Herdsmen and farmers in Mashegu Local Government Area of Niger State have signed a peace agreement to stop clashes among them.
Herdsmen grazing their cattle
Alhaji Abdullahi Babayo, Director-General of Nomadic Affairs Agency in the state, disclosed this in a statement issued to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna, the state capital, on Wednesday, September 18, 2017.
Babayo said the aim of the meeting was to reconcile communities that were affected by farmers/herdsmen crisis in the area.
He said that the meeting was attended by Alhaji Bala Sai’du, Chairman, Mashegu Local Government, Alhaji Ardo Adamu, Chairman, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association in Niger, Fulani Herdsmen, Farmers, District Heads and community leaders from the area.
According to him, the meeting was to promote peace among farmers and herdsmen and to appeal to herdsmen to desist from grazing on farmlands to avoid clashes with farmers.
The director-general advised both parties to abide by the agreement and continue to respect the cultures of one another, tradition and means of livelihood.
He urged them to be law abiding and live in peace irrespective of ethnic, religious and political affiliations.
“Farmers and herdsmen should adopt alternative dispute resolution mechanism whenever there is a disagreement in order to avert the negative effects of crisis,” he said.
Babayo also urged the Herdsmen to report any suspicious persons to the appropriate authority.
He said this would enable the authority to interrogate the persons to know their mission in the state.
He also advised both farmers and herdsmen against blocking cattle routes and destroying farmlands so as to sustain the peace in the area and guarantee food security.
Several high-profile and international organisations will launch a new non-binding multi-stakeholder partnership to curb the capture, trade and consumption of endangered, threatened or protected aquatic mammals, reptiles and birds in West and Central Africa. The announcement of the Abidjan Aquatic Wildlife Partnership will take place during the 12th session of the Convention on Migratory Species Conference of the Parties (CMS COP12).
In West and Central Africa alone, at least 20 countries are known to carry out specialised hunts for the West African Manatee
The convention will be held in Manila, The Philippines from October 22 to 28, 2017. OceanCare, the USAID-funded West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA- BiCC) Programme, Wild Migration and the World Bank have supported the Abidjan Secretariat in forming the Partnership. Together these organisations will draw attention to the plight of aquatic species including endangered, threatened and protected species, and support governments, the private sector and local communities to take the critical steps to ensure their survival.
Evidence shows that the majority of countries in West and Central Africa contribute to the over-harvest of aquatic wildlife in several ways. This includes by-catch, as well as other forms of capture for human consumption, fishing bait, traditional medicine and other uses. While wild animals have always been a food source, increased global population and demand has led to the drastic over-exploitation of several species. Illegal, under regulated and/or fishing on several levels – from the local to the international – has threatened not only the species themselves but the local and national economies who depend on a well-managed aquatic resource base. The capture and consumption of species such as dolphins, whales, manatees, crocodiles and sea turtles, known as ‘aquatic wild meat’, is ‘falling through the cracks’ between environment and fisheries ministries, agencies and international processes. Private companies troll the waters off the West and Central African coasts and capture not only targeted species, but several others that become trapped in their nets.
The Convention of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) provides an ideal setting for the launch of the Abidjan Aquatic Wildlife Partnership1. The slogan for this years’ conference is “Their Future is Our Future: Sustainable Development for Wildlife and People”, a fitting concept for the launch of the partnership, which seeks to address links between the degradation of natural habitats and species, and issues of poverty, food security, human health, including impacts on local and national economies. Many drivers behind the increased demand for aquatic wild meat are the same issues identified within the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A growing reliance of people on unsustainable food sources such as endangered, threatened or protected species has clear implications for the future economic prosperity and well-being of people, but also represents a grave conservation and animal welfare concern.
In West and Central Africa alone, at least 20 countries are known to carry out specialised hunts for the West African Manatee.
