In Ghana, many people, especially women, who live along the coastal areas, are engaged in fish smoking, known as “Namhowfo” in Akan, one of the languages spoken in the country. As a means of living, fish smoking was done by traditional, energy inefficient and smoking stoves. This method affects both human health and the environment, say observers.

According to the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), in Ghana like in other countries, traditional fish smoking stoves expose women to harmful smoke. This causes 16,600 deaths annually, in addition to environmental degradation, which comes in form of mangroves destruction. Mangroves are the sources of fuelwood for fish smoking.

A survey by SNV gives 120,000 as the number of traditional and Chorkor fish smoking stoves that are used in coastal regions for fish smoking. The survey states: “The smoke from these stoves affects people’s eye-sights and also causes lung-related diseases.”

This development informed SNV’s decision to develop the Morrison Improved Fish Smoker that seeks to attain 40 percent efficiency in fish smoking. Today, many communities are enjoying the new technology along with the FAO Thiaroye Technology (FTT) stove, transferred to Ghana from Cameroon.

Also, in order to improve the livelihoods of women involved in fish smoking and combat the deforestation associated with their activities, the Renewable Energy sector of SNV got funding from DGIS for a two-year Improved Fish Smoking and Mangrove Restoration project (IFS) to support sustainable energy value chain in fish smoking markets in Ghana by improving both supply and demand side activities.

A field visit to Anyakpor coastal village by participants of the Smart Villages West Africa Regional workshop, organised by the Smart Villages Initiatives in collaboration with SNV was an eye-opener. Participants listened to women who smoke fish expressing their happiness for the introduction of the Morrison stove. They counted benefit to include increased volume of processed fish, increased profit, and minimal hazard caused by smoke.

Mrs. Helen Afiagbedefu smokes fish in Anyakpor village. She used the Chorkor before the introduction of the Morrison Fish Smoking Stove. In an interview, she disclosed that the process of smoking fish was now faster, less hazardous and more money-yielding. She told of how, after switching to the Morrison stove, women in Anyakpor noticed the difference, especially in terms of reduced health hazards caused by the smoke and increased income as a result of the volume of fish smoking, compared to the traditional method hitherto used.

“Fish smoking has become faster for us now. I now smoke 10 25-litre containers of fish in two to three hours by using Morrison stove. I used to smoke the same quantity in three days by use of traditional method. Now, if I want to smoke fish, I arrange wire mesh in layers. I then spread the fishes on each of the mesh, numbering three, four or five. I would then place a chimney on top of the wire meshes rails to reduce the smoke, which negatively affects our health,” Afiagbedefu said through an interpreter.

She said that, with the new stove, “women in Anyakpor are now making more money because we spend less time to smoke fish using this new stove than when we were using the traditional stove,” she further said adding that “prices of smoked fish range between 40 and 100 Cedis, depending on the size of the fish. I make an average profit of between 30 to 50 Cedis a month.”

It therefore means that if governments in West Africa would promote the use of renewable energy in smoking fish, Mangroves would be preserved and the health hazard caused by smoke would be averted.

In this regard too, the West African sub-region, experts say, should design reforms that would promote renewable energy sources, in which case the private sector would play a more active role.

By Abdallah el-Kurebe

Mixed progress on air quality still falls far short of what is needed to save seven million lives each year

As global air quality declines, threatening to add to the seven million people air pollution kills each year, increased action in some air quality areas points to political will to tackle this “global public health emergency,” according to reports released Tuesday, 24 May 2016 at the second session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-2) holding in Nairobi, Kenya.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), global urban air pollution levels increased by 8 per cent between 2008 and 2013. More than 80 per cent of people living in urban areas that monitor air pollution are exposed to air quality levels that exceed WHO limits, threatening lives, productivity and economies.

However, Actions on Air Quality, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), found improvements in areas such as access to cleaner cooking fuels and stoves, renewables, fuel sulphur content and public transport – pointing to a growing momentum for change.

Executive Director of UNEP, Achim Steiner, said, “A healthy environment is essential to healthy people and our aspirations for a better world under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“We are indeed making progress on air pollution, but the fact remains that many people are still breathing air outside of WHO standards. The health, social and economic costs are massive and rising. UNEP’s study on ten areas for policy intervention provides a roadmap for countries to follow as they look to reduce air pollution, and we will support them every step of the way.”

