AFRICAN COUNTRIES HOPE TO PROFIT FROM GLOBAL CARBON TRADING MARKET WITH NEW PROGRAM

3 November 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Kenyan Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka announced this week that Kenya would enhance its technical capacity to profit from the global carbon trading market. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) gives developed countries the option to invest in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries in order to meet their own emissions reduction commitments. So far, China and Brazil have benefited the most from CDM, but United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Kenya Representative David Githaiga told MediaGlobal, “Kenya, like many countries in Africa, is working to position itself to access carbon finance through CDM. The truth is, Africa in general has been left behind in terms of benefiting from the mechanism.” The UNDP and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) CDM capacity development program is designed to tackle barriers that prevent Kenya, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique from participating in the mechanism. “Lack of awareness, low technical capacity on the part of the government and key stakeholders and low private sector participation are the key barriers the program is trying to address,” said Githaiga. By addressing these barriers, the program will not only help African countries, but also benefit developed countries that have not been able to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions in their own countries. Additionally, Githaiga said, “Carbon finance has the potential to significantly supplement Official Development Assistance (ODA) that is flowing into African countries. Other benefits include promoting technology transfer and obvious environmental benefits.”

AN INITIATIVE OF “QUIET DIPLOMACY” TO CURB VIOLENCE IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

31 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: As the situation in the Eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo worsens, aid agencies warned this week of a humanitarian crisis. On Friday, the African Union condemned the violence attributed to Congolese rebel commander, General Laurent Nkunda, whose forces of 10,000 are positioned along the Congolese-Rwandan border. The African Union said it would undertake an initiative of “quiet diplomacy” and attempt to forge an agreement between all parties. In the meantime, Oxfam and other international aid agencies have pulled their staff and operations from the city of Goma, where rebels have recently advanced. Thousands are in dire need of food, water, medical services, and shelter, the Red Cross said. Many international groups, such as ActionAid, have also called on the United Nations Security Council to protect women from sexual violence, which has long been deployed as a means of warfare against the civilian population in Congo’s conflict. “Peacekeepers have struggled to respond to intensifying sexual attacks in the absence of clear mandates, tailored training, adequate and timely resources, and incentive structures,” Letitia Anderson of UNIFEM told MediaGlobal. “Women’s physical security is a right in itself and a pre-requisite to the realization of all other rights… Tied to this is a need to increase the commitment of member states to recruiting and deploying more female peace keepers, police, and military observers who can liaise with local women to ensure protection and assistance initiatives are community-driven.”

IS ORGANIC FARMING THE ANSWER TO POVERTY IN AFRICA?

31 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Despite new United Nations report, not all believe organic farming is Africa’s answer to breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition. The research done by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) analyzed 114 projects in 24 African countries and showed evidence that organic farming methods can increase yields and incomes for small-scale farming. Former UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser and current Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, Sir David King told MediaGlobal, “I think this report is a massive backward step.” He believes the answer to Africa’s huger is not organic, or traditional, farming methods, but instead he advocates modern techniques to increase food production. In the past, he led a study of genetically modified food crops, both in terms of their impact on human health and on the environment, and found that such products are not harmful; they should be regulated on a case-by-case basis to be sure, but generally there are no problems with consuming them. He cited the examples of China and India as developing countries that were able to increase productivity and feed populations by using modern technology. “All this leads me to conclude that in order for us to assist those countries in Africa to climb out of poverty, we need to assist the whole process of agriculture technology, and that is the exact opposite of what the World Bank is advocating,” King said. He further explained that, regarding the environment, using traditional farming techniques would not be beneficial necessarily because in order to feed the population in Africa, farmers would need to increase the area of land being farmed, and that can only lead to less biodiversity. Head of UNEP Achim Steiner stood behind the study at its release saying that the report “indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world may be far higher than many had supposed.”

NEW CELL PHONE CAMPAIGN TARGETS HIV AND TB IN SOUTH AFRICA

28 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: In South Africa, a new cell phone campaign hopes to make inroads in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and TB. The project, known as Project Masiluleke (Zulu for “lending a helping hand”), will use text-messaging to urge South Africans to contact call centers, which will provide referrals, resources, and counseling by trained counselors. The project has also heavily stressed the interrelatedness of HIV/AIDS and TB. Mario Raviglione, Director of the World Health Organization’s Stop TB Department, told MediaGlobal, “TB is one of the most common causes of death for people living with HIV/AIDS.” The opportunistic infection is often fatal to those with weakened immune systems. Roughly 90 percent of South Africans use cell phones, and the project hopes to take advantage of this in getting their message out. Already, the results look promising: after just three weeks of pre-launch testing, calls to the National AIDS Helpline in Johannesburg tripled. While similar texting campaigns have been used in the past, Project Masiluleke is the largest initiative to disperse health information via cell phones.

