Day: October 25, 2022

Maputo – “When I received the SMS alert in the last week of April indicating that there was going to be heavy rain in the following three days, I was able to speed up the harvesting of sorghum crop before it got moisture damaged,” Thulani Maposa said during a review of the Early Warning Messaging Activity in her area. She is from Fumukwe (Ward 17) in Zimbabwe.

Thulani’s story is one of the several that depict the importance of early warning and anticipatory actions among farming communities.

At the Southern Africa Ministerial Meeting on Integrated Early Warning and Early Action System Initiative, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) called on governments and partners in southern Africa to support and invest in scaling up early warning systems and anticipatory approaches for resilient agrifood systems in the region.

“Agriculture is among the most exposed sectors to these extreme weather hazards. Studies have shown that using an early warning anticipatory approach is more cost-effective than reactive approaches. FAO is committed to supporting Southern Africa Member States’ efforts to scale up actions in early warning and anticipatory action,” Patrice Talla, Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa, told the conference.

The meeting aimed to strengthen disaster preparedness and expand early warning systems in the countries through an anticipatory approach to protect lives and livelihoods.

A shift from a reaction to prevention

The scale and complexities of these extreme hazard events, and the wide-ranging impact they have on countries, require moving from responding to preventing the impact on crops and livelihoods.

The 2021/2022 rainfall season saw six cyclonic systems bring devastating torrential rainfall that brought colossal damage to the region within a period of six weeks, including Mozambique and Madagascar. In April 2022, South Africa suffered severe flooding and landslides affecting cropland and livestock.

In Southern Africa, FAO is supporting member states in developing early warning systems. Through funding from German Federal Foreign Office in Zimbabwe, the European Union funding, and USAID funding in Tanzania, FAO has worked with government and other partners to set up contextualized early warning and short-range forecasting information systems for farming communities in the targeted group.

The farming communities receive early warning and advisories in their preferred languages, enabling them to understand better the conditions being described and make informed decisions.

Investing in early warning tools

Additionally, FAO is supporting member states in monitoring and containment of outbreaks of transboundary crop pests and animal diseases.

Working with NASA Harvest and the University of Maryland, FAO is spearheading the using earth observation tools to improve crop monitoring capabilities and to produce advanced yield forecasts in Malawi and Namibia.

In collaboration with Penn State University, FAO developed and rolled out the eLocust3m app locust early warning system in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The system enables early detection of locust outbreaks.

These tools allow countries to better predict potential supply shortfalls and take well-informed decisions to support anticipatory action to protect lives and livelihoods from increasingly extreme weather and climate change impacts.

“The eLocust3m app is an innovative tool that has helped to strengthen data collection and reporting more accurately on locust infestation. Farmers and extensionists in ǁKaras Region use the app in pest control, reporting and early warning,” said Fabian Booys, an agronomist technician for the Ministry of Agriculture, Namibia.

Integrating indigenous knowledge in early warning systems

Utilizing all opportunities in early warning systems will help to forecast the likely impact, and assist relevant institutions and people at risk. There is significant potential for indigenous knowledge systems especially of farmers in the rural communities who face weather hazards and risks each day of their lives.

The Southern Africa Ministerial meeting commited to support and take an active role to ensure all citizens, in particular the most vulnerable communities in southern Africa are covered by effective Early Warning and Early Action System initiatives.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

The climate crisis is pushing more and more people to the brink in a year of unprecedented hunger. Heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms are increasing in intensity and frequency, impacting people’s ability to feed their families.

In contexts such as Yemen, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where climate impacts intersect with conflict, famine is an ever-present threat.

So, as world leaders prepare to gather in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) between 6 and 18 November, the World Food Programme (WFP) is calling for urgent action to support those on the frontlines of the climate emergency.

Here are three things they must focus on:

1. Scale up climate adaptation and solutions to avert, minimize and address loss and damage

From devastating floods in Pakistan affecting one in seven people in the country, to consecutive droughts pushing people to the edge of famine in the Horn of Africa, extreme weather events are happening in every region of the world.

