Zamalek coach, Mohammed Helmy, has warned his players not to jubilate yet, as they still have the second leg CAF Champions League against Enugu Rangers of Nigeria at the Nnamdi Azikwe Stadium.
The Egyptian giants on Sunday, March 12 2017 fought their way to an epic 4-1 win over Enugu Rangers at the Cairo International Stadium.
Despite the comfortable lead, Coach Helmy urged his side to maintain concentration ahead of the second leg so that they can be sure of their place in the group phase.
“The second leg requires more concentration to guarantee the qualification to the next round, as we have not qualified yet,” he said.
He, however, thanked the players for showing great quality and massive responsibility against Rangers.
Bobby Clement’s strike proved a mere consolation as goals from Stanley Ohawuchi, Ayman Hefny, Hossam Paulo and Mostafa Fathi tamed the Flying Antelopes at the Cairo Stadium.
Rangers Coach, Imama Amapakabo, needs his players to score three unreplied goals to reach the next round.
Deputy United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed, has called on the youth to be the world’s change agent and torchbearer.
Deputy United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Amina J. Mohammed, speaking at the Youth Forum at the 61st Session on Commission on Status of Women (CSW61) in New York
She made the request in a presentation at the weekend during the Youth Forum at the 61st Session on Commission on Status of Women (CSW61) holding in New York, USA. The CSW61 holds from Monday, March 13 to Friday, March 24 2017.
“Fine words do not produce food,” she says, adding: “I am counting on youth to be the change agents and torchbearers our world so desperately needs.”
While demanding an all-encompassing participation in development affairs, she submits: “We will never achieve 100% of our goals if we exclude 50% of our population.”
“Everyone has a journey, every step matters. All experiences strengthen you and others,” she charges the youths, adding: “My job description is simple: to build a world where every girl and boy has the tools and support to make their dreams a reality.”
Amina Mohammed with participants at the Youth Forum at the 61st Session on Commission on Status of Women (CSW61)
The Youth Forum at the CSW61 is seen as a critical opportunity for young people and adolescents in all their diversities to convene in advance of the official opening of CSW to amplify their common concerns and advocacy efforts.
According to the UN, “the Youth Forum is a safe space for young people, particularly young women and girls, to openly, and strategically discuss the challenges and opportunities in their local, national, regional and global contexts in accelerating progress to achieve gender equality and sustainable development.”
Renewable energy supplies are great because they produce power without filling the air with pollution. Yet, once the sun goes down solar panels become pretty useless. But Tesla and Hawaii have a solution that’ll use the sun’s rays both day and night using Powerpacks built at the Gigafactory.
Solar panels at the Tesla Powerpack station on the island of Kauai in Hawaii
The Kapaia project is a combination 13MW SolarCity solar farm and 53MWh Tesla Powerpack station on the island of Kauai. In partnership with the KIUC (Kauai Island Utility Cooperative) the project will store the sun’s energy during the day and release it at night. The station (along with Kauai’s other renewable resource solutions including wind and biomass) won’t completely keep the island from using fossil fuels but it will temper the need.
In addition to using Tesla’s station to battle the island’s incredibly high electric bills, it’s also part of a long-term Hawaii-state plan to be completely powered by renewable energy sources by 2045. Kauai has its own goal of using 70 percent renewable energy by 2030. With this project the island is getting closer to that goal and can now produce 100 percent of the energy it needs during high usage mid days and low loads via renewables during a brief period of time.
“This is the first time that solar energy can be delivered very reliably into the night. That’s the key to scaling renewable energies up,” said Tesla CTO, JB Straubel.
The island state doesn’t have the benefit of a massive grid like the mainland to pull electricity from sources hundreds of miles away. Instead each island has to take care of its own energy solutions.
According to Tesla and the KIUC, the 45 acre Kapaia project will reduce the use of fossil fuels by 1.6 million gallons a year.
This is the first big project from Tesla and SolarCity since the acquisition. Both companies believe this station is the biggest combination solar panel and storage facility in the world. With approximately 55,000 solar cells spread over about 45 acres, it’ll be tough to find anything larger.
Mayor of Kabul, Abdullah Habibzai, has launched the ground activities for citywide cleaning, greening and beautification services in Nahias 1 and 2. These activities are part of the Clean and Green Cities Programme which will implement area-based upgrading and citywide services in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The programme is a labour intensive services delivery aimed at stimulating and creating jobs in the market. The event was organised at the Kabul Municipality.
