came into force, the latest analysis concluded that even if it is fully implemented, we are heading for a 2.9°C- 3.4°C increase in warming.</p>
<p>This won’t come as a surprise to anyone remotely familiar with the topic of climate change. It also won’t come as a surprise to hear that Africa will bear the brunt of the negative consequences tied to these changes.</p>
<p>With a 2°C increase, agriculture yields of key food staples will decline by up to 40%, <a href="http://apps.unep.org/publications/pmtdocuments/-Africa%E2%80%99s_Adaptation_Gap_2__.pdf">resulting in</a> a 25%-90% increase in incidences of undernourishment and putting 50% of Africa’s population at risk of undernourishment.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5352022901001" width="300" height="150" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>Rising sea levels will also badly affect our beautiful coastal cities, putting <a href="http://apps.unep.org/publications/pmtdocuments/-Africa%E2%80%99s_Adaptation_Gap_2__.pdf">millions at risk of flooding</a>, and threatening to reverse economic and development gains with the ensuing damage to infrastructure, loss of touristic sites and disruption in food supply.</p>
<p>It won’t come as a surprise because we talk about it all the time. What we’re not doing is acting. The time now is to match our words with actions. But how do we do that?</p>
<h2><b>Moving from words to action</b></h2>
<p>Practical approaches do exist, and one sector in particular offers much hope: the clean energy industry, which is closely related to the issue of climate-proof agriculture. If we make progress in this area, we can not only tackle climate-related challenges, but socio-economic ones as well, such as food security, job creation and macro-economic growth.</p>
<p>One way to move from talk to action in this area is through something called ecosystem-based adaptation in mainstream farming techniques. This has already been done, for example, in Niger, where the technique has been used to <a href="http://www.agro.uba.ar/users/semmarti/Poblacion/Godfray-2010ScienceFoodSecurityFeeding9billion.pdf">rehabilitate up to 300,000 hectares of barren land</a>. In other places, it has been shown to lead to a <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/ian-fitzpatrick/to-address-global-food-crisis-we-have-to-address-power-of-big-agribusiness">128% yield increase</a>, which would not only boost food security but would also enhance farmer income, thus helping to combat poverty.</p>
<h2><b>All hands on deck</b></h2>
<p>It’s often said that the only way we’ll achieve change is if everyone – government, business, civil society – is involved. But again, how do we move from words to action in this area?</p>
<p>The concept of ecosystem-based adaptation provides another look at how this could happen in practice. Through <a href="http://www.ebafosa.org/">EBAFOSA</a>, global, regional and national stakeholders are being brought together to create mutual partnerships for climate change action.</p>
<p>http://cnbc.africa/news/special-report/2016/11/18/protecting-and-developing-african-agriculture-in-the-face-of-climate-change/</p>
<p>In Malawi, for example, EBAFOSA is building mutual partnerships between EBA-agriculture actors and the Malawi Bureau of Standards to establish quality standards for EBA products and enhance their marketability in local and export markets. By doing so, it encourages local actors to put in place these climate-friendly techniques. This is then reinforced at the national level, through a National Export Strategy that is prioritizing the export of high-value, climate-resilient food crops – such as <a href="http://www.farmafrica.org/tanzania/sesame-marketing">sesame</a>, a drought-tolerant crop that requires less water than more traditional crops such as maize.</p>
<p>http://cnbc.africa/insights/energy-environment/2017/03/16/how-to-save-africas-forest/</p>
<p>These lessons from Malawi will be replicated across the 40 EBAFOSA member countries in Africa, therefore ensuring the transformation of adaptation commitment into actions across the continent.</p>
<h2><b>Time for Africa to repair its roof</b></h2>
<p>“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining,” John F. Kennedy once said. This is certainly true when it comes to climate change in Africa. It is now time to convert opportunity into reality.</p>
<p>The irrefutable dire scientific warnings show very clearly how serious this challenge is. We have spent enough time talking about it, but now we must set about tackling it. We need to do so for the mother who cannot feed her new-born child with the proper food to live beyond the age of five. We must do so for the 240 million Africans who go to bed with a stomach aching from hunger. We must do so for the 620 million citizens who don’t have reliable access to energy. Doing so is the only way we can ensure the African continent never again experiences the fear of want or need.</p>
<p><i>The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the institution with which he is affiliated</i></p>
