Authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C will meet from Monday, March 6 to Friday, March 10 2017 in São Paulo, Brazil, for the First Lead Author Meeting of the Special Report. The meeting, involving 86 scientific, technical and socio-economic experts from 39 countries, initiates work on the Special Report, which will be completed in September 2018.
The meeting for the report, whose full title is “Global Warming of 1.5ºC, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty”, is holding courtesy of an invitation of the government of Brazil through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
“This Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC enhances the policy relevance of the IPCC, and marks the start of the most ambitious climate assessment cycle undertaken by the IPCC since its inception in 1988,” said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee. “The IPCC continues to accomplish the assessment of our understanding of climate change with scientific rigour, robustness and transparency, thanks to the continued engagement and commitment of the international climate research community.”
The experts have the task of initiating the best and most comprehensive assessment of the status of knowledge on the climate system with respect to a warming of 1.5ºC. The report will assess the impacts of a global warming of 1.5°C on both human and natural environments, as well as study current and emerging adaptation and mitigation options and their linkages with sustainable development, poverty eradication, and reducing inequalities.
During the first of four lead author meetings, the chapter teams will identify key issues, design an outline of each chapter, discuss options for treating cross-cutting topics between chapters and other IPCC products, and plan the author team’s work in preparing the draft chapter content.
The Special Report is being prepared in response to an invitation from the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2015 in Paris, France. The outline of the report was developed at the scoping meeting last year and agreed by the IPCC member governments in October 2016.
The IPCC is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in 1988 to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. It has 195 member states.
To complement its N7 billion Surgical and Diagnostic Centre (SDC) currently under construction, the Dangote Foundation has concluded the renovations of some sections of the Murtala Muhammed Specialists’ Hospital, Kano which gulped over N200 million.
Murtala Muhammed Specialists’ Hospital, Kano
The 900-bed capacity hospital, reputed for highest number of in-patients in sub-Saharan Africa has been lacking facilities that may detract from the new SDC being built by the Foundation, hence the decision to carry out the construction and renovation of the auxiliary facilities.
The Foundation is currently building a N7 billion Surgical and Diagnostic Centre at the hospital and the Foundation whose Chairman is from the state, said it was committed to its timely completion.
The Foundation handed over to the hospital management a renovated maternity ward, two ultra-modern maternity laboratories, upgraded water supply system Eclampsia ward, theatre and improved sanitary environment befitting of a specialist hospital.
President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, who was represented by his daughter, Hajiya Fatima Dangote, explained that the provision of the health care facilities was in line with the focus of the Foundation to contribute to improved health care service delivery in Nigeria as well as nutrition on the African continent.
He stated that his Foundation has mandate to intervene in the critical areas such as health, education and human development which was why the Foundation has also embarked on some poverty alleviation programmes targeted at women at the grassroots.
Kano State governor, who was represented by his deputy, Hafis Abubakar, expressed the state’s gratitude to Dangote Foundation for coming to the aid of the state in the task of provision of sound health care to the people of the state.
He urged other public spirited individual and organisations to rise up and partner with the state government orts at making life more meaningful to the people saying government alone could not provide all that the people need.
The Deputy Governor then called on the staff of the hospital to make judicious use of the facilities and maintain them like their personal property so that they can serve the people for a long time.
The state Commissioner for Health, Kabiru Getso, said the Murtala Mohammed Specialist hospital Kano, was established about 92 years ago and is one of the biggest facilities in Africa; with the maternity ward alone recording no fewer than 2,000 deliveries monthly.
Head of Medical laboratory of the hospital, Magaji Minjibir, said the intervention by Dangote Foundation was timely as, according to him, the state of the hospital has been appalling.
He added that the hospital’s laboratory has suffered congestion and the hospital generally bedeviled with many infrastructural challenges.
“At the Chemical pathology, we had to wait for our equipment to cool down before we process results. The Histology department had to stop work temporarily. Our authoclave is about 15 years old and outdated. We have only one microscope and this cannot cater for our teaming patients while lab staffers take turns to perform tests and this delays result especially for patients in emergency cases,” Minjibir stated.
The Matron in charge of Maternity ward, Hauwa Mansur Waziri, who also spoke on the pitiable situation of the hospital before the Dangote Foundation’s intervention, said the new facilities will go a long way in improving services and saving more lives.
