Browsing: Climate change

The United Nations (UN) has called for major reforms for two institutions considered key players in the new world order. Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, is pushing for major changes in the IMF and the World Bank.

According to Guterres, the International Monetary Fund has profited the rich nations at the expense of the developing ones. The UN secretary-general describes the response by IMF and the World Bank towards the COVID-19 pandemic as a “glaring failure” that left most developing nations significantly indebted.…

• Climate Change-related flooding saw large swathes of farmlands and settlement areas in Nigeria’s coastal Niger Delta flooded by December 2022.
• Boko Haram terrorists, bandits, and armed herders have forced at least 78,000 farmers to abandon their farmland.
• Over the past eight years, an estimated 6,000 Benue people reported killed while two million farmers were displaced.

Nigeria is battling a perfect storm with a double whammy of climate change and conflict exacerbating the country’s food crisis. Currently an estimated 25.3 million people in Nigeria are facing food crisis partly worsened by the ongoing flooding throughout the country.

As of December 2022, large swathes of farmland and settlements in Nigeria’s coastal Niger Delta region flood. The flooding saw the closure of schools, leaving hundreds of children out of learning centres as the disaster took a toll.

Climate change worsening Nigeria’s food crisis

Nigeria, which with 222.2 million people is Africa’s most populous …

• The Aga Khan Foundation has launched a campaign to plant 1.5 million mangrove trees in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.
• The environment in Bagamoyo is worsening due to illegal tree harvesting that has already cleared over 5,636 hectares of mangrove forest.
• The campaign is part of the AKF’s trailblazing programmes in East Africa geared towards providing an environmentally sustainable future.

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is stepping up efforts to tackle negative impacts of climate change on the environment by planting 1.5 million mangrove trees along Africa’s Indian Ocean Coast. The green initiative is part of a network of projects in the pipeline under AKF’s long-term goal of creating a sustainable future for humanity globally.

The mangrove trees initiative, which is in response to climate change, was launched this May, in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. The campaign will be undertaken in Bagamoyo mangrove forest reserve, an ecosystem that borders the Saadani National Park.

Putting at

• A total of 34 countries at risk of climate disaster across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific have mobilised over $150 million towards 2,100 adaptation projects. 
• To date, the EU has provided over $58 million for climate adaptation initiatives. EU members Sweden has raised $52 million, while Denmark and Belgium have each raised $14 million. 
• Climate vulnerable countries say their needs are growing exponentially and therefore need urgent support to avert disasters.

Ministers from some of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries have called on international institutions and donors to boost access to finance to aid their adaptation to the impacts of changing weather patterns using the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL). 

Without funds, populations face bleak future

LoCAL, which is designed and managed by the UN Capital Development Fund, was identified as part of the climate finance “solution” at a ministerial meeting of member countries in Brussels, …

Governments can play a crucial role in enhancing agricultural productivity in Africa for economic growth. Individual nations can accomplish this by establishing policy environments to promote agricultural investment, including providing tax incentives and subsidies to producers. Governments can also prioritize agricultural development in their national budgets by allocating a more significant proportion of their resources to the sector.…

• To transition from fossil fuels to cleaner more sustainable energy, we need innovation and new technology.
• The earth has an array of minerals that carry huge energy potential that has little to do with burning.
• The World Bank: Harnessing natural resource wealth provides an opportunity to improve fiscal and debt sustainability of African countries

The race to combat global climate change challenge is offering Africa a fresh opportunity to attract investments in the decarbonization industry as countries adopt clean energy. The known patterns are gone, we now have unpredictable weather changes and ever-so-frequent catastrophic weather events all caused by global climate change.

The effect is desertification where there was vegetation, floods where land was arid, melting glaciers from the North Pole to Kilimanjaro, famine, food insecurity, and disease, all because of the energy we used to industrialize, it is time for the energy transition.

To transition from fossil fuels to …

• Lender AfDB is looking to harness global equity funds to finance climate change mitigation in Africa.
• AfDB statistics show that only 14 percent of $29.5 billion that was invested in climate finance for Africa in 2020 was from the private sector.
• AfDB is set to hold climate change financing meeting in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, this May.

An increasing number of people across Africa are grappling with unpredictable but definite cycles of failed rains, flash floods or severe drought as climate change-induced weather patterns become the norm in the continent that is one of the least polluters globally.

“Africa, the continent that pollutes the planet the least, is today one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate risks,” admits the African Development Bank.

In many countries in Africa today, it is nearly impossible for farmers to practice rain-fed agriculture, which is the primary option for 99 percent of agricultural production …

• The Kenyan Government has partnered with ZEP-RE (PTA Reinsurance Company), Kenya Development Corporation (KDC), and the World Bank, to launch the De-Risking, Inclusion, and Value Enhancement of pastoral economies (DRIVE) project.
• Over 250,000 households are expected to benefit from the World Bank-backed project representing 1.6 million pastoralists and their dependents across Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti over a five-year period.
• DRIVE project seeks to de-risk pastoral systems through insurance, savings, and financial education while de-risking private sector investments that provide reliable markets to millions of pastoralists including women and youth.

In drought-stricken Kenya, millions of dead livestock tell of lost livelihoods as the worst dry spell in a half-century sweeps across the Horn of Africa. Latest data estimates that over 2.6 heads of livestock—cattle, goats and even camels, erstwhile “ships of the desert”—have died due to lack of water and pasture following failed rains, piling huge pressure on pastoral families …

Africa’s human development cannot proceed until the first and most basic need—food—is met. A report by AusAID titled Improving food security in Africa reveals that over two-thirds of the population relies on agriculture for income and basic food needs. With food, fuel, and fertiliser crises that have followed the extended Russia-Ukraine crisis, the World Bank has described the current conditions in sub-Saharan Africa as “the perfect storm,” which includes the COVID-19 pandemic, skyrocketing inflation, a growing debt burden, and harsh weather.

The World Food Programme’s 2022 Global Report on Food Crises estimates that 140 million people across Africa are experiencing food insecurity on a regular basis.

With many countries facing food security issues, many nations have partnered with the World Bank to implement a series of short-, medium-, and long-term actions to combat the effects of food insecurity, such as overreliance on imports and persistent drought. These measures are also …