NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - The private sector has been urged to collaborate with the public sector and civil society organisations to explore climate change related opportunities and seize them in the fight against the phenomenon.
“All we need to do, is to look at climate change from a common lens, identify where the problems are, and convert them into opportunities,” John Kioli, the Chairman of Kenya Climate Change Working Group told a preparatory meeting ahead of the forthcoming Conference of Parties on climate change (COP 23).
Dimitris Tsitsiragos, the Vice President of Global Client Services at IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, also agrees that climate change is creating opportunities for companies willing to innovate, pointing to report by IFC, which found that Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa could support up to $1 trillion in climate-related investments by 2020.
Tsitsiragos also refers to the massive solar power project in Morocco, where the private sector is playing a key role in the construction of a 510-megawatt solar plant in a desert with a capacity to provide power to 1.1 million people. The project, worth $2.6 billion, could help turn the North African kingdom into a renewable energy powerhouse and serve as a model for future public-private partnerships.
In Kenya, the Lake Turkana Wind Power plant is another example of a private sector investment in green energy. Once operational, the wind farm will provide 310MW of reliable, low cost energy to Kenya’s national grid which is approximately 15 percent of the country’s installed capacity.
“We can explore so many other opportunities related to climate change,” said Kioli.
Another example is the M-KOPA Solar Company in Kenya, which sells solar home systems on an affordable mobile money payment plan, with an initial $35 deposit, followed by 365 payments of 45 cents daily. After completing the payment package, customers own a world-class solar home system, with multiple lights, phone charging and a radio.
During the Pre-COP workshop in Nairobi, Kioli further urged Kenya’s civil society organisations on climate change, the government delegation and the private sector to unite and talk with one voice as the country joins other global nations for the next set of negotiations on climate change in Bonn, Germany.
“This is a common problem that cuts across all sectors, and the only way forward as a country, is to have one common position that can be accepted by the African Group of Negotiators,” he said
So far, Kenya is committed to reducing total greenhouse gas emission by 30 percent, come the year 2030. However, representatives from the civil society observed that there must be a predictable source of income, hence the reason why all players must stay together ahead of the negotiations.
“We cannot just wait for the $100 billion commitment by the annex-one countries. We must also seek for alternative sources of funding right at the country level, and from development banks,” said Benson Kibiti from Caritas Kenya, representing the civil society.
Industrialised countries have already committed themselves to “mobilising jointly $100 billion a year by 2020, to address the needs of developing countries,” money which was expected to be come from public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance.
The 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 23) to the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place at the headquarters of the UNFCCC Secretariat in Bonn, Germany.
Presided over by the Government of Fiji, the UN Climate Change Conference will include the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 23) to the UNFCCC, the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 13) and the 47th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 47) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 47).
MARALAL, Kenya (PAMACC News) - The United Nations has called on the international community to support drought response in Kenya to a tune of $27 million (Sh2.7 billion), as the Kenya Red Cross begin giving emergency feeds to vulnerable livestock animals in the north.
“It has not been business as usual for some residents in the northern part of the country,” said Wilfred Kinyua, the Samburu County Commissioner. “In the past one week, four people have been killed in this county as they tried to search for pastures in the neigbouring communities that have received some rainfall,” he told the PAMACC News in an interview at his Maralal office on September 28.
Though many parts of the country have been enjoying a prolonged short rainy season for the past two months, arid and semi arid counties especially in the northern part of the country are yet to see a single drop for three years in a row, prompting humanitarian organisations to change strategy for drought response.
For the past eight weeks towards the end of September, the Kenya Red Cross in collaboration with UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have been intervening in Samburu, Marsabit, Mandera, Garissa, Tana River and Turkana counties, where they have been buying animals from those who have excess as a way of de-stocking, and using meat from those animals as food aid for the most vulnerable households on weekly basis.
In the same period, the two organisations have been providing routine livestock feed inputs and veterinary drugs to a total of 1,210 very vulnerable households in all the six counties, with a total of 10,800 animals receiving animal health services.
“This is a very new approach, where we decided to include vulnerable livestock animals in our emergency aid programme so that they can continue providing livelihoods to hard hit communities in the entire drought stricken six counties in the north,” said Dr Joseph Mathooko, the Field Coordinator/Technical Officer (livestock) at the UN FAO.