<p><em>This article was first published on Tuesday 29 November 2016 at: <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/stop-talking-about-climate-action-in-africa-and-start-doing-something">https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/stop-talking-about-climate-action-in-africa-and-start-doing-something</a>  and is republished with WEF’s permission</em></p>


Stop talking about climate action in Africa and start doing something

<p>Tropical forests are essential for sustainable growth in Africa. They also have economic, environmental, and social implications that extend far beyond the continent.</p>
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<p>Although they cover less than 7% of the earth’s land surface, tropical forests are home to approximately 50% of all living things on earth. Yet these forests are being cleared at a rate of 18 million hectares a year.</p>
<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://assets.weforum.org/editor/x_7FxVnqg6dDy6-Zt5ROPn75b0RpwEj3R3CCyZSmvpE.gif" alt=" " /></figure>
<p>While the economic value of forests is difficult to quantify precisely, an estimate by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project, which was kick-started by the UK Government, forecast that the loss of biodiversity from deforestation would cost the global economy up to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/5000000000000-the-cost-each-year-of-vanishing-rainforest-2096367.html">$4.5 trillion a year</a>.</p>
<p>One industry that could be impacted heavily is the pharmaceuticals industry. Tropical rainforests have provided key ingredients for an estimated 25% of pharmaceuticals and prescription drugs derived from rainforest plants are used to treat cancer, heart disease, bronchitis, arthritis, diabetes and other conditions. Yet only around 1% of plants have been tested for medicinal properties and deforestation means species are lost before they can even be explored.</p>
<p>Tropical forests also matter in the fight against climate change. As the ‘lungs of the earth’ forests breathe in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in exchange. When a forest is cleared, the trees release this stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Globally, deforestation represents around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot solve climate change without also addressing deforestation.</p>
<p>Deforestation also affects rainfall. At a local level, it <a href="http://phys.org/news/2011-09-deforestation-rainfall-africa.html">changes rainfall</a> and water run-off patterns making the remaining forests drier. It could also have global impacts with <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/deforestation-in-the-tropics-affects-climate-around-the-world-study-finds">scientific models</a> showing that the complete destruction of tropical forests in central Africa would reduce rainfall in southern Europe and the upper and lower US Midwest.</p>
<p>The impact of deforestation on ecosystems and animal habitat could also have other far-reaching impacts. For example, France’s environment Minister, Ségolène Royal, told a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/29/deforestation-might-have-started-west-africas-ebola-outbreak">conference last year</a> that researchers believe deforestation in West Africa increased the likelihood of the Ebola epidemic in 2014. The destruction of the natural habitat of fruit-eating bats, which carried the Ebola virus, likely drove them towards human settlements to find food.</p>
<p>Africa is home to around 18% of the world’s tropical forests. The second largest tropical forest on the planet is located in the Congo Basin in central Africa and extends for around 3 million square kilometres – which is larger than the entire land mass of Argentina.</p>
<h3>Have you read?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<h3 class="news-title"><a href="http://cnbc.africa/insights/energy-environment/2017/03/15/africas-poorest-people-need-access-clean-energy-can-get/">Africa’s poorest people need access to clean energy. How can we get it to them?</a></h3>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Despite their economic, social, and environmental importance, Africa’s tropical forests are under threat. Almost 90% of West Africa’s coastal rainforest has already been destroyed and deforestation in the Congo Basin has doubled since 1990.</p>
<p>Logging and agriculture continue to be two of the biggest threats to Africa’s tropical forests. The unsustainable production of palm oil is one of the biggest drivers.</p>
<p>Palm oil is found in about half of all packaged products sold in supermarkets. It’s already a $50 billion global industry and is projected to rise to $88 billion by 2022. And Africa is expected to be the next growth spot for palm oil production.</p>
<p>It is significant then that seven African Governments – Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Liberia, the Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone – have <a href="https://www.weforum.org/press/2016/01/seven-african-governments-to-protect-over-70-of-africa-s-tropical-forests-from-unsustainable-palm-oil-development">agreed to protect</a> more than 70% of Africa’s tropical forests from unsustainable palm oil production.</p>