Mayor of Kabul, Abdullah Habibzai, launches the programme with over 200 workers. USAID representatives, Nahias Heads, Nahia Development Committee members, representatives of government authorities, and UN-Habitat team attended the event
The Clean and Green Cities Programme (CGC) will implement city cleaning, greening and beautification activities in 10 cities in Afghanistan. In Kabul, five types of activities have been identified in consultation with the community and Kabul Municipality.
These are: (i) Solid waste collection from households to collection points located in the Nahia, (ii) Tree Planting, (iii) Street sweeping, (iv) Curbs painting, and (v) Cleaning roadside ditches.
The CGC Programme will cover a total of 15 Nahias, including Nahia 1 to 17, with the exception of Nahias 11 and 15, over a 12-month duration. These municipal services will be delivered regularly based on a minimum performance standard, as agreed by the Kabul Municipality and Nahia members. These activities will be delivered by empowering the local communities in planning and service delivery in coordination with the Municipality. To this end, Nahia Development Committees have been established to deliver the activities within their respective geographical boundaries.
Speaking at the function, the mayor said, “The strategic priority of Municipality is to keep the city clean and green, Clean and Green cities (CGC) programme by assistance of USAID, EU and UN-Habitat starts its activities on ground. CGC will focus on sweeping streets, cleaning canals, greening and beautification of cities.”
The pilot programme in Nahias 1 and 2 will generate over 200 full-time unskilled jobs or 50,000 job days, for the target beneficiaries consisting of unemployed urban poor, IDPs and returnees, women, among others from the local community. In addition to the ground activities, a communications campaign will be prepared and launched to build community awareness towards Clean and Green Cities.
A female worker in the city, Fahia, captured the frustration of those working towards a cleaner Kabul when she said, “One of our major problem is hugeness of solid waste in city. For prevention of diseases, these solid wastes should move from the city.”
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has picked Nigeria youth campaigner and digital media expert, Olumide Idowu, to Manage Social Media and Communications during the upcoming ADEA Triennale 2017 in Senegal later this month. He will support the Social Media and Communications team of Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) in Senegal.
Olumide Idowu
The ADEA Triennale (formerly Biennale) is said to be one of the most important global events on education and training in Africa, not only for the content of the discussions but also for the quality of the analytical work and high level participants invited. It brings together heads of state, a significant number of African government ministers of education and training (and ministers in charge of other sectors like youth, labour and SMEs), representatives of development cooperation agencies supporting education in Africa and practitioners and researchers. Representatives of civil society, youth, private sector and other stakeholders such as diaspora are also invited.
The theme of the 2017 Triennale is: “Revitalising education towards the 2030 Global Agenda and Africa’s Agenda 2063.”
Its general objective is to provide the opportunity for the various stakeholders to share experiences and to collectively design strategies, modalities, conditions and factors for the operationalisation and implementation of the Education Framework for Action under the global and continental frameworks.
The sub-themes are: Implementing Education and Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development; Promoting Science, Mathematics and ICT; Implementing Education for African Cultural Renaissance and Pan-African Ideals; and, Building Peace and Global Citizenship through Education.
In preparing for the Triennale, ADEA seeks to ensure the ownership of the process by African countries and education stakeholders through active involvement in the diagnosis, design, implementation, evaluation and review phases.
Idowu has over 10 years of experience working on Social Media, Environment, Climate Change, Monitoring & Evaluation and Sustainable Development issues. He is a climate change policy expert and trainer with extensive experience in creating, facilitating and managing youth-led projects. He has represented Nigeria and Africa at over 10 high-level global governance meetings on sustainable development.
He is the co-founder of Climate Wednesday, a non-for-profit outfit which seeks to identify key climate-based issues affecting developments especially in Nigeria and Africa in general. He is currently leading the Youth Advocacy efforts on Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Africa. He presently serves as the Senior Communication Officer for African Youth Initiative on Climate Change and a volunteer to Save the Children Nigeria on Advocacy and Campaign.
Borno State in northeast Nigeria has recorded its first Lassa fever outbreak in almost five decades. The last confirmed outbreak of the deadly disease was in 1969. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that it is supporting the government to contain the outbreak in an area of the country which is already coping with a humanitarian crisis resulting from years of conflict.