Though the eight week emergency programme has come to an end, the UN insists that there is need for more interventions to save lives and livelihoods for the remaining months in 2017.
“Most urgently, there is need for $12.7 million (Sh1.27billion) for purchase and distribution of hay and concentrates to rescue vulnerable animals owned by the most poor, and also for fodder production,” said Piers Simpkin the Head - Livestock /animal health and production sector at FAO. “There is further need for $7.2 million (Sh720 million) for livestock offtake and distribution of meat as food rations to the vulnerable population,” he said.
According to a statement released early this month by World Vision International, drought in north and eastern Kenya is already affecting 3.4 million people who require food assistance and clean water, with more than 420,000 children requiring urgent treatment to address acute malnutrition, with 83,000 struggling with severe acute malnutrition.
“The climate is truly changing, because since my childhood, it has never come to this level where even animals have to receive aid as well,” said John Longonyek, the Chief – Nagaroni Location in Samburu. “But indeed, this intervention has really helped especially for families with lactating animals because once they are given the hay and the range cubes, it means they will be able to produce milk, and this has a huge nutritional impact especially starving on children,” he added.
According to FAO’s Predictive Livestock Early Warning System outlook, between October 2016 - August 2017, some parts of Northern Kenya have remained with extreme vegetation deficit while others have had severe vegetation deficit – meaning they have not been able to support grazing or even browsing, leading to death of all types of livestock.
Ngopina Lekitei, a mother of five children from Njakuai village in the Eastern part of Samburu is one of the most affected after losing 12 of the 15 goats that were remaining to the drought, and for the past eight weeks, she has been surviving on meat rations distributed by Red Cross.
“We have been receiving at least four kilogrammes of meat every week for the past eight weeks, and each portion could sustain me and my small children for three to four days as we wait for another ration towards the end of the week,” she said.
Different committees at the community level collaborated with local administration to identify the most vulnerable households, especially women-led families, who were then taken in as beneficiaries for both meat distribution and animal feeds.
With 30 bells of hay and seven packets of range cubes per household weekly, the beneficiary families have been able to resuscitate wasted animals due to the scorching drought, and the animals are now strong enough to walk several kilometers to greener grazing fields.
MARALAL, Kenya (PAMACC News) - The United Nations has called on the international community to support drought response in Kenya to a tune of $27 million (Sh2.7 billion), as the Kenya Red Cross begin giving emergency feeds to vulnerable livestock animals in the north.
“It has not been business as usual for some residents in the northern part of the country,” said Wilfred Kinyua, the Samburu County Commissioner. “In the past one week, four people have been killed in this county as they tried to search for pastures in the neigbouring communities that have received some rainfall,” he told the PAMACC News in an interview at his Maralal office on September 28.
Though many parts of the country have been enjoying a prolonged short rainy season for the past two months, arid and semi arid counties especially in the northern part of the country are yet to see a single drop for three years in a row, prompting humanitarian organisations to change strategy for drought response.
For the past eight weeks towards the end of September, the Kenya Red Cross in collaboration with UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have been intervening in Samburu, Marsabit, Mandera, Garissa, Tana River and Turkana counties, where they have been buying animals from those who have excess as a way of de-stocking, and using meat from those animals as food aid for the most vulnerable households on weekly basis.
In the same period, the two organisations have been providing routine livestock feed inputs and veterinary drugs to a total of 1,210 very vulnerable households in all the six counties, with a total of 10,800 animals receiving animal health services.
“This is a very new approach, where we decided to include vulnerable livestock animals in our emergency aid programme so that they can continue providing livelihoods to hard hit communities in the entire drought stricken six counties in the north,” said Dr Joseph Mathooko, the Field Coordinator/Technical Officer (livestock) at the UN FAO.
Though the eight week emergency programme has come to an end, the UN insists that there is need for more interventions to save lives and livelihoods for the remaining months in 2017.
“Most urgently, there is need for $12.7 million (Sh1.27billion) for purchase and distribution of hay and concentrates to rescue vulnerable animals owned by the most poor, and also for fodder production,” said Piers Simpkin the Head - Livestock /animal health and production sector at FAO. “There is further need for $7.2 million (Sh720 million) for livestock offtake and distribution of meat as food rations to the vulnerable population,” he said.