<p>Equally significant is the <a href="https://www.tfa2020.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/TFA2020_Marrakesh_Declaration-Statement-of-Support_post-embargoed.pdf">support shown</a> by large consumer-facing companies like Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever; palm oil producers including Feronia, GVL, Socfin Group, and Wilmar; and civil society organisations such as Conservation International, the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, among others.</p>
<p>This support is crucial because governments are unlikely to be able to stop deforestation from unsustainable palm oil production on their own, as evidenced by the ongoing battle to combat illegal logging. Success will require a diverse range of stakeholders working together to deal with the intertwined issues of environmental protection, human rights (indigenous peoples who live in forested areas), agricultural production, and ensuring the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.</p>
<p>New technology tools will also help. For example, Global Forest Watch is using rapid advances in satellite imaging to increase transparency and improve access to forest-related data. Anyone with a computer can create custom maps, analyse forest trends, and download actionable data. In Panama, drones are being used by local communities to monitor their forests in real time all year round. Elsewhere, governments are exploring how blockchain technology could be applied to tracking land rights allocations</p>
<p>Together, these emerging technologies and partnership models could help save Africa’s forests.</p>
<p><em>This article was first published on Thursday 17 November 2016</em> <em>at:</em> <em><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/deforestation-africa-palm-oil">https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/deforestation-africa-palm-oil</a>  and is republished with WEF&#8217;s permission</em></p>
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This is why we need to save Africa’s forests

<p>The United Nations 2016 climate change conference (COP 22), meeting this week—through Nov. 18—in Marrakech, Morocco, presents an historic opportunity to refocus the global community’s attention on the need to help developing nations adapt to climate change. In no area could this be more pressing than Africa, where protecting food security and ending hunger is an urgent necessity. </p>
<p>During the COP21 last year in Paris, the world’s developed nations reaffirmed their commitment to provide at least $100 billion per year, beginning in 2020, to help developing nations combat climate change.</p>
<p>In the past, most funds have been used on mitigation projects—those intended to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. But there is a growing consensus that work focused on adapting to climate change is of equal importance and more funding needs to be devoted to it.</p>
<p>This is a step in the right direction. With 28 African countries expected to more than double in population by 2050, and 10 African countries—Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia—expected to grow “by at least a factor of five” by 2100, according to the U. N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Africa will be hard pressed to feed itself as temperature increases drive farm production down.</p>
<p>While increases in temperature and carbon dioxide “can increase some crop yields in some places,” experts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have noted, Africa isn’t among them.</p>
<p>In fact, the opposite is true: The scientific consensus is that a temperature increase of 2°Celsius would result in an average reduction of 15% to 20% in agricultural yields on the continent.</p>
<p>The Center for Global Development’s 2011 report, “Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change Implications for Adaptation Assistance,” forecasts median agricultural productivity losses due to climate change ranging from 18% in North Africa to 19.8% in Central Africa through 2050.</p>
<p>The weak output in Africa, reinforced by a spike in temperatures and exacerbated by extreme climate events, could create a vicious loop of food insecurity, impoverishment, mass migration and, finally, armed conflict. Climate-related migration and conflict already are a reality on the continent, and more often than not they are related to agriculture and food.</p>
<p>In addition to the moral imperative of feeding people, there is also an essentially practical argument to be made in favour of significantly increasing support for agricultural adaptation in Africa—the so-called feedback loop. By helping Africa boost agricultural production through improved soil management and irrigation techniques, as well as increased research on other farming techniques that respect the integrity of land, the global community also would be helping reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. That’s because the improved agricultural practices, in a virtuous circle, would increase yields on poor farmland, reduce deforestation and improve the carbon sequestration capacity of cultivated soil.</p>