Cetaceans are killed and their meat is consumed at high levels throughout the region. Ghana is thought to represent a particular hotspot in the region for hunts of dolphins and small whales with at least 16 species affected. In some cases, dolphins are landed as by-catch but directed hunts also occur and in some places where they are used as shark bait.
Sea turtles are killed for their meat and shells, as well as their eggs. As females lay the eggs, poachers collect them and often kill the females at the same time. Turtle meat is regularly sold in African countries including Nigeria, Mauritania, Cabo Verde, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea.
Aquatic species are also killed for medicinal and ornamental purposes. For example, turtles are used for traditional medicine in the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leonne, Ghana, Togo and Benin. Turtle shells are sold to tourists throughout the region.
Crocodiles are caught and killed in significant numbers for meat which is sold in markets in Nigeria.
Aquatic Wild Meat at CMS COP12
At CMS COP12, governments will consider adopting a resolution which highlights issues that affect many migratory aquatic species listed in the appendices of CMS. In particular it expresses concern that these species are being harvested in an illegal or unregulated manner and that demand for the meat or other products of these species is increasing. The resolution asks that CMS gives the issue increased attention by setting up an international working group of experts to focus on the issue and to provide advice to governments.
The hope is that the outcome of the new CMS Aquatic Wild Meat Working Group, if agreed by the parties, would benefit the Abidjan Aquatic Wildlife Partnership and work collaboratively within or alongside it.
The organisations supporting the development and of the Abidjan Aquatic Wildlife Partnership will not only be encouraging governments to adopt this resolution but also to take this fight back to their home countries and reinforce their commitment to ensuring that endangered and threatened migratory aquatic species not only survive, but thrive.
The Nigerian Tobacco Control Research Group (NTCRG) and the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN), in collaboration with the African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA), will on Thursday, October 19, 2017 at the St. Paul’s Anglican Church Hall in Yemetu, Ibadan, Oyo State, present a national research that shows how tobacco companies strategically situate tobacco products and advertisements near primary and secondary schools with the aim of enticing kids to experiment smoking.
Hilda Ochefu of the CTFK delivering a speech during the presentation in Abuja
This is a follow-up to the presentation of the same report in Abuja on Wednesday, October 17, 2017.
The research, titled “Big Tobacco: Tiny Targets Nigeria Report”, exposes widespread sale of tobacco products along paths of primary and secondary schools in five states where there was also alleged deliberate display of tobacco products next to sweets and drinks, making them easily accessible, and sales of single tobacco sticks at very affordable rates, among other tactics of getting children to smoke and ultimately addicted.
Specific examples from Lagos, Nasarawa, Enugu, Kaduna and Oyo states are documented in the report, including visual evidences.
The report urges government to take action and made some specific recommendations including the need for urgent passage of the regulations guiding implementation of the National Tobacco Control (NTC) Act 2015 by the National Assembly; and Proactive prohibition of placement of tobacco products within 100m of any educational institution by the federal, state and local education authorities.
It demanded the enforcement of the comprehensive prohibition of tobacco advertising promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) and the setting up of a Framework for monitoring the implementation of the ban on single sticks and cigarettes packs with less than 20 sticks as detailed in the NTC Act 2015.
At the public presentation in Abuja, Hilda Ochefu of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) said tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of deaths and that the tobacco industry deliberately targeted kids as replacement smokers.
Ochefu said the report captured the strategy of the tobacco industry to entice and get kids addicted to smoking hence the need for the immediate enforcement of provisions of the NTC Act announced by the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, which included ban on single stick sale of cigarettes and ban on smoking in public places.
Giving a summary of the report, Dr. Akin Adebiyi of the NTCRG said it involved a survey of 221 schools across the five states where the situation of point of sale and other tobacco inducements were prevalent. He explained that the report would guide government in taking concrete steps to save the young generation of kids that the tobacco industry wants to addict from embarking on the dangerous experimentation of cigarettes.
Participants at the public presentation of the report included representatives of the Federal Ministries of Health, Education and the Ministry of Labour and Employment, anti-tobacco groups, and the media, among others. Venue of the public presentation was the Merit House, Abuja.