Communities need solutions to protect themselves and their ability to access enough food. Global leaders must invest in systems that predict climate hazards and provide physical and financial protection to the most vulnerable.

Ahead of recent floods in Nepal, for example, WFP triggered its anticipatory action programme — which uses early warning systems to ensure action before disasters hit — transferring cash to more than 15,000 people across three of the hardest hit districts. The funds helped communities to prepare for the floods, protect themselves and prevent losses and damages; for example, by buying food, reinforcing homes or moving vulnerable people to higher ground.

2. Invest in climate action in communities in fragile contexts

Those living on the frontlines of climate change are often also impacted by conflict, displacement and social inequalities. These communities need the most support, yet they receive the least. Over the past seven years, non-fragile states received 80 times more climate finance per person than extremely fragile states.

To tackle the climate crisis and ensure everyone has enough food to eat, we must prioritize action and funding for vulnerable and conflict-hit areas, supporting communities to adapt to a changing climate, while also building peace.

WFP projects focus on both. For instance, in Somalia earlier this year, knowing the country would continue to be gripped by extreme drought, WFP worked with the Government to deliver early-warning messages to 1.2 million people. WFP also reached 17,000 vulnerable people living in remote areas with cash transfers, to better protect their lives and livelihoods.

As Somalia faces the imminent threat of famine in parts of the country, prioritizing climate action for the most vulnerable communities is more important than ever.

3. Transform food systems

The range of activities that produce, process and transport food to our tables are neither equitable or sustainable. On the one hand, extreme weather events cause destruction right across food systems; on the other, food systems are leading contributors to global heating. Agriculture, transportation and cooking all contribute significant, harmful emissions that are raising the temperature of our planet.

The lack of diversity in our food systems, reliance on polluting practices and exposure to disruptions such as conflict, are threatening global food security. A record 345 million people in 82 countries currently face acute hunger — up from 282 million at the start of the year.

This does not need to be a downward spiral. We know the world has enough food for everyone if it were simply distributed equitably. We also have the knowledge, technology and innovative solutions to reverse the negative relationship between food systems and climate change.

What WFP is doing

Across 123 countries and territories, WFP supports communities facing some of the worst impacts of extreme weather events to build their resilience in a changing climate.

We work with local governments to anticipate climate hazards before they turn into disasters, restore degraded ecosystems and infrastructure, protect the most vulnerable with financial safety nets and give people new opportunities to farm, cook and power their homes through access to clean energy.

In five Sahel countries of West and Central Africa — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger — WFP implements an integrated resilience programme that supports climate adaptation whilst also protecting food systems.

In practice this means rehabilitating land, improving peoples’ access to food and healthy diets, getting children back into school and developing value chains to boost incomes and green jobs.

For example, despite rising insecurity in the region, WFP and communities have rehabilitated nearly 158,000 hectares of degraded land in the Sahel over the past four years through initiatives like digging ‘half moons’ — which catch and keep rainfall in the soil.

With increased ambition and political will, we can diversify, decarbonize and improve the resilience of our food systems to simultaneously tackle the climate crisis and food insecurity.

World leaders have a huge challenge ahead of them, but with coordinated global action, we can tackle the climate crisis.

Source: World Food Programme

Africa’s leading tourism operators are meeting in Botswana for talks on reviving the industry after the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Intra-African travel is at the top of the agenda at the three-day meeting, which has attracted more than 450 delegates from 43 countries.

Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who gave the keynote speech Tuesday at the Africa Tourism Leadership Forum in Gaborone, told attendees they need to focus on ways to encourage travel to and within the continent.

“This vital forum will undoubtedly provide the travel and tourism industry in Africa — and indeed the rest of the world — with a platform for exchanging ideas aimed at promoting travel to and around Africa,” Masisi said. “Tourism is a dynamic and competitive industry that requires the ability to constantly adapt to customers’ changing needs and desires as customer satisfaction, safety and enjoyment are the focus of the tourism business.”

