The World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with South Sudan’s health ministry has strengthened HIV treatment cascade to improve interventions and achieve the national 90-90-90 targets, an ambitious goal to end the pandemic.
Evans Liyosi, WHO Representative for South Sudan
Moses Nganda, Medical Officer at WHO South Sudan, said over the last decades, Juba had continued to face humanitarian crises of varying nature and intensity weakening the health systems,
And this had hindered progressive coverage of health services including HIV.
“The HIV treatment cascade is a convenient tool for assessing integrated health service delivery for people living with HIV,” Nganda said in a statement issued in Juba on Saturday, September 15, 2018.
The HIV treatment cascade, also referred to as the HIV care continuum, is a system to monitor the number of individuals living with HIV, who are actually receiving medical care and the treatment they need.
The tool tracks the progress individuals make from the initial diagnosis to achieving a very low level of HIV in the body.
According to WHO currently, a large gap exists between the number of people, who have HIV, those, who are aware of their infection, those receiving effective treatment and those virally suppressed.
“To improve quality of care, address gaps and increase efficiencies along the continuum for better outcomes of treatment, WHO held a five-day training workshop on HIV treatment cascade,” said the UN health agency.
Nganda said health workers including medical doctors and clinical officers, nurses, counselors, pharmacist and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) officers reviewed and identified the HIV care cascades, programmatic gaps and support facilities with practical approaches to strengthening M&E systems.
Victora Achut, National HIV/AIDS Programme Manager, Ministry of health, said the current coverage of services was inadequate, and the rate of expansion is too slow to achieve the 2020 national 90-90-90 targets.
Achut said the ultimate aim of the National HIV treatment programme is for people living with HIV to be virally suppressed.
“For this to happen, people living with HIV need to be diagnosed promptly, linked to care, initiated on antiretroviral treatment (ART) and continuously adhere to medication,” Achut stressed.
The UN Environment on Saturday, September 15, 2018 called on African civil society organisations (CSOs) to help advance essential environmental agenda that are critical to the effective implementation of policies and projects in the field of environment and sustainable development.
Dr. Juliette Biao Koudenoukpo, Director and Regional Representative, Regional Office for Africa UNEP
Juliette Koudenoukpo, Director and Regional Representative at the UN Environment Africa office, said that the CSOs could shape African countries’ innovative solutions to tackle environmental challenges that are facing the society.
“Use your networks and diplomacy to shape the environmental agenda in the continent,” Koudenoukpo said during the opening a two-day African Major Groups and Stakeholders forum in Nairobi.
Koudenoukpo said there was need to move faster from “business as usual” approach and devise ways and means to address issues such as rising energy costs, poverty, environmental degradation, pollution and social inequality.
She said that African continent had the capacity and the knowledge to innovatively overcome environmental challenges.
The UN Environment official noted that Africa needs to invest in innovative solutions to unlock its economic and social potential and create inclusive wealth for the well-being of their populations.
She called on the organisations to engage the youths in changing policy, since they have innovative ideas and initiatives capable of making a difference in transforming societies.
“You represent the many voices of those most likely to be directly affected by environmental crisis and the adverse effects of natural resource degradation,” Koudenoukpo said.
She said that the CSOs have a role in bridging the gap between science and policy and engaging key stakeholders in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s (AU) agenda 2063.
The two-day consultation conference for the African Major Groups and Stakeholders is being held to prepare their inputs for the seventh special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment which starts Monday.
The outcome of the meeting will be a regional statement including key messages by civil society from Africa.
This regional statement will be incorporated into the overall information document comprised all regional statements by civil society and presented as an official preparatory document to the UN Environment Assembly in 2019.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SFG), Mr Boss Mustapha, said on Friday, September 14, 2018 that the government had earmarked N800 million for the execution of ecological projects in Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
Mustapha made the disclosure as the Special Guest of Honour at the 13th Annual General Assembly Public Lecture held at the ABU main campus, Samaru, Zaria, Kaduna State.
The lecture was organised by the ABU Alumni Association.
Mustapha said: “Mr Vice Chancellor, I have good news for you. Under my office as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, we have a department that deals with ecological projects.
“We have undertaken one project here at the second phase, a project that will cost about N800 million has been approved for the university. Of course, it’s time to give back to our alma mater.”
He said as an alumnus of the university, he was highly excited that ABU was rated high among universities on the continent.
The SGF said the success story was made possible, partly by the diligent and focused impact of ABU Alumni Association as well as the contributions of its members.
He said such contributions were for the university and the growth and development of Nigeria.
Mustapha said that during his days in the university, students made friends at very intimate levels without prejudice to the region, religion or ethnic groups they belonged.
“We had genuine relationships that saw us behaving as Nigerian students first before other considerations.