“There is no doubt that our staff will now be motivated by the conducive environment made possible by the Foundation. They can now perform their duties free of so many hazards. The wards now have bright light, functional tools, water and toilets. All these would enhance condition of patients and help healing process,” she stated.
The northern hemisphere is experiencing a much earlier spring due to global warming, causing problems for plants and wildlife as the natural cycle goes out of sync.
Early spring blossom is said to be a sign of climate change
The evidence comes from those silent witnesses, the natural things that respond to climate signals. The relatively new science of phenology – the calendar record of first bud, first flower, first nesting behaviour and first migrant arrivals – has over the last three decades repeatedly confirmed meteorological fears of global warming as a consequence of the combustion of fossil fuels.
Researchers say the evidence from the plant world is consistent with the instrumental record: 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded, and it was the third record-breaking year in succession. Sixteen of the hottest years ever recorded have happened in the 21st century.
Arctic spring
And the most dramatic changes are observed in the high Arctic, the fastest-warming place on the planet, according to a study in Biology Letters. As the polar sea ice retreats, the growing season gets ever longer – and arrives earlier.
The pattern is not consistent: grey willow sticks to its original timetable, and dwarf birch growth has advanced about five days earlier for each decade. But the sedge, almost four weeks ahead of its timetable in a decade, holds the record, according to a study that observed one plot at a field site in West Greenland, 150 miles inland, for 12 years.
“When we started studying this, I never would have imagined we’d be talking about a 26-day per decade rate of advance,” says Eric Post, a polar ecologist at the University of California Davis department of wildlife, fish and conservation biology, who has been studying the Arctic for 27 years.
Caribou come to the study site during the calving season, to graze on the rich plant life of the brief Arctic summer. The caribou set their migration calendar by day-length. But some of the plants prefer to respond to temperature, which means that by the time the caribou arrive, the plants have flourished and the pickings are not as nutritious. So fewer calves are born and more die.
“That’s one example of the consequences of this for consumer species like caribou, who have a limited window to build up resources before going into the next winter,” Dr Post says. “With the most recent study, we’re taking a step towards understanding how extensive and cryptic the effects of sea ice loss might be in the Arctic.”
And, once again, an early spring doesn’t mean a sunnier, kinder world for everybody. Ticks and mosquitoes become more active, pollen seasons last longer. Crops could flourish – or be at risk from a sudden late frost or summer drought.
Plants could bloom before the arrival of the birds, bees and butterflies that feed on and pollinate the flowers, with consequences for both the plant and the pollinator.
“While these earlier springs might not seem like a big deal – and who among us doesn’t appreciate a balmy day or a break in dreary winter weather – they pose significant challenges for planning and managing important issues that affect our economy and our society,” says one of the authors of the report, Dr Jake Weltzin, a USGS ecologist and national director of the USA National Phenology Network.
By Tim Radford (Founding editor, Climate News Network
The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) has expressed concern over the increasing menace of sand mining and dredging in parts of Lagos State, describing it as a “disastrous” venture.
Sand mining
The organisation has thus called on the relevant government agencies to urgently curb the menace before it gets out of hand.
Sand mining is the process of removal of sand and gravel from a particular location, essentially for the construction of buildings and roads. The Lagos-based environment watchdog believes that, as the demand for sand increases in the construction industry, the act is increasingly becoming an environmental issue.
In a statement made available to EnviroNews on Thursday, March 2, 2017, Director General of the NCF, Adeniyi Karunwi, was quoted as saying: “The construction industry is one sector that has created huge opportunities for both skilled and unskilled labour in Lagos. But this, no doubt, has led to an increase in sand mining activities in parts of the state, with its attendant environmental and economic consequences. Continued dredging in the state’s shorelines has been described as an illegal activity capable of causing major environmental challenges for Lagos in its bid for sustainability.”
Describing environmental impacts of sand mining and dredging as disastrous, he pointed out that soil erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of bio-diversity, soil contamination resulting from leakages of chemicals into the soil, deforestation, coastal erosion and loss of aquatic lives are possible effects of dredging and mining.
“For instance, dredging in some places has been largely responsible for the loss of breeding habitats for sea turtles, which depend on sandy beaches for their nesting and other biodiversity. The demand for sand for the construction of roads and buildings has increased sand mining and dredging leading to a high demand for low-cost sand.”