According to a statement released early this month by World Vision International, drought in north and eastern Kenya is already affecting 3.4 million people who require food assistance and clean water, with more than 420,000 children requiring urgent treatment to address acute malnutrition, with 83,000 struggling with severe acute malnutrition.
“The climate is truly changing, because since my childhood, it has never come to this level where even animals have to receive aid as well,” said John Longonyek, the Chief – Nagaroni Location in Samburu. “But indeed, this intervention has really helped especially for families with lactating animals because once they are given the hay and the range cubes, it means they will be able to produce milk, and this has a huge nutritional impact especially starving on children,” he added.
According to FAO’s Predictive Livestock Early Warning System outlook, between October 2016 - August 2017, some parts of Northern Kenya have remained with extreme vegetation deficit while others have had severe vegetation deficit – meaning they have not been able to support grazing or even browsing, leading to death of all types of livestock.
Ngopina Lekitei, a mother of five children from Njakuai village in the Eastern part of Samburu is one of the most affected after losing 12 of the 15 goats that were remaining to the drought, and for the past eight weeks, she has been surviving on meat rations distributed by Red Cross.
“We have been receiving at least four kilogrammes of meat every week for the past eight weeks, and each portion could sustain me and my small children for three to four days as we wait for another ration towards the end of the week,” she said.
Different committees at the community level collaborated with local administration to identify the most vulnerable households, especially women-led families, who were then taken in as beneficiaries for both meat distribution and animal feeds.
With 30 bells of hay and seven packets of range cubes per household weekly, the beneficiary families have been able to resuscitate wasted animals due to the scorching drought, and the animals are now strong enough to walk several kilometers to greener grazing fields.
PENJA, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Andrew Kombe in Penja village happily combs his 4-hectare Penja Pepper farm, discarding unwanted weeds and clipping off parasitic plants. For the 49 year-old farmer, the health and quality of his new climate friendly crop are of prime importance following a disappointing slump in prices of the traditional cash crop in the area, coffee and cocoa, blamed partly on extreme weather.
“I have to work hard to reap good yields and make maximum gains from my new crop,” he PAMACC News Agency.
Coffee and Cocoa farmers across Cameroon say they have been facing a bleak future, amid heavy rains and biting drought that has taken its toll on these traditional cash crops and reverse the gains since 2013.
For the past five years, Kombe and his family have incurred pain and hardship due to dwindling harvest and income from his coffee farm. Not anymore.
The farmers say the special white and black pepper dubbed Penja Pepper, a more extreme climate-tolerant cash crop is holding out the hope of much-needed relief for thousands of farmers in the region.
“We are left with no choice than switch to Penja Pepper. Now with the Pepper farming, I can raise enough money to feed my family and send my kids to school,” Kombe says.
Afraid of continuously reaping poor harvest and paltry income from coffee and cocoa, many more farmers in Penja and neighboring villages both in the Southwest and Littoral regions in Cameroon are increasingly switching to the more paying, reliable and climate friendly Penja Pepper agriculture officials say.
“The farmers now prefer to concentrate their efforts on Penja Pepper that thrives well in the region,” says Amos Ngolle, agriculture technician at the divisional delegation of agriculture in the Moungo division.
Grown on the flanks of the Kupemuanenguba Mountain,the Penja Pepper has since gained national and international fame after the Penja Pepper Farmers Association,PPFA, with support from French Development Agency, sought and obtained in 2013 the certification of their product from the African Intellectually Property Organization.
Farmers of the association say the certification has significantly transformed their lives and the economy of the region, attracting other farmers whose traditional cash crops are threatened by extreme weather.
“Growing Penja Pepper has now become the attraction of farmers in the region,” says Emmanuel Nzenewo, PPFA Executive Secretary.
The farmers blame the cyclical uncertainties on coffee and cocoa not only to climate but also to pests and diseases that is bringing heavy losses.
Losses from diseases and pests claimed between 30 and 40 percent of Cameroon´s harvest in the 2014-15 season, according to the National
Cocoa and Coffee Board, which regulates cocoa and coffee production.