<p>Currently, agriculture and Africa are the poor relations of climate finance. Adaptation, agriculture and Africa have been understudied and underfunded and their importance underestimated. In the area of agriculture, all geographic regions combined account for only 4% of public funds linked to climate change. The African continent, home to nearly 25% of the developing world’s population, receives just 5% of public and private climate funds. This is difficult to swallow when you consider that Africa is among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, while only marginally contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>By maintaining African agriculture and reinforcing its capacity for adapting to climate change, the international community can show its responsiveness to the life-and-death issue of African food security, while addressing the global imperative to reduce temperature increases.</p>
<p>Marrakech COP22 is a unique opportunity to finally position the adaptation of African agriculture as one of the highest priority subjects. Delegates to the Marrakech climate conference can help solve this problem by reallocating available climate change resources from mitigation efforts to adaptation projects in general, and to the African agriculture in particular.</p>
<p>For Africa and the world, it is time to consider these realities.﻿</p>


Protecting and developing African agriculture in the face of climate change

<p>Around the world, farmers can attest to the devastating impact that climate change is having on agriculture. Whether they’re in the US, Vietnam or South Africa, heat waves, droughts or heavy rains are disrupting water supplies, ruining harvests and affecting food availability and prices.</p>
<p>We can only imagine what will happen to our agriculture and food systems if the earth’s temperature increases by 2-4°C. The prospect threatens to reverse gains in food security and economic growth. It threatens our ability to feed 9 billion people by 2050. And it will remove all chance of achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating poverty.</p>
<p>Addressing this challenge is a priority for world leaders meeting this week in Marrakech for the United Nations climate change conference. We therefore welcome the Moroccan Government’s Adaption of African Agriculture initiative (AAA) to help build the resilience of the continent’s agriculture.</p>
<p>It is particularly pertinent that this conference is on African soil. While all countries will feel the impact of climate change, Africa will perhaps feel it most. The continent’s agricultural productivity has long lagged behind the rest of the world. Crop yields grew across Asia from 1960 onwards, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, but stagnated in Africa where cereal yields stayed largely unchanged for the 30 years of the green revolution.</p>
<p>As a consequence, many African countries have met increased demand for food through overseas food imports, a wasted opportunity given that the continent boasts 60% of the world’s available arable land. This over-reliance on imports is also a risk, as trade restrictions and price hikes in volatile times leave populations at risk of food insecurity.</p>
<p>If climate change isn’t tackled, Africa will simply never begin to fulfil its potential. It will only make things harder for the continent’s millions of smallholder farmers who rely on farming for their income or livelihood. According to the AAA initiative, the slump in crop yields could reach 20% in 2050, even if global warming is contained under 2°C.</p>
<p>The good news is that we know investment in agriculture works and we have seen encouraging progress. Research from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) shows how governments that invested 10% of spending in agriculture and supported the sector, have seen productivity and GDP rise, and poverty rates decline since 2005.</p>
<p>So we have an opportunity and a duty to act &#8211; to create a resilient and sustainable agriculture system that supports smallholders and builds the continent’s food security. Reforming African agriculture will not only mean it can finally feed more people and contribute to growth but also that it does not itself exacerbate climate change – since we know agriculture sectors account for one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>Momentum has been building for several years now with promising public and private sector initiatives such as Grow Africa, AGRA, the Malabo Declaration, the New Alliance, and now the triple AAA initiative. African governments have committed to allocate at least 10% of public expenditure to agriculture.</p>
<p>Agriculture is also increasingly seen as an engine of economic growth and a source of jobs for the continent’s large youth population. The Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa has noted that the continent’s food market could be worth US$1 trillion in just 15 years.</p>