“It is possible to rekindle those feelings and extrapolate same to the national level to enable Nigeria truly achieve a nation devoid of prejudices and other primordial sentiments.
“I make bold to state that the giant strides as well as conscious strategic planning by President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration in this direction in respect of attempt to evolving a true nation among Nigerians is like no other since the return to democracy in 1999.
“The administration, fully conscious of various sociological tendencies that in many African nations resulted in chaos and fiasco, has weathered the tendencies and pulled through despite many attempts to distract the president from delivering his and APC’s campaign promises.”
Mustpha assured students, youths and other Nigerians that the present administration was doing everything possible to ensure a brighter future for the citizens.
In a paper entitled: “Repositioning Education for National Development”, Hadiza Bala Usman, the Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority, appreciated the alumni association for being alive to its responsibilities.
“I want to appreciate the alumni association for continually awakening the consciousness of all students as well as succeeding administrations of the school to the important task of sustaining culture of excellence for which ABU is known within and outside of the country.
“I want to register my desire to improving the standard of Ahmadu Bello University. Education is the reason why we are here today, I am a stakeholder in this aspect.
“I am a child of ABU, whatever I present here is because of the fact that I was nurtured, born and brought up in ABU, it is my desire to see how ABU can be repositioned and indeed education in Nigeria can be repositioned.
“Of course, if the education sector is repositioned it will give us the kind of leadership and government the society deserves,” she said.
The ABU Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, said the university had no choice but to restructure but not in the way that people were calling for restructuring of the country.
“We have restructured and continue to restructure our academic delivery system. Our faculties have before now remained a cage, they have refused to grow and refused to modernise.
“One of the tasks of the success story is really to make sure that our university is competitive on the global scale such that we also give more access to the teaming countries that always solicit coming to this university.
“We have already achieved the restructuring or the break-up of the Faculty of Science into two Faculties now. We used to have a situation where one department in the former Faculty of Science was awarding three degrees.
“And there were quite a few of those departments, now we have Faculty of Physical Sciences and Faculty of Live Science but the biggest is breaking of the long-time standing culture of keeping a small republic called Kongo Campus.”
He said the Accounting Department and Business Administration Department had been moved from Kongo and merged with Economics Department at the main campus to form a brand new “ABU Business School”.
No fewer than 700 houses including large farmlands have been affected by flash floods following heavy rains in parts of Rivers, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Governor of Rivers State
According to Mr Martins Ejike, the Rivers Coordinator, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the flood began since August 2018.
He said that areas affected by flood in the State included Rumukpokwu, Elekohia and Rumueme communities and Mile 4.
Ejike said flash flood ravaged Mile 1, Obiegbo by Pipe line axis, Ahoada farm lands and some villages as well as Aba road by Intel axis.
He said that although no life was lost in the flood, economic activities and farming were affected at ABS Road Axis and Ahoada farmlands.
The coordinator said the State government had constructed drainage on major roadsides for free flow of water while sensitisation effort by NEMA were still ongoing.
According to him, the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) has not been inaugurated by the Rivers government.
He said that what was needed to cushion the effect of the flooding was stockpiling of necessary relief materials.
Ejike advised people living in affected areas to relocate to higher ground for temporary shelters in case of the bigger flood.
No fewer than 35 communities in Etsako East and Etsako Central Local Government Areas of Edo State have been sacked by flood, occasioned by unending rains and overflow of the River Niger.
Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the flood, which displaced over 30,000 people, also damaged hundreds of hectares of farmland across the two council areas.
NAN reports that mostly affected by the flood are communities such as Udaba, Anegbette, Usomegbe, Uduchiz among others, all in Etsako Central Local Government.
Similarly, the flood also sacked the entire six Uneme clans in South East Uneme, Okpekpe, among others, in Etsako East Council area.
The Etsako East council boss, Mr Aremiyau Momoh, and his counterpart in Etsako Central, Mr John Akhigbe, said the disaster had gone beyond the purview of the council areas.
They called for urgent intervention from both the State and the Federal Governments.
The duo said camps for the Internally Displaced Persons had been placed in strategic locations across the council areas.
Akhigbe said aside the Resettlement Camp built aftermath of a similar disaster in 2012; about five other camps are being prepared for the victims.
Similarly, Momoh said six camps had been opened in Etsako East for the same purpose.
“We have tried our best as far as the councils are concerned, we are hoping and appealing to the Federal Government to urgently intervene on this matter,” he said.
In his remarks, the clan Head of Uzanu, South East Uneme in Estako East local government, Benjamin Ikani, also cried out over the sacking of six communities in his domain by flood.
The Monarch said more than 1,700 persons from the six communities are now displaced looking for where to stay.