The conservationist noted that a recent biodiversity survey by a team of ornithologists along the lagoon in Lagos State (from Sangotedo to Badagry) showed an unprecedented proliferation of dredging activities, a situation he believes may be lacking in regulation and coordination.
He added: “Such un-coordinated activities by miners and dredgers are capable of causing great depths of almost six metres in the seabed, as reflected in the Banana Island to Third Mainland Bridge axis reported by the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR). The report further noted that depth was noticed in some of the areas where the Institute carried out the research.
“It is therefore in the light of the foregoing, that NCF is calling on the relevant government agencies responsible for stemming this increasing tide of sand mining and dredging, to put a halt to it before it becomes a monster that would eventually consume us.”
With a month to go this fiscal year, Japan’s installation of new wind power capacity in 2016-17 is set to come in almost double that of the previous 12 months, propelled by higher tariffs guaranteed by Tokyo and a rising number of offshore wind farms.
Wind energy: An offshore wind farm
Japan is set to add 300 megawatts of wind capacity – enough to power more than 100,000 average homes – in the 12 months through March, Japan’s Wind Power Association said in a study released late last month. Some 157 megawatts of wind power were installed in the previous year.
The agency didn’t estimate how much has been invested in the new turbines, but the figures underline the pace of wind power’s development in Japan since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 triggered a drive to develop new energy sources.
The country relied on nuclear power for 30 percent of its electricity supply before a massive earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima-Daiichi plant and brought the shutdown of reactors across Japan.
“The projects that started environmental assessments at the end of last year exceeded 10 gigawatts,” the association said in the study. “If these projects go smoothly, it is possible that achieving the 10 gigawatt capacity is quite possible in the early 2020s.”
A capacity of 10 gigawatts would be triple the nearly 3.4 gigawatts that the wind power association estimates will be installed in Japan by end-March.
While that 3.4 gigawatts represent just 1.5 percent of the country’s overall installed capacity – and solar power accounts for more than 90 percent of Japan’s renewable capacity – the wind industry is betting on strong growth to continue.
The association projects wind power capacity is set to rise more than tenfold to 36.2 gigawatts by 2030, depending on environmental assessments and acceptable grid capacity.
A major factor behind this year’s surge came last May, when the government relaxed rules for building turbines offshore in the country’s harbors and ports.
Wind operators also still benefit for comparatively higher prices for their power under a feed-in-tariff scheme introduced in 2012, where certain renewable suppliers get guaranteed rates based on source of input.
But Tokyo’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will cut the feed-in-tariff for large wind power projects to 21 yen per 1 kWh from October 1 in the business year starting in April from 22 yen now, taking into account a decline in costs over time. The rate for offshore wind power was kept at 36 yen.
Wind operators in Japan have long complained about the country’s requirement for environmental impact studies that can take as long as five years to complete, as well as other impediments to investment.
To accelerate renewable schemes, METI and the Environment Ministry have now teamed up with the aim of halving the time it takes for environmental assessments for wind and geothermal projects.
Youth campaigner and digital specialist, Olumide Idowu, has emerged as Organising Committee Member for 7th Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Mexico. He will lead the Social Media team for the upcoming United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Global Platform on DRR in Mexico to represent the Youth and Children in Mexico.
Olumide Idowu
The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction is the world’s foremost gathering on reducing disaster risk and building the resilience of communities and nations, the Global Platform for Disaster Reduction was first held in 2007. It takes place every two years, with the 2015 edition rolled into the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. Its fifth session will be held in May 2017 in Mexico.
Mr Idowu, a Nigerian, will be coordination the social media strategies for the Youths and Children group under United Nations with some other youths around the world. He is also the only person selected from Africa.
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 development 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 served as the Senior Communication Officer for African Youth Initiative on Climate Change and consultant to Save the Children Nigeria on Advocacy and Campaign.
It was all smiles at the Stamford Bridge stadium in London on Wednesday, March 1 2017 when Super Eagles striker, Victor Moses, extended his contact by two years with Premier League leader, Chelsea.
Victor Moses
The new extended contact is worth £75,000-a-week, which is a significant pay rise to his previous £45,000-a-week wages, after becoming a crucial member of Antonio Conge’s table-topping team. The contract ends 2021.
Moses has performed superbly at right-back, following Conte’s successful switch to a 3-4-3 formulation that transformed Chelsea’s season.