INCREASE IN AGRICULTURE FUNDING COULD REDUCE CARBON EMISSIONS FROM THE FIELD

28 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Agriculture around the world today is one of the leading contributors to the greenhouse-gas emissions causing global warming and climate change, amounting to around 30 per cent of all contributors around the world. However, little climate change research and mitigation funding is aimed at this sector. Under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, nearly $US 15 billion dollars are available every year, of which the agriculture division receives very little. To address the issue, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is urging countries to invest in green agriculture to protect the earth for the future. “This is a win-win opportunity. We have a chance to slow climate change, help poor farmers make a better living and improve soil health and productivity all at the same time,” FAO Senior Officer Theodor Friedrich said at a West Lafayette, Indiana meeting of experts in the United States this week. “Obviously there is a priority for sub-Saharan Africa for the specific problems in this region. But at the same time Asian countries like India and other member countries will benefit from a ‘greener’ revolution, since they are facing stagnating yields which will not cater for feeding the increasing population,” Friedrich told MediaGlobal. One of the techniques recommended by the FAO to reduce carbon emissions is no-tillage farming, a method which prevents carbon dioxide stored in the soil from releasing into the atmosphere. Simply adjusting to this technique could contain up to 3 billion tons of atmospheric carbon every year for 30 years, Friedrich told the experts.

WAR CHILD TO RELEASE NEW MUSIC ALBUM TO SUPPORT CHILDREN MARGINALIZED BY WAR

29 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Music is one way for London-based aid organization War Child to raise funds for the support of its mission – which is to help children suffering from poverty, conflict and social exclusion. Currently, War Child has ongoing projects in four countries where such grave conditions exist: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. Although just 15 years have passed since War Child’s formation in 1993, it was able to establish itself quickly due to its strong association with the film and music industries. For instance, War Child says that its first music album ‘Help’ – and subsequent albums strengthened its influence, which helped it to expand its reach to countries beyond formerly known Yugoslavia, the place War Child was first involved in. Now, War Child is due to release on Parlophone Records yet another album titled ‘Heroes’ in February of next year. “The heroes are the children,” Sarah Gwonyoma from War Child, told MediaGlobal. Furthermore, the album is unique in that it will have legendary stars such as Sir Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, David Bowie and Brian Wilson choosing a classic track from their own collection, and then picking an artist from the next generation to create a modern version of it. “The generosity of the legendary and talented artists who have made this album happen is helping to do something really positive for children marginalized by war,” Mark Waddington, CEO of War Child, said. Parlophone will donate all profits to War Child.

ONE IN THREE PEOPLE LIVING IN CITIES OF THE DEVELOPING WORLD LIVE IN A SLUM

27 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: This century is an urban one, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote in the foreword of UN HABITAT’s State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009 report – due to half the world’s population now living in urban areas. And so, he continued to write, ‘harmonious urbanization’ – the theme of the report – has never been more important. But an obstacle to harmonious urbanization is the number of people found to be living in slums – defined by UN HABITAT as a group of individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following five conditions: access to improved water; access to improved sanitation facilities; sufficient living area; structural quality and durability of dwellings; and security of tenure – in the cities of the developing world. In both the report and a press conference on the report held at the UN today, it was highlighted that one out of three people were found to be living in such slums. Slum prevalence is highest in sub-Saharan Africa, where 62 percent of the region’s urban population either lives in a slum or lacking one or more of the five conditions that make a slum. In Asia, slum concentrations vary widely, from an average of 43 percent in Southern Asia and 37 percent in Eastern Asia to 24 percent in Western Asia and 28 percent in South-Eastern Asia. However, one country in Asia where slum prevalence was found to be lowest is China, as it is listed in the report’s ‘Lowest prevalence: Bottom 5 countries in Asia.’ During today’s press conference, Anna Tebaijuka, Executive Director of UN HABITAT, commented on this. “Within the group of developing countries, the country that best practices conscious public policy on the housing issue is China,” she told MediaGlobal. Housing in the country is available to both high-income and low-income people, she added, concluding with: “within the developing world they have done much, much better than others.”