The urgent call to fight against climate change-related catastrophe, which is already taking its toll in numerous geographic zones, is a galloping man-induced disaster of global proportion.
Participants at the gathering in Okokori, Cross River State
To this end, an international agency based in Kenya has warned communities in Cross River State in Nigeria to protect the remains of its forest to avoid climate change disaster.
The organisation, Mainyoito Pastoralist Integrated Development Organisation (MPIDO), a donor agency to Wise Administration of Terrestrial Environment and Resources (WATER), on a working tour to Okokori in Obubra Local Government of the state, warned that climate change is real and has caused so many harms to communities in Kenya. Okokori is richly blessed with forest resources.
Giving an insight of his community’s ordeal in Kenya after losing all its forests to climate change, Mr. Elijah Toirm, a member of MPIDO, said communities should create other means of livelihood that would not snatched away their forest.
“We have come all the way from Kenya to tell you how climate change is affecting the entire world. This is not something that is affecting only Okokori community because I am a living witness to climate change in my country.
“I speak from experience; we live in a dry place because we have burned down all the trees in my community and used for charcoal which we sold to earn money. Right now, we are suffering from that ignorance. In fact, the last time it rained was last year December.
“You are still lucky to have your forest but if you don’t take care of your environment, you will suffer the same fate as my community.” Toirm warned.
Programme Coordinator of WATER, Chief Edwin Ogar, said climate change would not only lead to the escalation of natural and man-made disasters, but bring about a worldwide extinction of most animal and plant species.
He said, this being alarming calls for immediate global action as seen in the Paris Climate Agreement entered in to by 194 countries in late 2015.
Responding, members of Okokori community thanked MPIDO for organising trainings and workshops through WATER, describing it as an eye opener to communities living in the forest. They however called for support of projects that would provide jobs to youths who depend mostly on the forest to make a living.
The community women leader, Mrs. Emilia Joseph, said the community has been working towards achieving the fight against deforestation through setting up of a task force.
Stressing on the need to fund the community task force on deforestation, the Women Leader said, “We have been trying our best to protect the forest through the use of Task Force but this group need some financial support to do more and if those supports do not come, we cannot live up to expectation.”
On his part, the youth leader, Mr. Fidelis Oyama, complained that neighboring communities have been involved in deforestation of their environment. He demanded that the organisation should take the gospel of deforestation to those communities.
A new intergovernmental task force to curb the illegal killing of birds crossing one of the world’s greatest migration paths will be high on the agenda at this year’s largest wildlife summit, which takes place in Manila next month.
Migratory birds
The East Asian-Australasian Flyway spans 22 countries from the Russian Federation to Alaska in the USA in the north, through much of Eastern Asia to the Western Pacific and Australia and New Zealand in the south.
Many millions of migratory birds, which travel along the Flyway twice yearly, will receive greater protection if the proposal is adopted.
Delegates from over 120 countries will gather in the Philippines from October 23 to 28, 2017, for the 12th triennial meeting of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) or COP12, where they will consider the submission.
The “Task Force on Illegal Hunting, Taking and Trade of Migratory Birds in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway” will build on the successes of a similar initiative for migratory birds in the Mediterranean, agreed at COP11 in in Quito, Ecuador in 2014. The Mediterranean Task Force has proved to be a key forum to promote the exchange of best practice and information between countries facing the same challenges and also with other members of the Task Force. At its meetings in Egypt and Malta, the Task Force developed indicators and a scoreboard to measure progress at national level. The Asian group will also develop guidelines and recommendations, and will assist countries in preparing national action plans to curb illegal hunting and trade.
Dr Bradnee Chambers, Executive Secretary of CMS, said: “Intensive hunting and illegal killing are driving many endangered bird species to the brink of extinction. Countries which they transit share a joint responsibility to implement measures to protect them. The proposed task force for the East Asian-Australasian Flyway feeds into a wider, collaborative strategy to combat global wildlife crime and strengthen efforts to ensure that migratory species are managed sustainably and legally.”