The 26-year-old was sent on loan for three successive seasons by former manager José Mourinho, to Liverpool, Stoke City and West Ham United, having joined Chelsea from Wigan in 2012.
An elated Moses said: “I’ve always wanted to play for this big club, it’s one of the best clubs in the world at the moment and I ‘m enjoying every single minute.”
Chelsea technical director, Michael Emenalo, said:” We are extremely pleased Victor has chosen to extend his contract with us. He is enjoying an excellent season and, under Antonio’s leadership, has proved to be an important member of the squad.”
Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, on Wednesday, March 1 2017 signed the Environmental Management and Protection Bill into law, expressing optimism that it would go a long way to secure the public health safety of residents, most especially children.
Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode (middle), signing the Environmental Management and Protection bill into Law, at the Banquet Hall, Lagos House, Ikeja, on Wednesday, March 1, 2017. (L-R) With him are Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare; Deputy Governor, Dr. (Mrs) Oluranti Adebule; Chairman, House Committee on Environment, Dayo Fafunmi and Special Adviser to the Governor on Civic Engagement, Mr. Kehinde Joseph.
Governor Ambode, who spoke shortly after signing the Environmental Management and Protection Bill into law at the Lagos House in Ikeja, said that his administration, on assumption of office, saw the need to address the gap in the sanitation of residents and the state.
He said it was disconcerting to see that dysentery and other pandemics were on the rise with serious implications for the state’s public health expenditure, adding that the government thought it wise to tackle the root cause of the problem rather than spend excessively on treating preventable hygiene based diseases.
According to him, the major motivating factor outside of the financial burden was the fact that children were the greatest casualties of the poor management of the environment, hence the need for the initiative.
Alluding to the fact that majority of the state’s environmental laws were outdated and could no longer apply to the present-day conditions, the governor said the government immediately swung into action and began efforts to develop a model in which sanitation is paramount.
“While charting a new direction, it became quickly apparent that government on its own would struggle to bear the cost of the wholesale changes while meeting its other obligations across other equally vital sectors.
“It was necessary to make investor friendly laws that attract the type of capital we need to further our development agenda and achieve our sustainability goals. We believe it is worth the risk involved in changing the legislative framework if the reward is a healthier and cleaner Lagos for our children – our future,” the governor said.
Governor Ambode said that, under the Cleaner Lagos Initiative, the commercial sector would be serviced by licensed waste management operators while an environmental consortium will provide waste collection, processing and disposal services for residential properties through a long term concession.
He said over the concession period, the consortium would be deploying a large multi-dimensional fleet of over 20 landfill and transfer loading station management vehicles, 590 new rear-end loader compactors, 140 Operational vehicles and close to 900,000 new bins to all be electronically tracked and monitored by our new unit PUMAU (Public Utilities Monitoring Assurance Unit) under the Ministry of Environment.
Governor Ambode also added that aside the fact that the initiative would create at least 27,500 jobs, the Community Sanitation Workers (CSW) who would be engaged will receive several incentives including tax reliefs and healthcare, life, injury and accident insurance benefits all aimed at tackling the issue of poverty and the chronic unemployment crisis.
“Everyone from the cart pushers to the existing PSPs and casual workers at the dumpsites have been considered in the plan and will be accommodated within the new environmental regime. In addition, we are extending opportunities to everyone along the value chain by working to create vocational training in the related areas through LASTVEB,” he said.
Giving details of the law, the Governor said that sanitation will now be a daily affair in the state while the CSWs would be deployed in every ward across the state.
He also said that an annual Public Utility Levy (PUL) would be introduced to replace all service fees previously paid to the Waste Management authorities, adding that the public was carried along in determining the rates, which according to him is relatively low.
“The PUL will be a major contribution to the state’s ongoing efforts to address severe challenges that are unique to Lagos because of rising urbanisation. The money will be held in the Environmental Trust Fund and managed meticulously by a Board of SEC regulated trustees.
“The trustees are under strict obligations to the people of Lagos and will be accountable to the people for every naira we spend in line with our overall environmental agenda. Compliance is the key. The burden of the cost of providing these services will remain low if everyone does their part and pays their PUL.
“With the newly positioned LASECORPS, we will work within the community to enforce the new laws. The state will have a zero-tolerance policy for offenders because simply put, disregarding payment of your PUL or flouting the new regulations ultimately promotes activities that lead to the loss of lives,” Governor Ambode said.
