PAMACC in Abidjan, COTE D'IVOIRE

The Second Conference of the Parties to the Bamako Convention (also known COP 2) began this morning in Abidjan, the capital city of Cote d'Ivoire.

The conference will hold from 30th January to 1st February 2018 under the theme: "The Bamako Convention: a platform for a pollution-free Africa."

"COP 2 aspires to provide a platform to discuss ways and means of ensuring that the continent rids itself of hazardous wastes and contribute to the achievement of a pollution-free planet", says Mme Aida Keita M'bo, President of the COP and Malian Minister for Environment, Sanitation and Sustainable Development.

Host Minister and Ivoirian Minister for Public Health, Environment and Sustainable Development, Mme Anne Désirée Ouloto urged her colleagues to work torwards a COP 2 outcome that will "prevent Africa from becoming a dumping ground for toxic wastes through an effective implementation of the Bamako Convention”.

"The importation of hazardous waste into Africa is a crime against humanity and we must commit to prompt action aimed at overcoming barriers to effective management and minimization of waste in Africa through increased knowledge on waste scenarios in order to prevent harm to health and environment,” Mme Ouloto added.

"We have a collective responsibility to safeguard communities from the environmental and health consequences of hazardous waste dumping," said Ibrahim Thiaw, Deputy Executive Director of UN Environment.

"Africa is not the dustbin of the world" Thiaw added while reinstating UN Environment's commitment to a pollution-free world.

From Basel to Bamako Convention

The Bamako Convention is a treaty of African nations prohibiting the importation of any hazardous (including radioactive) waste into Africa.

The convention which came into force in 1998  is a response to Article 11 of the Basel convention which encourages parties to enter into bilateral, multilateral and regional agreements on Hazardous Waste to help achieve the objectives of the convention.

African Nations established the Bamako Convention in 1991 to complement the Basel Convention.

The Convention, which came into force in 1998, is aimed at protecting the health of populations and the environment of African countries through a ban on the import of all hazardous and radioactive wastes.

It also prohibits the dumping or incineration of hazardous wastes in oceans and inland waters, and promotes the minimization and control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes within the African continent.

The Convention also aims to improve and ensure ecologically rational management and handling of hazardous waste within Africa, as well as the cooperation between African nations.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Citizens of Africa have been urged to take advantage of investment opportunities that accompany climate action to earn some money and lift their people from poverty.
 
Secretary-General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Mithika Mwenda, has noted that the renewable energy revolution currently being witnessed in the world provides affordable access to energy to people who would otherwise not have access.
 
He noted that renewable energy has also aided in the reduction of emissions, thus contributing to the attainment of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) ambitions of countries.
 
“We are witnessing renewable energy revolution and in Africa and the rest of the world, this is an explosive sector,” observed Mithika. “We need to take advantage of the investment opportunities coming with climate action; there are a lot of resources in this to help address poverty”.
 
At the COP21 climate talks which produced the Paris Agreement, the G7 committed to allocate US$10 billion into the African Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI).
 
Though there are concerns with delivering the promise, the Initiative, in its current design, will help cure chronic energy poverty by supporting decentralized, modern, off-grid and people-owned energy systems not only for lighting, but also cooking, driving smallholder agribusiness and charging mobile phones.
 
Mithika added that green energy has helped save lives by reducing indoor pollution.
 
Fossil fuel vs. renewable energy economies
 
Mithika Mwenda was addressing an event on low-carbon and climate-resilient development, held on the sidelines of the 2018 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
 
Most African countries do not contribute any significant amount of greenhouse gases but there are commitments in their NDCs to ensure that their development pathways are carbon neutral.
 
In a climate-constrained world, investment in fossil fuel-based energy sources no longer makes sense.
 
But Africa faces the dilemma of whether to rapidly revert to renewable energy, have a mix of both fossil fuels and renewables, or ignore the global call and continue in the unsustainable model of development pursued by industrialized countries which brought the climate crisis.
 
What is evident, though, is the fact that the global community has shifted.
 
This shift should make African countries re-think their priority energy sources and investment in oil and in some instances coal, as it may not make economic sense in the long-run.
 