Migratory birds face many threats over the long distances they travel. Most notable is the destruction of their habitats, which are critical for feeding, resting and breeding.
Yet, in many parts of the world, birds are being deliberately and illegally killed, trapped, or traded at an unprecedented scale. According to BirdLife International, around 25 million birds are killed annually in the Mediterranean, with some species now at risk, including Pallid Harriers, Egyptian Vultures and several species of songbird.
Earlier this year, the Secretariats of the CMS and the Bern Convention joined forces and developed a common self-assessment scoreboard to measure and benchmark progress on the eradication of illegal killing for governments to use at national and regional level.
The joint tool uses standardised methods, which will also help facilitate the implementation of other initiatives such as the Tunis Action Plan 2013-2020 for the Eradication of Illegal Killing, Trapping and Trade of Wild Birds under the Bern Convention.
The indicator framework offers national administrations a simple tool, which makes it possible for countries to assess their progress.
“International efforts to tackle the illegal killing, taking and trade in birds just became easier. The scoreboard will contribute to the prioritisation and commitment of resources by national administrations, NGOs and international actors,” said Dr Chambers.
“This tool will greatly aid countries in their monitoring and reporting commitments and will provide a political incentive to reduce illegal killing worldwide.”
Around 245 BCE Ptolemy III, ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, made a decision that still puzzles many historians: After pursuing a successful military campaign against the kingdom’s nemesis, the Seleucid Empire, centred mainly in present-day Syria and Iraq, the king suddenly decided to return home. This about-face “changed everything about Near-East history,” says Joseph Manning, a historian at Yale University.
Volcanic eruption
Now, Manning and his colleagues have identified a possible reason for Ptolemy III’s trek back to Egypt: volcanoes. It’s a strange link, but one borne out by evidence. Massive eruptions, a new study suggests, can disrupt the normal flow of the Nile River by cooling the planet’s atmosphere. In Ancient Times, that may have led to food shortages and heightened existing tensions in the region. The research, which was published on Tuesday, October 17, 2017 in Nature Communications, links eruptions not just to the end of Ptolemy III’s war, but to a series of violent uprisings and other upheavals that rocked Ptolemaic Egypt – an empire that extended over large portions of Northeast Africa and the Middle East.
The study creates a strong case that sudden shifts in climate can have big impacts on human society. And it’s remarkable, Manning says, for doing so by drawing on a wide range of methods and evidence – from ice core records to Egyptian papyri.
“That’s the beauty of these climate records. For the first time, you can actually see a dynamic society in Egypt, not just a static description of a bunch of texts in chronological order,” Manning says. “This is of absolutely enormous importance.”
The research is a product of the Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society working group of Past Global Changes (PAGES), a global research project of Future Earth.
At the heart of that dynamic society was the Nile River, the lifeblood of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. This empire arose in about 305 BCE, not long after the death of Alexander the Great, and ended around 30 BCE with the death of Cleopatra. During this period, Egyptian farmers depended on the yearly flooding of the Nile in July through September to irrigate their grain fields – inventing systems of channels and dams to store the river’s overflow.
“When the Nile flood was good, the Nile valley was one of the most agriculturally-productive places in the Ancient World,” says Francis Ludlow, a climate historian at Trinity College in Dublin and a co-author of the new study. “But the river was famously prone to a high level of variation.”
In some years the Nile didn’t rise high enough to flood the land, and that could lead to trouble. Historical records suggest, for example, that a shortage of grain and the unrest that followed were behind Ptolemy III’s return to Egypt. And Ludlow had reason to think that volcanoes could be behind some of those bad years.