Earlier, the Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on the Environment, Saka Fafunmi, commended the governor for his passion to evolve the environmental laws in the State, saying that the Law would ensure a cleaner, safer and more prosperous Lagos.
In support of Federal Government’s efforts towards addressing youth unemployment, the Bank of Industry (BOI) is to provide financial support to one million Nigerian youths with innovative business ideas, to help them become entrepreneurs instead of job seekers.
At a news briefing in Lagos, the Acting Managing Director of BOI, Waheed Olagunji, said that under the initiative known as “Youths Ignite Project”, beneficiaries between 18 and 35 years of age would receive funding continuously for five years.
Correspondent Innocent Onoh was there and now reports.
Following an address to the 2017 ECOSOC Segment on Operational Activities for Development, UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, in New York on Tuesday, February 28 2017 encountered with the press, where she shed some light on what is expected of her as an assistant to António Guterres, the Secretary-General
Amina Mohammed delivering a speech
Amina Mohammed: I am delighted to be here. My first interaction is coming, of course, off the back of the ECOSOC segment and that is so important to us given the thrust of the reform and the development agenda. I look forward to my time here, working and interacting closely with you. Great privilege to return to New York, again, I have to say today, incredibly humbled by the weight and expectations of the Secretary-General (SG) and myself in support of him to actualise his vision.
Today’s world challenges are much more complex and intertwined; we have seen anxiety that is increasingly mounting across the world. I’m grateful to the Secretary-General (António Guterres) for his trust and his leadership, ambitious vision for the Organisation, a vision that focuses on prevention, really looking at the root causes. It requires that we really do take integration much more seriously and work across all the pillars.
I will be focusing primarily on helping the SG to reposition sustainable development at the United Nations and, as he has stated, sustainable development is an end in itself but it is also the best way that we feel that we can achieve universal peace.
I’m attaching great importance to the promise of leaving no one behind, so starting with those that are furthest behind, really looking to see how we can address that in a robust manner that brings everyone into the sustainable development agenda, addressing gender barriers that we’ve seen constantly; that we have achieved some success in that, not enough. We need to go to scale at this point. We also need to empower youth, agents of peace and development. I can say that in the recent 15 months that I have been home, after helping to shape the 2030 Agenda, youth have been the greatest challenge that we have faced but also the greatest potential to finding solutions for peace and development.
I will be supporting the SG in the comprehensive review of the UN development system; this will be in close consultation with Member States.
We have the advantage that the three major agendas that we agreed in 2015, were really from an inclusive process where Member States owned it and lead on it. And so supporting them to get an ambitious response at the country level is one that I believe will have a much easier task than we would have had previously, so therefore, those consultations will be given utmost priority.
We shall become as the United Nations much more fit for purpose. I think this is across all constituencies, not just the UN but we have to lead in that. We provided an ambitious agenda, where most people are struggling with integration, struggling with universality, a different concept to sustainable development and so for that we need to ensure that our partners too, in the civil society and the private sector, are on board and we are all helping countries and not burdening them with a new agenda.
I think over the recent times, the 2030 agenda as I have spent the last 15 months trying to see that at country-level, not just in Nigeria but across the region in Africa, with other agendas like (African Union Agenda) 2063, there is an acute need for us to make sure that we are aligning these agendas and not layering them and burdening at the country level some of the issues that need to be addressed as much, as urgently as possible.
You can count on our utmost commitment to ensure the UN responds in a way that honours our level of ambition, it is an ambitious agenda and once again, just say I’m really happy to be back here in service of humanity.
Take a few questions?
Thank you very much, Deputy Secretary-General, welcome back to the United Nations and your new post. You outlined a very ambitious agenda, which requires, of course, a lot of government support, but also a lot of funding. How concerned are you about the new US administration’s announcement of major cuts, including to the State Department, which helps fund the UN budget? And what would the impact be, since the United States is the largest funder of the United Nations?
Amina Mohammed: Thank you for that. I mean, I think any cuts, wherever they come, are of great concern with an agenda that is so much more ambitious, and we have many more complex issues to deal with. I think the important thing that we need to do is to continue to engage with our partners and to show how important it is not to decrease but to increase, and find different ways of doing so. It may not be in the traditional ways forward. I think the UN agenda for transformation reform also speaks to much more accountability for results, and I think, you know, Member States would like to see that. So I am optimistic we can engage. I have to say, in the past few months we have not often seen when we bring together our global community a good response to some of the humanitarian crises. But just recently in Oslo what did we see? Once it had been laid out what pathway countries were looking at to address the challenges in some post-conflict areas, we saw an incredible comeback for support, including the United States, to those crises. So I am, of course, concerned, but I believe that we can find a way of leveraging other resources. Same Member States, different ways, different means.