The Addis Ababa side-event, attended by climate actors from across the continent, is organized strategically to get African leaders to focus attention on climate change issues.
 
As the first Pan African convention after the COP23, the event offered an opportunity to exchange ideas and reflect on Africa’s victories during the Bonn Climate Change Conference, with a view of charting a collective path towards subsequent Global Dialogue processes on the subject.
 
“This gives us the platform to develop common African narratives that will have impact on the global stage,” said James Murombedzi, Officer-in-Charge of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
 
Moving along the development pathway
 
Climate change is no longer discussed as a limited environmental or scientific matter but as a development issue.
 
African civil society therefore looks forward to leaders moving from the rhetoric to taking real action on the ground.
 
“The momentum for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the NDCs is picking up, but the question is: are we moving with that pace in Africa?” queried Mithika.
 
Some countries on the continent have developed very effective policy and legal frameworks to facilitate the implementation in the areas of transparency, adaptation, loss and damage, among others.
 
But there are others stuck on bureaucracies to push the climate agenda forward.
 
“We need to think broader about what is the impact of climate change on development. What does it mean for agriculture? What does it mean for energy, for infrastructure? So we are really talking about development,” said Mithika.
 
He believes that the ClimDev-Africa programme can rally the African continent around in mobilizing action and “we need to ensure that critical centres that support the livelihoods of the African people and which are weather sensitive like agriculture are created”.
 
The Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) Programme is an initiative of the African Union Commission (AUC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), established to create a solid foundation for Africa’s response to climate change.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopian (PAMACC News) - African civil society organizations on climate change have been at the forefront in building momentum for vulnerable people on the continent and other developing economies to access climate justice.

The voices were high and loud going into the UN Conference of Parties (COP21) on Climate Change which produced the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015.

But these voices have gone down low after the talks.

Two years after Paris, most countries on the continent have slowed in climate action.

Sudanese scientist and climate activist, Dr. Shaddad Mauwa, has sat in meetings, shouted and held placards in demonstrations at the local, continental and global stages to clamour for climate justice.

He acknowledged that though African climate change actors – governments, parliamentarians, negotiators, civil society – are doing better than before, there seems to be a wall that has become difficult to break.

“There are many issues still not going in the line of what Africa will like to see,” he said.

For him, these issues include the commitment of developed economies to heed to the Paris Agreement in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, lack of access to climate funds by developing countries and poor implementation of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to be climate-resilient.

Pushing the African Climate Agenda

The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) has for almost a decade served as the largest advocacy platform for CSOs in Africa.

The activities of the Alliance resonates with the global call for action against climate change proclaimed by the United Nations, with a singular clarion call that no single individual, institution, country or region can single-handedly defeat the threats posed by the changing climate and the quest for achieving a sustainable development while leaving no one behind.

Secretary-General of the Organization, Mithika Mwenda, however, says the major concern is how to make the Paris Climate Agreement relevant to the vulnerable farmer who needs to irrigate his farm all year round to produce food and the community that gets displaced by flood anytime it rains.

“Having the Agreement is one thing and getting it implemented is another thing,” he said. “One of the things we’ve been trying to do is to push the governments to focus more on implementation because now we have a framework which is supposed to go on the ground”.

It is a shared opinion that Africa is not deficit in policy formulation. But getting the thoughts off paper to achieve set goals on the ground becomes problematic. Lack of finance for implementation is often cited as hindrance.

PACJA has been pushing the international community to provide sufficient funds for the implementation of provisions in the Paris Agreement, which includes each country’s NDCs, to ensure integration of climate change into the new paradigms of low-carbon development and climate resilience pathways.

“We are very optimistic, though it is not an easy thing to do. Africans and the global community have no choice; we have to act on climate change. We have frameworks in countries that if we build on, we can have very transformative economies,” said Mithika.

Building a stronger CSO Alliance

The adoption of the Paris Agreement left many stakeholders and countries unable to shift from the negotiation mode to implementation, including many civil society groups.

PACJA envisions a global environment free from the threat of climate change with sustainable development, equity and justice for all.