The Lassa virus is transmitted to humans via contact with food or household items contaminated with specific rodent urine or faeces
Commissioner for Health, Dr. Haruna Mshelia, said recently that the case, which was isolated from a middle-aged woman from Zabramarri village near Maiduguri, was the first confirmed outbreak of Lassa fever in the state in 48 years.
In order to contain the outbreak, the WHO emergency humanitarian health team in the state has taken a number of actions. This includes rapid training on clinical case management, contact tracing, mobilising a network of healthcare workers at the hospital, and building public awareness.
Fifty-four people who had contact with the index case have been identified and will be monitored for 21 days, according to WHO protocols, to ensure that any Lassa fever-related incidence is immediately contained.
In addition, WHO says it has provided the State Ministry of Health and the hospitals with personal protection equipment including gloves, boots, goggles and masks, decontamination supplies, infrared thermometers as well as medical and laboratory supplies.
Lassa fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic illness of two to 21 days incubation period that occurs in West Africa including Nigeria. The Lassa virus is transmitted to humans via contact with food or household items contaminated with specific rodent (multimamate) urine or faeces. Person-to-person infections and laboratory transmission can also occur by body fluid contacts, particularly in hospitals lacking adequate infection prevention and control measures.
From Fiji to Fort Worth and Fortaleza to Freiburg, UN to spotlight role of arts and culture in climate action
UNFCCC spokesperson, Nick Nuttall (middle), with Julie’s Bicycle CEO, Alison Tickell (right) and a representative of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group at the Salzburg Global Seminar
Effective from Friday, March 10 2017, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be shining a weekly spotlight on arts and cultural responses to climate change and global efforts to take action. The UN body in return expects feedbacks in respect of innovative and cutting edge projects.
Across the globe the arts and cultural community has been rising to the challenge of climate change: turning venues and events into laboratories for sustainable living; policymakers working with artists, audiences and consumers campaigning for change; cultural leaders speaking out; and artists producing work that speaks to the heart.
The UNFCCC states that human beings live by values shaped through culture, communities, and experiences, adding that policy is increasingly recognising the importance of culture to sustainable development.
“Who we identify with, how our values are expressed, and how we ‘feel’ about the world are all critical triggers for change. The creative community, existing as it does at the heart of culture, has a particular part to play.”
The organisation believes highlighting creative responses to climate change will provide a vital way to set the scene as nations work to implement their commitments under the Paris Climate Change Agreement and as it prepares for the next annual UN climate conference taking place in Bonn, Germany in November 2017 under the Presidency of the Pacific small island of Fiji.
Mr Nuttall says: “Art and cultural works, from painting and sculpture to theatre, music and poetry have the unique power to shift perceptions and provide emotional connections to complex issues that are facing communities and countries world-wide”.
“There can be few subjects as complex and as challenging as the existential threat of climate change, but we need the arts to shape the discourse and provide new impulses for action. For it is the decisions taken today by governments but also individuals, cities and companies that will echo down the centuries, defining the lives of billions of people alive today and many more who are yet to be born,” he adds.
UNFCCC points out that it is looking for creative responses to climate change to be featured on its website in a weekly feature. “Send 100 words briefly outlining the project, how it is addressing climate change, and what the impact has been, along with any images and weblinks to us. Chosen stories will be contacted and asked for a 200 to 500-word write-up to be shaped together with the UNFCCC communications team,” it concludes.
A nine-year revitalisation process for the Convention for Cooperation in the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Atlantic Coast of the West, Central and Southern Africa Region (otherwise known as the Abidjan Convention) will effectively come to an end in a couple of weeks’ time.
L-R: 1. Mr. Abou Bamba (Executive Secretary of the Abidjan Convention / UN Environment), Mrs Anne Désirée Ouloto (Ivorian Minister of Salubrity, Environment and Sustainable Development) and Mrs Angèle Luh (Head of West Africa Sub-regional Office, UN Environment), at a media session in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on Thursday, March 9 2017
At the 12th Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP12) to the Abidjan Convention scheduled to hold from Monday, March 27 to Friday March 31 2017 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the Convention’s active phase will henceforth become operational.