My question is about the famine drive – the $4 billion famine drive. Can you speak to this, what you expect it to be a success, particularly in your native Nigeria?
Amina Mohammed: Well again, you know a huge crisis. We need to be ahead of the curve and not behind it, and so we do press for the support we need in those four countries. This famine is not just going to be limited to them if we don’t address it in a very urgent way. I think that the results that we saw in Oslo recently are warming and I think that this is showing that there is a way forward on some of this. We need to listen to some of the issues that were raised there. Again, bringing agencies and partnerships together in a much more coordinated and coherent manner, will help us get further, leveraging resources from different constituencies now, different partnerships in a global agenda, this is becoming more complex, but it is bringing in more returns and so again, we are not taking our foot off the urgency pedal, it is really urgent that we get much more, much more quickly, but so far the (outings?) have proved to be positive.
Do you expect problems in terms of delivering that kind of aid in parts of Nigeria?
Amina Mohammed: No, I mean my experience has been that, of recent, where one has seen some of these challenges of coordination, they have been addressed pretty quickly, both at the national level, and at the UN system. It’s a very difficult environment to be in, but at the same time, Nigeria doesn’t just consist of the northeast. It is a much wider arena of processes and support and platforms to do these things. I think they will need additional support, institutional capacity. If you look at what has happened in the northeast there, yes, institutions have been broken down, human resources capacity has been reduced, but there is a lot of willingness to come on board and help, a lot of goodwill. It does have to be better coordinated, and I think that is what we are pushing on right now.
Thank you very much for this opportunity, and welcome back. What importance do you give to the prevention agenda and the reform launched by Mr. Guterres?
Amina Mohammed: Well, it is right up front there. The results that we want to see are actioned on the 2030 agenda. Looking at the root causes, if you look at the integration of the 2030 agenda, you will see a lot of prevention work in there, a lot of addressing the jobless, inequalities, improving peoples’ economies beyond GDP. Looking at partners like the private sector, not just CSR but seeing how their business models themselves can change and also take care of the bottom line which of course is what private sectors and business can do. So I think the prevention agenda gives us an opportunity to look at the three dimensions. We always say there cannot be peace without development, and no development without peace, and human rights at the centre of that. So bringing it closer together is work that we will have to do, and keeping a conscious effort that that is the result that we want to see, that we don’t see these conflicts again which in many, many cases, investments of scale would have prevented.
Reform?
Amina Mohammed: Oh the reform, well the reform has already started. As you can see, the resolution we got on (QCPR?) was a pretty ambitious one. It is our job now to facilitate Member States to put teeth into it, so that we have a robust response to actually delivering on these agendas that have got many, many different issues, not just the transparency, accountability and the efficiency of the system, but we have also got to see how we deal with resources as well, human and financial.
I saw that you worked on the Green Bond in Nigeria, and I wondered whether you think that that is a model that other emerging markets can use to secure projects, and also do you view it as part of your mandate to work on the issue of Security Council reform, in the sense of making it more representative, and having more countries represented on it?
Amina Mohammed: Well, on the Green Bond, I have to say it was an exciting initiative to use, to leverage, the implementation of the NDC. The first thought was: how do you do that, beyond the budget, and to bring this whole integration at country level. So, the sovereign Green Bond which will be the first ones issued at the end of March in emerging countries is very exciting, and I think that the model that should be taken there is that countries themselves need to go through a process that strengthens integration and that they institutionally can then rise to the opportunities of other financing coming into the international Green Bond market. And that is huge. It has also brought in a lot of the private sector into this, in a way, I think, that is constructive and gets government providing the enabling environment but the private sector really taking things to scale. It has to be about jobs and our economies improving in Africa, so yes, I do think that that is important.
On the second question on security reform, that is something that I will work to support the Secretary-General. I think he has given me a huge amount to deliver on. I think that Security Council reform is a critical part of what we do in the next few years and somehow we have to balance that if we to address the prevention agenda.
