A new report released on Friday, November 17, 2017 by the African Development Bank (AfDB) has called for the industrialisation of the continent with a focus on smart industrial policy, structural transformations and a move towards processing the continent’s raw materials into value added products.

The report, entitled “Industrialise Africa: Strategies, Policies, Institutions and Financing”, was published to coincide with Africa Industrialisation Day on Monday, November 20. With contributions from 16 authors, including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, and famous economists such as Justin Yifu Lin, Haroon Bhorat, Ravi Kanbur, John Page, AfDB Vice-President and Chief Economist Célestin Monga, and AfDB researchers Abebe Shimeles and Amadou Boly.

In his introductory remarks, Stiglitz discusses why industrialisation remains relevant as Africa enters the 21st century. The report provides practical policy advice to African countries on various aspects of industrial policies; looks at the structural transformation needed to pursue labour-intensive manufacturing akin to East and Southeast Asia; reviews criteria for success in building clusters and Special Economic Zones and industrial parks in developing countries; and draws lessons learnt from Ethiopia’s industrial policies, as well as the cases of China and South Korea.

In the report’s foreword, the President of the African Development Bank Group, Akinwumi Adesina, noted: “Africa must quit being at the bottom of the global value chains and move to rapidly industrialise, with value addition to everything that it produces. Africa must work for itself, its people, not exporting wealth to others.”

Rather than follow the economic growth seen in Asia and elsewhere, over the past 30 years, Africa has suffered from stagnation and de-industrialisation. The African Development Bank has put industrialising the continent at the top of its agenda. “Industrialise Africa” is one of the Bank’s “High 5” development priorities, which includes also “Light up and power Africa”, “Feed Africa”, “Integrate Africa” and “Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa”.

Stiglitz described the kind of structural transformation needed for Africa as one that is “moving towards a green economy, a learning society, and an innovation economy”. He added that “Innovation across the globe is largely focused on saving labour, which goes in exactly the wrong direction. We need to encourage innovation, which is focused on saving the planet and protecting the environment and less involved in saving labour.”

The UN General Assembly, in 1989, proclaimed November 20 “Africa Industrialisation Day”. The day is intended to mobilise the commitment of the international community to the industrialisation of the continent.

According to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the United States ensured that the COP23 results were neither ‘further’, nor ‘faster’, and certainly not ‘together’

The 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ended in Bonn, Germany on Friday, November 17, 2017 with noreal headway in resolving the outstanding issues on the agenda – says an analysis of the results by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). A CSE team had been stationed in Bonn through the duration of the conference to follow the negotiations.

“The US’ srogue and obstructionist attitude in the COP process ensured that progress was extremely slow and hampered on several occasions and the old divide between developed and developing nations remained,” says the CSE analysis.

Ahead of the COP, the US had signaled that it would engage in the negotiations process to secure its interests and had talked of a possible re-negotiation of the Paris Agreement to enable it to rejoin the Agreement. As per the provisions of the Paris Agreement, the US withdrawal will only take effect in late 2020.

“Instead of working together and standing united against the US intransigence, the old bickering between developed and developing nations continued at Bonn,” remarked Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, CSE.

“This meant that the US continued with its business-as-usual obstructionist agenda in the negotiations and hampered meaningful progress on equity and finance issues across a range of agenda items including stocktake, accounting, enhanced transparency framework, adaptation, technology transfer,” he added.

“The US announcement is only a political decision with no legal bearing on the Paris Agreement and Paris Agreement has almost no legal options to contain the US. Ideally, the US, having made its anti-climate agenda clear,should not have been allowed under any circumstances to determine the course of negotiations. Unfortunately, that did not happen,” said Vijeta Rattani, climate analyst, CSE.