<p>Businesses such as Olam are supporting farmers directly &#8211; last year, 140,000 farmers and 300,000 hectares benefited from training on sustainable soil management. Unilever, through its relationship with Olam and other suppliers, is committed to sourcing raw materials sustainably, improving the lives of millions of family and smallholder farmers in its supply chains worldwide.</p>
<p>Despite these initiatives, agriculture continues to receive insufficient support to face climate change. Africa receives under 5% of funds available to tackle climate change. On top of that, adaptation measures receive less than 20% of public funds, as the majority of funding goes to emission-cutting measures. We have a situation where the sector that will be hit worst by climate change is the least well-resourced to manage its effects.</p>
<p>To help catalyse these initiatives and mobilise the funding and wider support to make African agriculture a success story, the private sector needs to play a central role. We know that businesses’ long-term performance depends on having a reliable supply of high-quality, safe and affordable food.</p>
<p>It is also a great opportunity – the Business and Sustainable Development Commission estimates that companies could unlock US$2.3 trillion a year in the food and agriculture sectors, securing a seven-fold return if they invest US$320 billion in sustainable business models each year.</p>
<p>Agriculture is a complex activity, bringing together smallholders, business and the public sector &#8211; so we must work together.  An opportunity like COP22 is one of the few chances to stand together and set a new direction. If we act now, we won’t just protect agriculture from climate change, we’ll feed the continent, create jobs and help realise the Sustainable Development Goals. We’ll leave nobody behind.</p>
<p>Sunny Verghese is co-founder and Group CEO of <a href="http://olamgroup.com/">Olam International</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/PaulPolman">Paul Polman</a> is CEO of <a href="https://www.unilever.com/">Unilever</a> and Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. ﻿</p>
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Africa's food market could be worth US$1trn in 15 years, this is how…

<p>The Global Shapers Annual Survey 2016, an initiative by the World Economic Forum, received over 26,000 responses from millennials aged between 18-35 years, from 180 countries. They were asked about various topics such as inequality, migration and diversity.</p>
<p>The Global Shapers Community is a network of Hubs developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, achievements and drive to make a contribution in their communities.</p>
<p>Millennials were asked which three issues mostly affect the world. First on their list was climate change along with the destruction of natural resources at 45 per cent. This was followed by conflict and war at 38 per cent and lastly religious conflicts at 34 percent.</p>
<p>Thirty-six per cent of these millennials define themselves as global citizens while 22 per cent see themselves as defined by their nationality, 9 per cent by their religious and philosophical beliefs, and 7 per cent by their region.</p>
<p>Factors contributing to inequality and corruption and lack of transparency came in at 59 per cent, while access to good quality of education came in at 40 per cent and income at 37 per cent.</p>
<p>Factors that make the public sector job market unattractive to young people in most countries are: corruption at 20.5 per cent , low salary at 17.5 per cent (which 24 per cent of the sub Saharan agreed to) and a less creative environment at 16,5 per cent.</p>
<p>Sixty-one per cent of the millennials prefer imported goods over local goods (with 70 per cent of the sub-Saharan region in agreement), leaving those preferring local goods coming in at 39 percent.</p>
<p>Eighty-six per cent of youth globally think that technology creates more jobs and only 14 per cent think otherwise.</p>
<p>The top three factors that one needs to have a successful career in the private sector are seen as: intellectual ability and skills at 55 per cent, continuous learning and being up to date on the latest information at 54 per cent, and a good social network inside and outside of the company at 46 per cent.</p>
<p>Forty-three per cent of the youth suggest that in order for business to create a youth friendly culture at the work place they need to be given an opportunity to contribute to vision and strategy, 36 per cent say they must be given the ability to express opinion freely and 35 per cent say they must be given an opportunity to fail and learn.</p>
<p>According to millennials, businesses make a huge contribution to society. Thirty-six per cent say business creates jobs, 20 per cent say it boosts the economy and attract foreign investments and 12 per cent say it improves livelihood.﻿</p>


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