Ikani listed communities affected by the flood to include Uneme-Ekwuekpele, Uneme-Ogwoyo, Uneme-Ukpeku, Uneme-Ogbethaya, Uneme-Yeluwa and Uneme-Unubu.
He said he relocated some widows, old women and children to Uzanu community to enable the children go to school.
He said the displaced persons had been moved to higher ground at Uneme-Yeluwa waiting for interventions from the state.
Ikani said he has reported the matter to the relevant authorities but was yet to get any help.
He expressed worry over stranded pregnant women that could no longer get access to ante-natal care.
“The flood started last week. You can see the women and children in my palace. Nobody died in the flood, but my people need help.
“The most pathetic situation is the pregnant women because of lack of health care, food stuff, medicine. The people can no longer harvest their crops.
“I brought 18 persons because all of them have left their villages to stay at Uneme-Yeluwa.”
The Kirikasamma Local Government Council in Jigawa State has commenced erection of a sandbag embankment at Marawaji Bridge to save it from imminent collapse.
Gov. Muhammad Badaru of Jigawa State
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the bridge, which connects 20 other communities, is being threatened by flood.
Speaking at the project site on Saturday, September 15, 2018 at Kirikassama, the council’s Chairman, Alhaji Salisu Kubayo, said the council had acquired an excavator, a tipper and over 2000 sacks for the project.
“The release of water from Tiga Dam means that disaster will soon befall us if we do not take urgent measures to prevent this bridge from collapse.
“Due to the high volume of water, it washed away the surface leading to the two entrances to the bridge, making movements of people and vehicles almost impossible.
“We are now building a sandbag embankment to stop the water from going out of its way to destroy the bridge,” he said.
Kubayo, who personally took part in the manual labour, distributed over 1000 sacks to Community Based Organizations (CBO’s) for the construction of river embankments in their various localities.
He advised them to avoid being ravaged by flood like the neighboring communities and urged them to use the sacks for the purpose they were meant.
“Do not divert them for personal use, if you use these sacks judiciously, you will save lives and property in over 30 communities currently at risk of being destroyed by flood in Kirikasamma,” he appealed.
The chairman also advised farmers in the council to ensure that crops ready for harvest were harvested and moved to their homes immediately in order to avoid damages.
In a joint report by the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and Imperial College London, it has been found that the UK could be carbon neutral by 2050.
Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The report states that the UK could cut new emissions of CO2 from 468 million tonnes in 2015 to 130 million tonnes in 2050.
However, the authors of the report say that just reducing emissions will not be enough to become carbon neutral. Instead, they propose that we need to proactively remove CO2 from the atmosphere, this would be set out in a series of “negative emissions” measures.
To ensure they meet this goal, the report finds that the UK could capitalise on a range of proposed techniques such as planting new trees, restoring wetland and forest habitats, and adding nutrients and alkalinity to oceans. These methods increase the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis.
Other methods include bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, which captures CO2 from biomass power plants, transports it to a storage site, and deposits it where it will not enter the atmosphere.
Co-author Professor Nilay Shah, from Imperial’s Department of Chemical Engineering, said: “Using these methods at a large enough scale will be challenging, and will need a concerted effort from engineers, scientists and government. We must act now.”
By removing carbon dioxide emissions, it will help the UK to meet its targets set by the Paris Agreement.
Professor Gideon Henderson, Professor of Earth Science at the University of Oxford and chair of the report working group, said: “If the UK acts now on greenhouse gas removal, we can reach national emissions targets and show how a major industrialised economy can play a leading role in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
Presently, other countries around the world are trying to implement measures to ensure they meet the Paris Agreement goals. However, Australia and North America are currently failing to implement climate policy that will meet the intended targets.
Research from Bath University has revealed that sustainable construction could be a solution to India’s plastic waste crisis.
Dress made from plastics
The study, in partnership with colleagues from Goa Engineering College India, demonstrated that replacing 10 per cent of sand in concrete with plastic waste could simultaneously solve a national sand shortage and reduce the growing amounts of rubbish on the streets.
The team investigated different types of plastic to see if they could be crushed and used as a replacement for sand, which normally accounts for 30 per cent of a concrete mixture.
Five types of plastic particles, including those from recycled plastic bottles and recycled plastic bags, were trialled in the mixes in a variety of sizes. Recycled plastic bottles were found to perform best.
Dr Richard Ball, Co-investigator and Reader in the University of Bath’s Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, said: “Characteristics of the waste being added to the concrete, such as the type of plastic and the size and shape of the particles can all have an influence on the final concrete properties. Even when the reduction in performance prohibits structural applications lower tech uses such as paving slabs may be viable.”
India is a rapidly developing country and this has resulted in a growing waste problem. Currently, 15,000 tonnes of plastic are dumped in the streets everyday due to unsuitable recycling alternatives.
