ABIDJAN, Côte d'Ivoire (PAMACC News) - No region of the world has ever moved to industrialised economy status without a transformation of the agricultural sector. Agriculture, which contributes 16.2% of the GDP of Africa, and gives some form of employment to over 60% of the population, holds the key to accelerated growth, diversification and job creation for African economies.But the performance of the sector has historically been low. Cereal yields are significantly below the global average. Modern farm inputs, including improved seeds, mechanisation and irrigation, are severely limited.In the past, agriculture was seen as the domain of the humanitarian development sector, as a way to manage poverty. It was not seen as a business sector for wealth creation. Yet Africa has huge potential in agriculture – and with it huge investment potential. Some 65% of all the uncultivated arable land left in the world lies in Africa. When Africa manages to feed itself, as – within a generation – it will, it will also be able to to feed the 9 billion people who will inhabit the planet in 2050.However, Africa is wasting vast amounts of money and resources by underrating its agriculture sector. For example, it spends $35 billion in foreign currency annually importing food, a figure that is set to rise to over $100 billion per year by 2030.In so doing, Africa is choking its own economic future. It is importing the food that it should be growing itself. It is exporting, often to developed countries, the jobs it needs to keep and nurture. It also has to pay inflated prices resulting from global commodity supply fluctuations.The food and agribusiness sector is projected to grow from $330 billion today to $1 trillion by 2030, and remember that there will also be 2 billion people looking for food and clothing. African enterprises and investors need to convert this opportunity and unlock this potential for Africa and Africans.Africa must start by treating agriculture as a business. It must learn fast from experiences elsewhere, for example in south east Asia, where agriculture has been the foundation for fast-paced economic growth, built on a strong food processing and agro-industrial manufacturing base.This is the transformation formula: agriculture allied with industry, manufacturing and processing capability equals strong and sustainable economic development, which creates wealth throughout the economy.Africa must not miss opportunities for such linkages whenever and wherever they occur. We must reduce food system losses all along the food chain, from the farm, storage, transport, processing and retail marketing.To drive agro-industrialisation, we must be able to finance the sector. Doing so will help unlock the potential of agriculture as a business on the continent. Under its Feed Africa strategy, the African Development Bank will invest $24 billion in agriculture and agribusiness over the next ten years. This is a 400% increase in financing, from the current levels of $600 million per year.A key component will be providing $700 million to a flagship program known as “Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation” for the scaling up…

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - The African civil society organisations have presented a communiqué that reviews the COP 22 Marrakech outcome and Paris Agreement regime and also contains recommendations for upcoming COP 23 to the Chair of African Group of negotiators, Seyni Nafo. Coordinated by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) the communiqué was presented in a meeting on the sidelines of climate talks in Bonn from 8-18 May, 2017. PACJA’s Technical and Political Affairs Chair Augustine Njamnshi said the document was drafted at an Africa Regional Consultative Forum on Post-Marrakech and the Paris Agreement on April 19-21, 2017 in Kampala, Uganda. The consultation meeting accordingly, brought together Africa civil society, private sector, regional institutions like the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and Pan-African Parliament, pastoralists, youth and women representatives. The chair of the African group of negotiators Seyni Nafo hailed PACJA for its lead role on coordinating civil society in the continent.“Civil society has an important role to play in ongoing climate talks, working in tandem to push national governments to action,” he said. “African leaders have the liberty to make their own decisions. And though they may not be influenced by their ministers or by a commissioner of the EU in implementing decision, they are by and large accountable to the people that elected them to office. The civil society represents the voice of the grass root communities and this is very important,” Seyni noted. The African Group of Negotiators, AGN, accordingly is a structure of all African Member States’ senior officials, experts and negotiators in the UNFCCC negotiations, with the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) providing political oversight on the group.Seyni said it has become traditional for AGN representatives to meet with various interest groups to explain the momentum and direction of negotiations during climate talks, reason why the meeting with African civil society led by PACJA at the ongoing SB46 talks in Bonn was imperative. The African Civil Society raised the issue of the slow development of operational mechanism of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative.PACJA’s programmes Manager Sam Ogallah, emphasized on the continued role of non-state actors in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and called on the African non-state actors to enhance cooperation and partnership with African governments and development partners so as to intensify national climate actions The document presented by the African civil society also called on the Pan African Parliament to strengthen the work of the African Climate Change Legislative Initiative by supporting countries to develop and implement climate change legislations as part of action to enhance implementation of the Paris Agreement. It also called upon “African leaders and the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) to consider a paradigm shift in response to climate change catastrophe. Climate Change should be looked at as an “economic influence” as it affects productive sectors of most African countries; hence need to be factored in all economic equations. The demand to Annex 1 countries should include development of green industries and initiatives…