Masisi said tourism was showing signs of recovery after the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, which brought most vacation travel to a halt for about two years.

The president noted most African countries have eased pandemic restrictions, making it easier and more comfortable for travelers to visit.

“The sector is beginning to rebound in 2022 due to more relaxed travel restrictions and a well thought-out strategy, which saw growth of the domestic market and recovery of regional and international markets,” Masisi said.

While much of Africa looks to foreign tourism dollars, Botswana’s Tourism Minister Philda Kereng said intra-African travel was a top focus of the forum to help rebuild the industry.

“They are coming out of COVID-19 with enthusiasm, wanting to rebuild together, wanting to rebuild a resilient tourism sector that is going to build and make the economies of our countries bounce back better, and they are coming with new ideas,” Kereng said. “They are coming bubbling with energy; they want to energize the government, they want to energize every key stakeholder and player to a better way of doing business within the tourism sector.”

But poor roads and limited flights in parts of Africa too often force travel to a regional hub, or even outside the continent, for connecting flights to neighboring countries.

African tourism insiders say there are major hurdles to intra-African travel.

“One of the challenges we face on this continent is visas for ourselves as Africans, most Country A to Country B, and the second issue is connectivity,” said Kwakye Donkor, chief executive of Africa Tourism Partners, a Pan-African tourism development marketing and advisory firm. “[For instance], coming to Botswana some of them have to travel across different places, different countries to get here. And not only that, the private sector has to role play in the cost of travel, to drive this particular initiative.”

German market and consumer data company Statista says COVID-19 cost Africa’s tourism sector $87 billion when the pandemic hit in 2020.

But there are signs of a strong revival.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization says in 2022 international arrivals across Africa were up 171%.

Source: Voice of America

Policymakers from around the world met Monday and Tuesday in Senegal to discuss Africa’s most pressing security challenges. This year, attendees of an annual conference focused on redefining the role international partners play in promoting stability in Africa.

More than 1,000 people participated in the eighth edition of the International Forum of Dakar on Peace and Security.

Attendees included the heads of state from Liberia

, Angola and Guinea-Bissau, as well as high-ranking officials from Japan, Saudi Arabia and France.

The event opened with a speech from Senegalese President and African Union Chairman Macky Sall, who spoke about the need to re-examine modern peace operations.

If U.N. peacekeepers are being attacked on their own bases, they can’t be expected to protect local populations, he said.

“Threats to peace and stability lie in the deep economic crisis that is shaking the world,” Sall said. “Millions of people can no longer bear the cost of living, and others fall into extreme poverty, with no hope of a better future.”

The solution, he said, is to educate and create employment for Africa’s growing youth population.

The conference took place in the wake of France’s withdrawal of military forces from Mali and ongoing criticism of U.N. missions throughout the region.

Militant Islamic violence in Africa has doubled since 2019, with a record 6,300 incidents in 2022 – a 21 percent increase over last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense research group. The Sahel has been the most impacted, with violent events quadrupling over the same period.

Across the continent close to 15,000 people have died this year from extremist-linked violence, a nearly 50 percent increase from 2019.Aude Darnal, a fellow with the Stimson Center, a Washington research organization, said of the violence, “Solutions need to be defined by local actors. They also need to be implemented by local actors. International stakeholders should support, but the leadership needs to come from Africa.”

Nadia Adam, a Sahel analyst for the nonprofit Center for Civilians in Conflict, said solutions must be built from the inside. “Most African countries, especially the youth, now want to make decisions for themselves,” she said. “They want to be part of the change. And they have the capacity. More people are educated.”Government officials attending the conference reiterated that message.

Chidi Blyden is the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for African affairs. In a speech, she quoted a Creole saying from Sierra Leone, which translates to “When and if there’s a problem, look exactly where you’re standing.”

“Some of the problems reside there, but more importantly, the solution probably resides there as well,” she said. “The continent is full of African solutions to global problems.”

The forum also addressed how to decrease Africa’s dependence on international food aid and become more resistant to external shocks, such as the war in Ukraine.

Source: Voice of America