SUSTAINABILITY

Photo: Opening session of the 10th Africa Carbon Forum in Nairobi. Credit: UNFCCC.

Africa Sends a Strong Message for Global Climate Negotiations

By Rita Joshi

BONN | NAIROBI (IDN) – Africa has generated a distinct message for the next round of international climate negotiations in Poland from December 3 to 14, 2018, which states: Action on climate change and sustainable development together is the way forward for Africa.

This top-line message emerged from deliberations during the Africa Climate Week in Nairobi. Some 800 delegates from 59 countries, including ministers and other high-level government and international officials, together with non-state delegates, offered their insights into the challenges and possible responses to climate change, and "harvested" those insights for consideration in the official international climate negotiation process.

: Rita Joshi; THE WORLD; Africa; 27 April 2018

UN Industrial Development Arm Grabs Opportunity in Germany

By UNIDO

HANOVER (IDN) – The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) had a strong presence at the annual Hannover Messe, the world’s leading industrial trade fair which attracts over 6,500 exhibitors and 200,000 visitors. UNIDO has participated in the Hannover Messe every year since 2015 to provide a platform where institutions and industrial enterprises from its Member States can promote themselves at this important international trade setting.

Fulfilling one of its core functions of convening stakeholders and brokering partnerships for knowledge transfer, networking and industrial cooperation, this year UNIDO organized a variety of events.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 27 April 2018

Photo: An EU-backed private equity fund plans to invest in renewable energy firms across sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

ACP Facility Helps Fight Energy Hunger in Southern Africa

By Jeffrey Moyo

MWENEZI (IDN) – Sixty-seven-year old Sarudzai Msipa heavily blows air in and out of her mouth, seated in the open-air on a goat skin mat outside her hut as she battles to revive a dying fire on her cooking place set up in the middle of her yard at her remote home in Mwenezi district in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province.

Just three sticks are in the fire to keep it alive and there is no sign of leftover firewood nearby. To Msipa, this means times are tough for her and many other villagers as the energy hunger takes a knock on them in this part of Southern Africa.

Even getting solar for lighting, is a non-starter for the Southern African region's many rural dwellers like Msipa who have to bear the brunt of the region’s deepening energy hunger.

: Jeffrey Moyo; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 26 April 2018

State of Emergency for Press Freedom in Europe

By ECPMF

BERLIN (IDN) – The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) in Leipzig, Germany, is warning against the dismantlement of freedom rights and the increasing threat against journalists in the EU.

"Demagogues and autocrats are fighting the free press because they cannot stand democratic control. Under a corrupt administration the work of an investigative journalist is life-threatening," says Lutz Kinkel, ECPMF's managing director. "We have to defend ourselves with all our might to protect journalists. Otherwise the EU will lose its democratic substance."

The ECPMF was founded in 2015 to publicise violations of the European Charter on Freedom of the Press.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 25 April 2018

From Nairobi to Brussels with New Impulses for ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly

By Devendra Kamarajan

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Members of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly from the East Africa Region of the ACP Group and their European Parliament counterparts have called for aiming at "stronger South-South and triangular cooperation and maintenance of the ACP Group’s unity and solidarity" in a successor treaty to the Cotonou Agreement that expires in 2020.

The communiqué emerging from the 15th Regional Meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) from April 11-13, 2018 in the Kenyan capital Nairobi stressed agreement among JPA members from the East Africa region that "a future agreement should build upon the acquis of Cotonou and integrate new global realities and in particular regional specificities, including for small island developing states."

: Devendra Kamarajan; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 25 April 2018

Commitment to Renewed ACP-EU Partnership Welcomed

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS | NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – The co-presidents of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) have welcomed the commitment of the 79-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the 28-nation European Union (EU) to negotiate a successor Agreement to the ACP-EU Cotonou Partnership Agreement. The 15th Regional Meeting of the JPA took place in Kenya's capital Nairobi from April 11-13, 2018.

The Agreement, signed in Cotonou on June 23, 2000, was concluded for a 20-year period from 2000 to 2020. It is the most comprehensive partnership agreement between developing countries and the EU. In 2010, ACP-EU cooperation was adapted to new challenges such as climate change, food security, regional integration, State fragility and aid effectiveness.

: Ramesh Jaura; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 24 April 2018

'Fire and Fury' in Danger of Becoming Trump's 'Mantra'

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – A speech of General George Patton, a famous World War 2 warrior, has an uncanny resemblance to the philosophy of Donald Trump. “All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser – Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win – all the time. That’s why Americans have never lost, not ever will lose a war, for the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”

Then came the Korean War (a stalemate), Vietnam (a loss), Afghanistan (mired in unconquerable mountains), Iraq 2 (a quagmire).

: Jonathan Power; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 24 April 2018

'Sri Lanka Unites' Prepares Leaders for Tomorrow

By Jayantha Dhanapala

This article was first carried by The Island, a Sri Lankan newspaper, on 21 April 2018.

KANDY (IDN-INPS) – On a hot Saturday afternoon, I sat in the Father Mervyn Fernando Auditorium at the Subodhi Institute, Piliyandala to observe the concluding session of the Sri Lanka Unites Leadership Development Program "Let Them Lead". A portrait of the saintly Father Mervyn looked down on the audience benignly – and perhaps secretly chastising us all for not recognizing the depth of the thinking of the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin for whom he held a life-long admiration in the midst of his own social welfare and mentoring.

: IDN-INPS Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 24 April 2018

Photo: The walkway of the UN Headquarters in Nairobi. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Africa Grapples With Financing Climate Change Programmes

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – African countries are faced with the huge challenge of funding climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes to ensure sustainable development. Hard hit by the impacts of climate change manifested in persistent droughts, floods, storms, rising sea levels and other forms of disasters, they are linking actions on tackling climate change as key to attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A joint project of the 79-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States is providing support for the purpose as part of a joint project with the Global Climate Change Alliance+ (GCCA) by way of offering technical assistance, promoting knowledge sharing, initiating regional dialogue, and facilitating regional partnership on climate change issues.

: Justus Wanzala; THE WORLD; Africa; 23 April 2018

Image: Map of the Ganges (orange), Brahmaputra (violet), and Meghna (green) drainage basins. Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0

Modi Government's Plan to Interlink Rivers Splits the Nation

By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE (IDN) – As another scorching summer grips India and rivers begin running dry, the government's Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) program to solve the country's water problems is being heatedly discussed.

Drawing attention to the water shortage and unequal distribution of water in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a strong champion of the program, recently pointed out that while some rivers are in spate others are running dry. "If there is inter-linking [of rivers], the problem can be solved," he said.