The research has the potential to provide a solution for the plastic waste and for the growing population as the nation continues to develop.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN (FAO) has launched its Country Programming Framework plan for Kenya in the next five years.
Gabriel Rugalema, FAO Representative to Kenya
Gabriel Rugalema, FAO Representative to Kenya, said that during the five-year plan, the UN food agency will place emphasis on agribusiness and value chain, investment and policy environment, natural resource management and resilience in food production.
He said that in the strategic plan, FAO intend to help lives of farmers by encouraging them to grow crops for the market and also linking them to markets as opposed to producing food for consumption only.
“We intend to help transform Kenyan farmers’ mindset towards growing of crops with focus on making profit,” Rugalema said during a meeting with Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi in the coastal town.
The UN official said that investors require an investment and policy environment that could attract them to invest in the country.
He said that in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Bank, some 500,000 dollars has been earmarked to help create a conducive policy environment into attracting investors in agricultural development to the country.
Rugalema added that IFAD has further allocated 66 million dollars for the development of aquaculture in the Kenyan waters.
Rugalema revealed that FAO will put emphasis on climate smart agriculture water harvesting, water management, land digitalisation, support towards the creation of land registry systems and support towards the development of Geographic Information System laboratories in equipment in eight Counties.
“We are also keen at promoting planting of pasture as a commercial enterprise to enable livestock farmers access fodder during dry seasons,” he added.
The official revealed that the new strategy will incorporate issues pertaining to nutrition for the children and also ensuring that foods are preserved during glut periods for use during dry seasons.
“We hope that by the end of the five years, the programs will help improve lives of Kenyan populations especially in rural areas,” he added.
Rugalema encouraged Kenyans to start planting trees as a commercial enterprise adding that majority of Tanzanians are today making thousands of dollars from tree planting alone.
As leaders gather in California this week for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS2018), UN Climate Change is presenting a revamped version of its Climate Action Portal, featuring the accelerated action underway by cities, regions, companies and investors to achieve the collective goals of the Paris Agreement.
Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC
The preview coincides with what has been dubbed “the biggest moment for climate action since the Paris Agreement”, to highlight progress being made around the five”: Healthy Energy Systems, Inclusive Economic Growth, Land and Ocean Stewardship, Sustainable Communities and Transformative Investments.
Key commitments in these five areas were presented at the end of the Global Climate Action Summit on Friday, September 14, 2018, and by the New York Climate Week in a fortnight, UN Climate Change will have uploaded all the actions under each of these five areas to the area, effectively serving as the legacy tool for the Summit.
The energy and momentum emerging from GCAS2018 can help set the stage for the next steps in the international climate change process, starting with the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice this December (COP24).
Originally called the “NAZCA Portal” – named after the ancient lines in Peru and launched by the Peruvian Government back in 2014 – the Climate Action portal was subsequently enshrined in the text of the Paris Agreement as the official portal to showcase the contributions of the so-called “non-Party stakeholders”.
The new design and improved usability of the website – centred around an interactive map – offers an improved visualisation of the overall data and enhanced aggregation of climate action based on constituencies and sectors.
The update also represents a unique collaboration between UN Climate Change and its core data partners who have been working tirelessly to harvest and consolidate the climate commitments and actions of non-Party stakeholders (cities, regions, businesses and investors): CDP, Carbon Climate Registry, Climate Initiative Bonds, Cooperative Initiative Platform, Global Covenant of Mayors, Investors on Climate Change, The Climate Group, and UN Global Compact.
Recent studies have underscored the vital role that these actors are playing to reduce global emissions and, in doing so, to create persistent momentum towards the Secretary-General’s 2019 Climate Summit. Specifically, some studies suggest that, by 2030, global greenhouse gas emissions could be lowered by as much as 1.5 to 2.2 gigatons (CO2e) every year if the commitments from nearly 6,000 cities, states, regions and over 2,000 companies are fully implemented.
The portal will therefore serve a critical function by capturing the breadth and depth of this action from the “real world” economy, gradually incorporating new data over the coming months from more than 12,000 stakeholders, and capturing many more commitments going forward.
This can encourage governments to raise ambition as they prepare for COP24 in Poland in December of this year and for the next round of climate action plans under the Paris Agreement in 2020.
NAZCA was launched by the Peruvian Presidency of the UN Climate Change Conference COP20, alongside the Lima Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) in 2014. It was a central tool for the LPAA and the French Presidency to build momentum and support the adoption of the universal climate agreement at COP21 in 2015.
This culminated with its inclusion in the Paris Agreement outcome where countries welcomed the efforts of these actors to scale up their climate actions and encouraged the registration of these actions on NAZCA, which UN Climate Change says will continue to play a key role in providing visibility and tracking the diversity of climate action and mobilising broader engagement to help countries achieve and exceed their national commitments.