The reason comes down to a squiggly band of monsoon weather that circles the planet’s equator called the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). Every year around summer in the northern hemisphere, this band moves up from the equator. That in turn soaks the headwaters of the Blue Nile River, a major tributary of the Nile. But when volcanoes erupt, they blast out sulfurous gases that, through a chain of events, cool the atmosphere. If that happens in the Northern Hemisphere, it can keep the monsoon rains from moving as far as they usually do.
“When the monsoon rains don’t move far enough north, you don’t have as much rain falling over Ethiopia,” Ludlow says. “And that’s what feeds the summer flood of the Nile in Egypt that was so critical to agriculture.”
But how often would eruptions diminish the river’s flooding? To find out, Ludlow, Manning and their colleagues turned to computer simulations and real-world measurements of the Nile River that date back to 622 CE. The team discovered that poor flood years on the Nile lined up over and over with a recently published timeline of major volcanic eruptions around the world. That evidence suggested that when volcanoes explode, the Nile tended to stay calm.
The team then dug further to see if that might have an impact on Egyptian society during the Ptolemaic era, which is rich in papyri and other written records. They include the trilingual Rosetta Stone. Again, the timelines matched: Volcanic eruptions preceded many major political and economic events that affected Egypt. They included Ptolemy III’s exit from Syria and Iraq – just after a major eruption in 247 BCE – and the Theban revolt, a 20-year uprising by Egyptians against Greek rule. The researchers then examined how likely it was that these events occurred so close in time to eruptions, finding it “highly unlikely to have occurred by chance, such is the level of overlap,” Ludlow says.
The volcanic eruptions didn’t cause these upheavals on their own, both Ludlow and Manning stress. But they likely added fuel to existing economic, political and ethnic tensions. For historians, “it’s like we’ve all been in a dark room bumping into furniture, and now we have a candle lit,” Manning says.
The results may also have implications for the modern era. Currently, Ethiopia is in the middle of building a humongous dam called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD, on the Blue Nile. Tensions are already high between the nation and Egypt over how the water resources of the river will be distributed. A sudden change in climate, such as from a volcanic eruption, could make these “fraught hydropolitics even more fraught,” Ludlow says.
“The 21st century has been lacking in explosive eruptions of the kind that can severely affect monsoon patterns. But that could change at any time,” he says. “The potential for this needs to be taken into account in trying to agree on how the valuable waters of the Blue Nile are going to be managed between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.”
With just 11 confirmed polio cases so far in 2017, the world is said to be on the brink of eradicating polio, a vaccine-preventable disease that once paralysed hundreds of thousands of children each year.
Polio immunisation in Nigeria. Photo credit: comminit.com
To recognise this historic progress, Rotary clubs worldwide will host events in conjunction with Rotary International’s fifth annual World Polio Day celebration on Tuesday, October 24, 2017. This year, the event will be co-hosted by Rotary and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and held at the foundation’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The programme will feature an update on the global fight to end polio and an array of guest speakers, celebrities, and public health experts. People around the world can view the livestream of the event at this link (http://APO.af/PP9imJ) on Oct. 24 at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time.
“Rotary and its partners are closer than ever to eradicating polio,” says Michael K. McGovern, chair of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee, which leads the organisation’s polio eradication efforts. “World Polio Day is the ideal opportunity to celebrate our successes, raise public awareness, and talk about what is needed to end this paralysing disease for good.”
Without full funding and political commitment to eradication, the disease could return to countries that are now polio-free and put children everywhere at risk. Rotary is giving $49.5 million in grants to support immunisation and surveillance activities led by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Some of the funds will support efforts to end polio in the three countries where polio remains endemic: Afghanistan ($9.32 million), Pakistan ($8.94 million), and Nigeria ($7.71 million). Further funding will support efforts to keep six vulnerable countries polio-free: Chad ($2.37 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo ($4.5 million), Guinea ($961,000), Somalia ($1.62 million), South Sudan ($3.77 million), and Sudan ($2.56 million). An additional $7.74 million will go toward surveillance activities in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean region.
