BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - Civil society organisations at the ongoing Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) conference in Bonn have called on the UNFCCC to kick out representatives of big oil, gas and coal corporate organisations from the climate negotiation room, citing conflict of interest.

Article 12 of the Paris Agreement explicitly allows public participation in the climate policy making process, thus inviting everybody on board, including representatives of major fossil fuel corporations.

But now, civil society groups say that this is likely going to derail the entire process. “There will be no progress with involvement of the industry, because such players are profit oriented,” said Jesse Bragg, the spokesperson of the Corporate Accountability International.

On 12th May 2007, the UNFCCC released a report based on one of the sessions during the conference, where participants had expressed concerns about involvement of such multibillion dollar corporate groups, arguing that they were likely going to use their financial capabilities to influence global policies on climate change.

According to the report published on the UNFCCC website, some participants stressed that enhancing the engagement of non-Party stakeholders must not undermine the legitimacy and integrity of the UNFCCC process.

To that end, one group proposed that the UNFCCC process should adopt a definition of conflict of interest in the same manner it was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in to safeguard public health policy formulation especially when it involves issues to do with tobacco.

According to Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, such actors with conflicts of interest have been locked out completely due to similar reasons cited by climate lobby groups.

The WHO Article states; “In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.

“This is the kind of protection we are looking for, when we are talking about climate change,” said Kathleen Roof also of Corporate Accountability International, noting that some of the biggest fossil fuel corporations knew more than 20 years ago that social and environmental devastation would follow in their footsteps, but they sought to deepen their pockets at any and every cost.

The same view is held by the umbrella of African civil society organisations on climate change, otherwise known as the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).

“By all means, we must have all fossil fuel corporate organisations off the climate negotiation table because they have always been an impediment to the process,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA Secretary General.

“We have seen them influence the Presidency of the United States of America, and given their money power, they will definitely bribe their way to ensure that their interests are taken good care of, despite the impact such decisions may cause to the environment,” said Mithika.

According to Corporate Accountability International, such business organisations are already represented at the UNFCCC through different accredited groups.

However, according to Sam Ogallah, also of PACJA, these groups are already recognized under the Paris Agreement, and that cannot be changed. To that effect, it means that civil society groups will need to employ innovative tactics to bar them from influencing the process.

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 in Africa, address challenges of intellectual property rights and limited financing hindering technology transfer.”
 
The document request African leaders to fast-track and ensure an African-led process in the operationalisation of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) to serve the African people.

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 of agricultural technologies to reach millions of farmers in Africa in the next ten years.

Finance and farming have not always been easy partners in Africa. Another pillar of the Bank’s strategy is to accelerate commercial financing for agriculture. Despite its importance, the agriculture sector receives less than 3% of the overall industry financing provided by the banking sector.

Risk sharing instruments may resolve this, by sharing the risk of lending by commercial banks to the agriculture sector. Development finance institutions and multilateral development banks should be setting up national risk-sharing facilities in every African country to leverage agricultural finance. And the African Development Bank is setting the pace based on a very successful risk sharing scheme that I promoted while Agriculture Minister in Nigeria.

Rural infrastructure development is critical for the transformation of the agriculture sector, including electricity, water, roads and rail to transport finished agricultural and processed foods.

The lack of this infrastructure drives up the cost of doing business and has discouraged food manufacturing companies from getting established in rural areas. Governments should provide fiscal and infrastructure incentives for food manufacturing companies to move into rural areas, closer to zones of production than consumption.

This can be achieved by developing agro-industrial zones and staple crop processing zones in rural areas. These zones, supported with consolidated infrastructure, including roads, water, electricity and perhaps suitable accommodation, will drive down the cost of doing business for private food and agribusiness firms.

They will create new markets for farmers, boosting economic opportunities in rural areas, stimulating jobs and attracting higher domestic and foreign investments into the rural areas. This will drive down the cost of doing business, as well as significantly reduce the high level of African post-harvest losses. As agricultural income rises, neglected rural areas will become zones of economic prosperity.

Our goal is simple: to support massive agro-industrial development all across Africa. When that happens, Africa will have taken its rightful place as a global powerhouse in food production. It could well also be feeding the world. At this point the economic transformation that we are all working for will be complete.

Dr Akinwumi Adesina is President of the African Development Bank. The 2017 AfDB Annual Meetings in Ahmedabad, India, 22-26 May, will focus on ‘Transforming agriculture for wealth creation in Africa’. 

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.