Key Outcomes

• Talanoa Dialogue: Earlier referred to as the Facilitative Dialogue, it is about stocktake of the collective efforts,the outcome of which would determine the next round of NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) in 2020. The Dialogue would contain a technical phase where Parties would provide the inputs and a political phase in which the outcome would inform improving of NDCs in 2020. The final decision of the COP, however, does not provide the details of the content and scope of the NDCs.
• Pre-2020 Action: Developing countries succeeded in bringing immediate actions and pre-2020 commitments into the limelight. India was leading the demand on pre-2020 action. Parties agreed that there will be two stocktakes to discuss pre-2020 commitments – in 2018 and 2019 – before the Paris Agreement becomes operative in 2020.
• Agriculture: After six years, a decision was finally taken on how to deal with climate actions in agriculture. Parties are now required to submit the following – reporting on climate actions in agriculture; adaptation assessment methods for improvement of soil health, soil carbon and soil quality, as well as considerations for the improvement of nutrient use and manure management; and reporting on socio-economic and food security dimensions. A stocktake has been planned for COP26 in 2020.
• Gender Action Plan: After being included in the Lima work programme, a decision was arrived at during COP23 on how to include gender in climate actions. The outcome decision talks of building capacity and improving participation and representation of women in climate negotiations and actions. A review has been planned in 2019.
• Local communities and indigenous people’s platform: The platform to include indigenous people’s voices in the implementation of the Paris Agreement has been operationalised. The platform shall undertake activities to educate, build capacity and facilitate the incorporation of the diverse and traditional knowledge systems in international and national climate action policies. Afull operationalisation is slated for April-May 2018, during the inter-sessional COP.
• Loss and damage: Although a text was passed on the critical issue of loss and damage, it was a weak one with no financial commitments being agreed upon.
• Slow progress in all procedural issues: Global stocktake, accounting, transparency etc.
• Unofficial US delegation: The US Climate Alliance, a delegation of mayors, elected officials, business leaders and activists, built their own separate pavilion outside the negotiation zone,pledging their commitment to climate change. The delegation drew interest but had no political clout.

“India’s stress on pre-2020 actions is encouraging, but it is more in the nature of procedure than action. It will require more than the ratification of the Doha amendment to make developed countries raise ambition and support commitments,” said Bhushan.

“The big question now is how to ensure that the rulebook for Paris Agreement is fair , equitable and ambitious,keeping in mind the fact that the US remains active and obstructionist in negotiations,” he added.

Some residents of Ikot Ekpo, Calabar Municipality Local Government Area in Cross River State have commended the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP) for completing the gully erosion control project in the area.

The residents gave the commendation in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar, the state capital, on Sunday, November 19, 2017.

They said NEWMAP’s intervention on the erosion site was timely and pointed out that the gully was a threat to their lives.

A leader in the community, Mr Okon Nyong-Etim, said that many of the residents relocated from the area when the state of the gully became worse.

Nyong-Etim recalled that the gully erosion destroyed many buildings including shops in the area which resulted in economic loss.

He noted that the community assisted NEWMAP by providing security for the contractors and cooperating with them.

“Before now, this area used to be a death trap. It was so deep and threatening such that some houses were pulled down for the safety of the occupants.

“I must commend NEWMAP for delivering this job on time.

“The most important aspect of its policy is that all the owners of the houses that were affected were paid full compensation for their loss,’’ he said.

Mrs Patience Okwa told NAN that she lost her father due to the shock he had when their building collapsed.

She, however, lauded NEWMAP for enrolling her and her siblings in a skill acquisition programme.

Okwa, who was trained in catering and given financial assistant to start up the business, said she now had a shop with two employees on her pay roll.

“When my father received the bad news that erosion had pulled down our house, he immediately had a stroke and later died.

“But NEWMAP compensated us and trained some of us insome trades,” she said.

Dr Fidelis Anukwa, State Project Coordinator, NEWMAP, said that 12 houses were brought down in the area to make way for the contractors to work on the site.

Anukwu confirmed to NAN that full compensation was paid to all the victims.

“NEWMAP has come to do things differently. What we are doing in Cross River is of international best standard.

Just last week, a team from Zimbabwe came in to look at the good work we are doing.

“The committed effort of the Federal and Cross River Government toward the funding of the project had helped in addressing the problem.

“The gully was already pulling down houses before we intervened,’’ he said.

The state project coordinator said the agency had also completed work at other erosion sites in the state.

He listed them as Atakpa, Ikot Anwatim, and Nyagasang and added that work in three others were at various stages of completion.

By George Odok