In a show of solidarity and to raise awareness and funds for polio eradication, Rotary clubs around the globe will host nearly 1,900 events for World Polio Day. They include:
A viewing party of the livestream in Fond du Lac, Wis.
A Rock vs. Polio music event in Curitiba, Brazil
Placing of End Polio Now piggy banks in local businesses to collect donations in Viljoenskroon, South Africa
A soccer game in Cairo, Egypt between the street children of Hope Village Society and students from local engineering colleges
A golf fundraiser in Yoshiwara, Japan
“To protect all children from polio, world governments and donors must see through their commitments to fund critical work and support rigorous disease surveillance in both endemic and at-risk polio-free countries,” says McGovern. Rotary has committed to raising $150 million over the next three years, which will be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, yielding $450 million for polio eradication activities, including immunisation and surveillance.
Rotary started its polio eradication programme PolioPlus in 1985, and in 1988 became a partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, along with WHO, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation later became a partner, too. Since the initiative launched, the incidence of polio has reportedly plummeted by more than 99.9 percent, from about 350,000 cases in 1988 to just 37 cases in 2016. Rotary has contributed a total of more than $1.7 billion — including matching funds from the Gates Foundation — and countless volunteer hours to protect more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries from polio.
In an important development ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (6-17 November) in Bonn, Germany, Anglican archbishops around the world have called on the international community to turn the Paris Climate Change Agreement into stronger action to fight climate change.
Bath Abbey, an Anglican church and former Benedictine monastery in Bath, England
In an open letter to global leaders, the five archbishops have drawn attention to the significant threat posed by climate change, expressing their concerns over its impact on vulnerable communities worldwide.
Branding climate change the “challenge of our generation”, the letter urges global leaders to “set targets for the world to reduce our greenhouses gas emission fast enough to limit global warming to the safe level of 1.5 degrees.”
Musicians John Mark McMillan, Nicole Nordeman, and many other Christian leaders have also joined forces with the archbishops in their call to keep the promises the governments made in the Paris Agreement in order to restore the natural balance.
The letter also makes an appeal to “invest in 100% clean energy, particularly using local grids so it reaches those in poverty beyond the reach of national electricity grids.”
As Christians across the globe we are calling for action on climate change. The changing climate is causing great damage to people and planet right now, and we are particularly concerned about hunger and poverty hitting the most vulnerable communities, who did least to cause it.
We urge each nation’s leaders to keep the promises they made in the Paris Agreement, to restore the natural balance.
Please use the COP23 global climate talks in Bonn, Germany this November, for each country to make significant progress to:
Set targets for the world to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to limit global warming to the safe level of 1.5 degrees.
Invest in 100% clean energy, particularly using local grids so it reaches those in poverty beyond the reach of national electricity grids.
Support more sustainable, low emission agriculture, to stop communities going hungry, and help them cope better with more floods and droughts caused by climate change.
Publish national country plans in 2020 showing how each nation will move to zero emissions.
Please follow up at the COP24 climate talks in November 2018, in Poland.
This is our generation’s challenge, a significant part of how we love our neighbors.
We’re committing to respond as Christians by living more sustainably, praying, and raising our voices; we’re asking every member of the church – the world’s largest network – to join in, alongside many others, and every national leader to lead the way.
Pope Francis on Monday, October 17, 2017 called for governments around the world to collaborate to make migration a safer and voluntary choice, arguing that assuring food security for all requires tackling climate change and ending conflicts. He made the call at the global ceremony to mark World Food Day, held at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) headquarters. This year’s theme focuses on addressing migration through investing in food security and rural development.
Pope Francis
“It is clear that wars and climatic change are a cause of hunger, so let’s not present it as if hunger is an incurable disease,” the pontiff said during his key note address.
He called for a total commitment to gradual and systematic disarmament, and urged a change to lifestyles, the use of resources and the production and consumption of food to protect the planet.