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - The Bonn climate talks entered high gear amid growing speculations about the present and future outcome of the Paris Agreement. At a side event organised by civil society organisations on May 9th, participants expressed fears at declarations made by the Donald Trump administration, including no funding for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Green Climate Fund, Clean Technology Fund and the Strategic Climate Fund, calling for immediate review of the Clean Power Plan and reversing several of Barack Obama’s moratoriums on climate change. They said such declarations will have a direct impact on addressing climate change globally and especially in the US. “The slash of funding will have a direct impact on the implementation of climate action plans or Nationally Determined Contributions, much of which is conditional on the support of developed countries,” said Augustine Njamnshi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, PACJA during presentation of a study on Renewable Energy Initiative for Africa. Africa’s dream to fight against poverty with the renewable energy initiative launched at COP21 Paris he said risk being frustrated by Donald Trumps administration, participants noted, calling on other developed countries to come to Africa’s rescue. “Considering the developments in the US, developed countries must step forward and fill up or compensate for the US. Developed countries would need to mount pressure on developing ones to undertake necessary steps to address the issue,” he said.It should be recalled that the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative is aimed towards the implementation of 10 GW of new and additional energy generation capacity by 2020 and at least 300 GW by 2030. This ambitious efforts experts say could pave the way forward for a low carbon development pathway for all African countries.Thus the need to fight against any obstacle towards Africa’s lofty energy provision plans.Participants stressed that the principles of equity and differentiated responsibility are not open to negotiations or reinterpretations and that there should be no backtracking on climate commitments. However, considering the nature of climate negotiations and the behaviour of developed countries reflected in their extreme reluctance to increase their climate ambitions or the support to developing countries, they expressed the need for the negotiations in Bonn to take a more open and transparent twist. Negotiations, over the years, have also pointed out the fact that issues critical to developing countries, including means of support, adaptation, loss and damage and agriculture will suffer huge setback as the focus of the developed countries is more mitigation-centric.Such concerns were reflected by developing countries represented by G-77 and China, LMDC, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Arab Group, Alliance of Small and Island States (AOSIS) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group in the opening plenary, calling on the negotiators to seek balance between different elements of the Paris Agreement

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - As the world move towards implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) in the fight against climate change, technocrats have urged countries to build long term capacities across the board, to enable smooth continuation of intended projects even after change of leaderships. NDC are the national climate pledges submitted by 189 countries in the run-up to and since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP21, in Paris, France. This is in pursuit to implementation of the Paris Agreement, which calls for the world to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.“We need to go beyond the current approach of capacity building,” said Dr Zitouni Ould-Dada, the Head of Technology Unit at UNEP –Paris, at the ongoing climate talks in Bonn, Germany. “We usually build capacity within timeframes, and when guards change, everything changes,” he told delegates at the climate talks.The UN technocrat further told parties that international actors and those who support the countries should not be allowed to take the lead, though, there should be an integrated approach between development partners and ministries, non-state actors and gender inclusiveness.“Individual countries must always own the entire process,” he said.According to Dr Webster Whande, the focal point for the Climate and Development Knowledge Network's (CDKN) negotiations support to the African Group of Negotiators, there should also be institutional capacity building, technical capacity building and also partnership capacity building – for resource mobilisation.“At CDKN, we are building capabilities, where we consider the environment within, thus ensuring that there is no isolation,” he told delegates attending the climate Bonn climate talks.Whande gave an example of Ethiopia, where during a capacity building project, the government requested for expertise consultancy. But after a few years, government officials were able to handle the project effectively without any need of consultancy. “This is an example of capability development,” he said.The expert observed that there must be a two way learning channel, where developed countries should have the capacity to understand what works in less developed countries. “We also need these projects to be flexible to change, whenever change comes in,” said Whande.The technocrats appreciated the idea of having climate change taught in institutions of higher learning, saying that that will enhance capabilities.So far, all African countries have identified capacity building as one of their priority areas in their NDCs.