A slump of more than one third in the prices paid for both coffee and cocoa beans by exporters, following a downward trend in prices on the international market in the past two years has made the situation of farmers even more perilous.
According to government data, coffee yields for the 2015-2016 season stood at just over 16,000 tons, down from above 38,000 tons in 2009-2010.
A kilo of cocoa beans fetches about 900-960 FCA francs ($1.50 to $1.65) in production areas, down from 1,600 francs in 2012-13.
In some remote areas prices are as low as 700 francs and the farmers fear it will fall even further.
“ We fear the prices will decline even further in the years ahead as climate threats worsen and this is bad news for small scale farmers like myself,” says Ajong Cletus, one of the few cocoa farmers in Penja still holding on to the crop.
Though the government is struggling to encourage cocoa and coffee farmers stay on their crop, they are also promoting the growing of the new cash crop, Penja Pepper.
Since the certification, the price of the cooking spice has sky-rocketed, from 2,500 fcfa per kilogram before September 2013 to reach 8,000fcfa per kilogram in 2014, and 14,000 per kilogram in 2015/2016, according to the ministry of trade.
The farmers say the price is encouraging, motivating them to work even harder.
“Because of the encouraging price per kilo ,I have expanded my farm from 8hectares(20 acres) in 2012 to 12 hectares (30 acres) of the crop presently, thus producing and earning 50% more than what I got before certification of the product,” says Garbielle Elung, one of the farmers in Penja. The certification according to the farmers mean the product has been protected from imitation, thus guaranteeing its long term future.
The Penja Pepper production zone has so far increased from Penja village to include neigbouring villages like Loum, Manjo, Mbanga, Njombé-Penja and Tombel subdivisions in the Moungo and Kupe Muanenguba Divisions.
The Penja Pepper grown in the rich volcanic soils in the area experts say is resistant to extreme weather, both prolonged rains and droughts maintaining its unadulterated, special white and black colour and attractive flavor at all season.
The region’s natural micro-climate and location at the flanks of Mt. Kupemuanenguba according to agriculture experts protect the product from pest attack and provides for the pepper’s(spice) unique taste, attracting increasing demand in the national, regional and international markets. Thus the need and battle to protect the product against imitation.
.“The rich volcanic soil of Mt. Kupemuanenguba has given the pepper a soft and refined flavour and aroma that will appeal to anyone that loves good cuisine,” says Bernard Njonga, executive officer of ACDIC(Association Citoyenne de Défense des Intérêts Collectifs) an NGO that defends the rights of farmers in Cameroon
According to Emmanuel Nzenowo, executive secretary of the association, thanks to the successful certification, production reached 300 t in 2015 and 350 t in 2016 in response to growing demand from high class restaurants around the world. Prior to this, production was less than 150 t.
Approximately 60% of the product is consumed locally and in neighbouring countries, and 40% is exported to European markets according to Cameroon’s ministry of trade. The Penja Pepper is one of the only three African commodities, which also includes Oku honey from Cameroon and ZiamaMacenta coffee from Guinea, to be given such a label, prohibiting the product’s name from being used by producers outside of its original region.
With the label, Emmanuel Nzenowo says, adherence to strict guidelines by the farmers is ensured to maintain highest standards.
“Guideline rules include ensuring farmers are situated within mapped out perimeters by the association, accepting the norms and code of conduct set out by the association, protecting the crop against extreme climate and regular inspection by a team of PPFA members,” he explaine. “This has contributed to the continuous improved quality of the product,” he says.
Statistics from the ministry of the economy, planning and regional economy shows that the product with added value is today highly consumed in France, Switzerland, Germany and many other countries in Europe, not forgetting the 16 member states of OAPI including Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Senegal.
In a desperate move to encourage farmers stay on in coffee and cocoa production, the government has decided to half its levy on cocoa exports to boost revenues for farmers and exporters.
The government reduced the cocoa export charge rate by 50 percent, from 150 CFA francs ($0.27) to 75 CFA francs per kilogram, as from August 1 2017,the Minister of trade Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana announced.
“This decision is a change in government policy to encourage farmers and avoid a drastic decline in cocoa and coffee production,” the minister said.