In reference to the development of the Global Compact on Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration – the first agreement of its kind negotiated by governments under the auspices of the UN – he said, “Managing human mobility requires a coordinated, systematic intergovernmental action in line with existing international norms, and full of love and intelligence”.
“What is at stake is the credibility of the whole international system,” he added.
He also said it was unfortunate that “some” countries are moving away from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Change the future of migration
Each year millions of people leave their homes to escape hunger, poverty and conflict.”
More and more people migrate because they do not have the option to remain in their homes and lands,” said FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva.
“It is our intention to address the root causes of migration, such as poverty, food insecurity, inequality, unemployment and lack of social protection. To save lives, we need to rebuild the environment in which people live, reinforcing their resilience and ensuring their livelihoods to offer them the possibility of a dignified way of life,” he said.
World Food Day is being marked this year as global hunger rises for the first time in over a decade, affecting 815 million people or 11 per cent of the global population. The increase is largely due to the proliferation of violent conflicts and climate-related shocks which are also major drivers of distress migration.
Madagascar President, Hery Martial Rakotoarimanana Rajaonarimampianina, whose country is facing the impacts of climate change, also spoke at the event.
“Young men and women are the most affected by (climate change-related) population displacements. If we want to change the paradigm of migration, we need to find solutions in the countries of origin,” he said.
Hunger fuels migration
FAO believes that migration should be a choice, not a necessity, and FAO is working with partners and communities around the world to give people back that choice.
Between 2008 and 2015, an average of 26.4 million people were displaced annually by climate or weather-related disasters alone. In total, there are currently an estimated 244 million international migrants, 40% more than in the year 2000. A large share of these migrants come from rural areas where more than three quarters of the world’s poor depend on agriculture and natural resource-based livelihoods.
These large movements of people present complex challenges that require humanitarian and development solutions. Many of the triggers that cause people to migrate can be addressed by investing in rural development, supporting decent rural employment and ensuring social safety nets. This work also contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030.
Political will
Ministers of Agriculture from several of the Group of Seven (G7) nations also attended the World Food Day ceremony – testament to the important links between food security, rural development and migration. G7 representatives were Canada’s Lawrence MacAulay, France’s Stéphane Travert, Germany’s Peter Bleser, Italy’s Maurizio Martina, the United Kingdom’s Therese Coffrey and the United States’ Sonny Perdue. Japan’s Ken Saito sent a statement of support.
Other participants in the ceremony were European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Gilbert F. Houngbo and the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley.
“Inequalities and lack of opportunities in rural areas are a leading cause for the loss by communities of one of their most precious assets: their young people,” Houngbo said. “My plea on World Food Day 2017 is for continued investment in rural transformation so that millions of young people can build a better life for themselves.”
“The biggest problem we have today is war, man-made conflict. Eighty percent of the expenditure of WFP – over $6 billion – is in man-made conflict zones like Syria, like Iraq, like Somalia… We will never achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 until we end conflict,” Beasley said.
World Food Day
FAO celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October to commemorate the founding of the Organisation in 1945. Events are organised in over 150 countries across the world, making it one of the most celebrated days of the UN calendar. These events promote worldwide awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger and for the need to ensure food security and nutritious diets for all.
A ministerial meeting in Fiji on Tuesday, October 17, 2017 has stressed the urgent need for progress to meet the pressing schedules of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and build a global “Grand Coalition” of action between all levels of government, business and civil society.
Dignitaries and heads of delegations at the pre-COP in Fiji
“Nations cannot protect themselves individually without all the parties to the Paris Agreement doing what they have already agreed to do and more,” COP23 President and Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama, told delegates from 68 countries at the two-day “pre-COP” in Nadi.
Governments gather on November 6 in Bonn, Germany for the two-week annual UN climate change conference (COP23), along with tens of thousands of people from cities, states, companies and civil society organisations who are already acting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect their societies against climate change to ensure a sustainable future.