With the theme “Integrated oceans management policies in Africa”, COP12 will in short ensure the commencement of the implementation of the Convention and its protocols.
Indeed, the event’s importance was highlighted by the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at a media session in Abidjan on Thursday, March 9 2017.
“Abidjan is set to become the epicentre of the debate on the Southeast Atlantic Ocean and adjoining coastal areas when Parties to the Abidjan Convention meet for their 12th Conference, which is a major event in the life of the Convention,” noted the Convention’s Executive Secretary, Abou Bamba. “It will mark the end of the Convention’s revitalisation phase. You could say that it will signal a new start, a new take-off.”
Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Sanitation, Environment and Sustainable Development, Anne Désirée Ouloto, stressed that “the Abidjan Convention is vitally important to Côte d’Ivoire”.
“It is in Abidjan that the convention was signed 36 years ago,” she recalled. “It is here that its headquarters is located; but, above all, the themes it refers to are extremely relevant to Côte d’Ivoire and its people,” she added, highlighting issues such as coastal erosion and land-based pollution, while encouraging the media to play their part in educating the public and raising its awareness on issues related to the marine and coastal environment.
Both the Executive Secretary of the Convention, whose secretariat is provided by UN Environment (UNEP), and the Environment Minister stressed that the marine and coastal environment does not only present challenges, but also offers opportunities. Citing the example of the hundreds of kilometers of lagoons in Côte d’Ivoire – which are being cleaned under an ongoing sanitation plan – they urged the young people in particular to take advantage of the economic prospects that the sustainable use of this type of natural coastal resources can offer.
Ratified in 1984, the Abidjan Convention covers a geographic area that comprises 22 countries, 19 of which have already ratified it. According to UNEP, it constitutes a unique institutional referential framework for all initiatives linked to the protection and conservation of the marine and coastal environment along Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, and to the sustainable development of the area’s resources.
A revitalisation process that began in 2008 has, besides the transfer of the Convention’s headquarters from Nairobi to Abidjan, seen the updating of its fundamental texts as well as the strengthening of collaboration with an increased number of partners.
The Conference of Parties (COP), the Convention’s highest decision-making body, meets every two to three years. Its 12th edition, according to the organisers, will bring together participants from the world over, including scientists and representatives of inter-governmental organisations, United Nations agencies and environmental NGOs, in addition to the delegations representing the Parties.
“It will also be attended by representatives of communities affected by the various phenomena – including coastal erosion, unplanned coastal urbanisation and marine pollution – and in some cases involved in the search for solutions,” disclosed Mr Bamba.
The Conference will begin with an expert segment from 27 to 29 March, followed by the ministerial conference on 30 and 31 March.
Parallel to the official discussions, there will be debates on specific themes such as aquatic wild meat, coastal erosion, lagoons, oil and gas, clean energy and the blue economy, as well as exhibition stands in which organisations and institutions will present their activities to the public.
Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, has disclosed that the Federal Government will power nine universities in the country with solar energy under efforts to ensure a clean and healthy environment through the issuance of sovereign green bonds.
Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril
The minister made the submission on Thursday, March 9 2017 when he paid a working visit to the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) Solar Energy Ltd (NSEL) Plant located in Karshi, Abuja.
Jibril described the decision to power the tertiary institutions with solar energy as a laudable development which, according to him, is in line with the nation’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) that aims at reducing carbon emissions in line with global best practices.
According to the minister, his visit to the solar energy plant was to identify with as well as offer the ministry’s support to the local manufacturing company in the production of solar panel. He stressed that renewable energy is a critical focus of the soon-to-be-launched green bond project.
He further maintained that solar energy would encourage the use of local content which will in turn help the country to save foreign exchange as well as create employment for the teeming youths.
Conducting the minister on a facility tour of the plant, Executive Vice Chairman of NASENI Solar Energy Ltd, Prof, Mohammed Sanni Haruna, noted that the plant was the first Solar PV Module/Solar Panel manufacturing company in Nigeria.
He also revealed that the plant has a 7.5MW capacity and it can produce all sizes and capacities of Solar PV module.
Haruna explained that NASENI Solar Energy Ltd was established by the Federal Government to primarily reduce cost of quality solar panel by producing solar panels that are 100% made in Nigeria.
He further said that the company’s products can compete favourably with any imported solar panel in Nigeria.