The Alliance acknowledges there is still more ground to cover around low-carbon, climate-resilient, green economy discourses.

At its Second Extra-Ordinary General Assembly meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on January 23, 2018, The Alliance elected the Continental Executive Board as the implementing organ of decisions and policies of the organization.

Newly elected Chairperson of the Board, John Bonds Bideri, says building capacities of local CSOs remains crucial to PACJA to support grassroots initiatives to deal with climate vagaries.

“The most important thing is that the vulnerable people should have that protection at the global, continental and community levels in terms of responding to issues or challenges that affect them,” he stated.

Dr Evans Kituyi is a research scientist and a Senior Programme Specialist at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)’s Climate Change Programme, charged with overseeing the successful implementation of the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA)programme jointly funded by Canada’s IDRC and UK’s DFID. The Pathways to Resilience in Semi-arid Economies (PRISE) consortium partners led by the UK based Overseas Development Institute (ODI)is one of the four consortia implementing CARIAA.

In Kenya, the PRISE consortium researchers have been working closely with vulnerable pastoral communities in Laikipia to understand how such communities can enhance the value chains of their livestock so as to avoid huge losses especially during extreme droughts.

In essence, the project is looking at how pastoralist communities may convert the climate change threat to the sector into opportunities for resilience.

Dr Kituyi spoke to PAMACC News reporter ISAIAH ESIPISU about the ongoing research in Kenya.

Q. What is Pathways to Resilience in Semi-arid Economies (PRISE) project all about?

This is a 5-year multi-country research project covering Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kenya, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. The consortium is working in collaboration with a team of country partners who have extensive expertise in research and policy on climate change and semi-arid regions to generate new knowledge about how economic development in semi-arid regions can be made more equitable and resilient to climate change.

The project supports decision-makers in local and national governments, civil society and businesses to strengthen their commitment to influencing policy interventions and investments that create more equitable and resilient economic development.
This is achieved by transforming the way key policy-makers make decisions through deepening their understanding of how climate change presents both threats and opportunities for economies in semi-arid areas.

Q. How has climate change and climate variations affected pastoral communities in Kenya?

Extreme climatic conditions have always lowered value of livestock animals and their products. When this happens, it reduces incomes from the markets, and in extreme conditions, it leads to death of the animals. This leads to poverty. As a result, desperate communities will always opt to raid neighbouring communities so as to replenish their lost stocks. More often than not, the stock theft leads to people slaying each other, and houses being torched, which further accelerates poverty.

Q.  Following lessons learned from the project so far, how can pastoralist communities enhance value chain of their animals and develop resilience to climate change and climate variations?

The first one is commercialization of livestock production. This can be done in collaboration with the private sector and the government. If the animals are sold way before they are emaciated, they will fetch good income for the owner, which can help them restock once the dry season is over.

There is therefore need for pastoral communities to be given adequate access to market information for easy commercialization of their animals.

The second one is the need for improved financial services for pastoralist communities. This will help them manage their finances well after selling their stocks, hence buy more stock once the climatic conditions are conducive.

Third, there is need for increased investment in early warning systems. County governments should take this as priority number one. It is only through information from these systems that pastoralists can know the opportune time for selling their stocks.

Others include upgrading animal health services, increasing market access, development of policy frameworks to support the pastoralist economy; and increased tenure security, particularly around land.

Q. How does the PRISE project on ‘Enhancing Resilience for Livestock Value Chain’ fit in Kenya’s context?

Kenya is in the processes of implementing its Climate Change Action Plan—and the PRISE strategy of enhancing resilience of livestock value chains is consistent with this Plan. Similarly, the AU through the 2016 Livestock Development Strategy (LiDeSA) emphasized the critical role of value chains in enhancing resilience in the sector.

Q. What do you think should be done to ensure lessons are brought to the national agenda?

That will only happen through increased communication of research findings to diverse audiences using different media channels.

There is also need for political goodwill so that parliament in particular can highlight and debate the subject in relation to research findings —considering it is a major issue during drought. Already, a parliamentary group on pastoral areas exists and needs to be more proactive on engaging stakeholders to adopt innovations emerging from participatory research.