The Paris Agreement is a long-term global strategy to keep the average global temperature rise since the late 19th century well below 2C degrees and as close to 1.5C as possible. But with about one degree of that rise already in the system and extreme climate events rising by the year, a faster, bigger and united response is required.
Mr Bainimarama said: “We can no longer ignore this crisis. Whether it is fires in California, Portugal and Spain. Flooding in Nigeria, India and Bangladesh. The dramatic Arctic melt. Ice breaking off the continent of Antarctica. The recent hurricanes that devastated the Caribbean and the southern United States. Or the hurricane that has just struck Ireland and Scotland – the tenth hurricane of the Atlantic season this year. It’s hard to find any part of the world that is unaffected by these events.”
Nadi Meeting Looks Ahead to Major Work at COP23
The meeting in Nadi is discussing how governments can progress at COP23 to complete the full set of operational guidelines under the Paris Agreement to help government and non-government actors alike meet the goals of Paris to the best of their ability. Governments intend to finish this task in 2018 at COP24.
It is also considering how to make progress at COP23 on the design of what governments call the “facilitative dialogue”, an intergovernmental forum agreed at Paris to focus on immediate solutions to meet the Agreement’s goals and encourage rising ambition in the 163 national plans for climate action (NDCs) that countries have submitted under the agreement.
The set of NDCs is the most complete set of national pledges ever made to take concrete action under a multilateral agreement. But the aggregate ambition of all the plans needs to rise quickly because it is still indicating a 3C degree average temperature rise – which can mean a devastating several degrees higher for the most vulnerable areas of the world.
Mr Bainimarama stressed that his COP23 Presidency’s central tasks were to make progress on both these areas of work and to design a dialogue imbued with the spirit of “Talanoa” – a Fijian concept of an open and transparent discussion without accusatory finger-pointing.
Leaders Work Closely with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Climate Action
Joining the Nadi meeting, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said the observable impacts of climate change highlight the urgency of building resilience to climate change, investing in adaptation and bending the global emissions curve by 2020. She also underscored the importance of making progress on the operating system for the Paris Agreement at COP23.
She said: “The (Paris) agreement was a remarkable achievement. But, to deliver on its full potential, and assist governments and society to go further, faster, together, it needs a complete and uncluttered set of guidelines. These guidelines should ensure that the Agreement fosters scaled-up implementation, as well as honesty, transparency and confidence in climate action among nations in the years to come.”
Ms Mohammed told delegates that several leaders had offered to work closely with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in aligning their efforts and scaling up climate action.
Antonio Guterres has invited leaders to consider championing six high-impact areas at a special Climate Summit in 2019. These areas are investment in clean technology; maturing carbon pricing, enabling the energy transition, risk mitigation and building resilience, augmenting the contribution of sub-national actors and business and mobilizing climate finance.
“Increasing ambition is the only way to keep the global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius this century, and as close to 1.5 degrees as possible. By focussing on these sectors, we can substantially reduce the gap between where we are and where we need to be,” she said.
Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation an Example of Civil Society Climate Action
Action, innovation and commitment from civil society groups remains most important to bring energy and life to the Paris Climate Change Agreement and drive action on the ground.
On the margins of the Nadi pre-COP, the Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation announced that it would provide seed funding for a new charitable trust, which will be used to provide renewable energy to two off-grid communities in Fiji.
This Fiji Rural Electrification Fund translates into a public-private partnership including the Government of Fiji, the Di Caprio foundation and the Fiji Electricity Authority.
The partnership introduces a model that can be replicated elsewhere. Fiji’s Prime Minister and incoming COP23 President Frank Bainimarama said: “This initiative is a good example of what is meant by the ‘Grand Coalition’ for climate action. The scale of action requires all hands on deck. We need to make the Paris Agreement come to life through real projects, for real people with real benefits.”
The communities served by this Program will receive 24/7 electricity services from solar and battery hybrid systems for the same or less money than they currently spend on fossil fuels to run diesel generators.
The first communities are expected to come online in the third quarter of 2018.