For example, 97 countries have increased the percentage of households that have access to cleaner burning fuels to more than 85 per cent – a key move to tackle indoor air pollution, which claims over half the seven million lives.

At least 82 countries out of 194 analysed have incentives that promote investment in renewable energy production, cleaner production, energy efficiency and/or pollution control equipment. Last year, for the first time, renewables accounted for a majority of the new electricity-generating capacity added around the world, at an investment of $286 billion, according to research by UNEP, Bloomberg and the Frankfurt School.

However, action in other areas is less impressive. Policies and standards on clean fuels and vehicles could reduce emissions by 90 per cent, but only 29 per cent of countries worldwide have adopted Euro 4 emissions standards or above. Meanwhile, less than 20 per cent of countries regulate open waste burning, which is a leading cause of air pollution.

A second report released on Tuesday, which looks at attempts to control Beijing’s air pollution over a 15-year period, also finds steady improvements are being made.  A Review of Air Pollution Control in Beijing: 1998-2013 analysed measures implemented since Beijing began launching air pollution control programmes, which saw a steady downward trend in the concentrations of many harmful pollutants.

In 2014, the international community, at the first UNEA, asked UNEP to support global efforts to improve air quality. UNEP has launched several programmes, including an initiative to develop a low-cost sensor that can be used across the developing world to track and address pollution hotspots.

Actions on Air Quality, part of UNEP’s push, focuses on ten basic measures to improve air quality. It shows that the majority of countries world-wide are still to adopt the top-ten air quality policy actions, but highlights many good examples that can be followed.

More than three billion people still use solid fuels and inefficient cook stoves, but the Seychelles was able to improve indoor air quality by transitioning the whole country from solid fuels and inefficient cook stoves to liquefied petroleum gas.

• Only a quarter of countries have advanced fuels and vehicles standards, which can significantly reduce small particulate matter pollution, especially in cities. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, decided that from 1 January 2015 only low sulphur fuels would be allowed in their countries. This reduced their emissions by over 90 per cent.
• Electric cars have been on the increase, with strategies being developed in many countries around the world. One-third of all cars bought in Norway are now electric, the result of incentives instituted by the government.
• However, some countries and cities have been able to increase waste recycling, reducing the need to burn waste. In Brazil, for example, millions of hectares of land are under conservation agriculture, which leaves crop residue from previous harvests on the land rather than burning it.
• The majority of countries around the world have now put in place national air quality standards. India, with major air quality challenges in many cities, has established air quality laws and regulation and also an implementation strategy for these laws.
• The Beijing analysis, carried out by UNEP and the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, found that carbon monoxide and sulphur levels are now below limits set by China’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards, while nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter ten levels are also creeping closer to the standards.

This trend has been driven by a decrease in coal consumption in the power sector and a drop in vehicle emissions resulting from vehicle emission control measures. Coal use fell from a peak of 9 million tonnes in 2005 to 6.44 million tonnes in 2013, while the 2013 levels of carbon monoxide dropped by 76 per cent compared to 1998.

“Even though the air pollution control programmes in Beijing have made substantial progress, the environment quality is far from satisfactory,” said Chen Tian, Director General of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. “We will continue to explore approaches that could work effectively for improving the environment in this region.”

Heads of state and government, Economy Ministers, Bank Governors, development partners and delegates will on Monday in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, begin talks on “Energy and Climate Change” as the African Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) 51st Annual Meetings commence. The event will come to a close Friday.

Nigeria’s Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, is expected to grace the occasion.

This year’s meeting will be focus on “Energy and climate change” – a timely theme for the world and particularly Africa, given that about 645 million Africans do not have access to electricity, 700 million have no access to clean cooking energy, and 600,000 die each year from indoor pollution from reliance on biomass for cooking.

No fewer 54 Finance or Economy Ministers from member countries of the AfDB, including Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, will review its 2015 operations report, and unveil new strategies and programme to create some 25 million jobs for young people over the next decade.

The Bank’s flagship meeting would also bring together some 3,000 delegates. Other invitees include development partners, representatives of international organisations, academia, civil society and the media.

At the end of 2015, the Bank had made USD 112 billion of loans and grants since 1967, through some 4370 operations. In 2015, it disbursed some USD 8.8 billion in 240 operations, a 25 per cent increase on 2014. Nigeria has been a beneficiary of the bank’s grants.

During the high-level meetings and thematic forums, participants will make in-depth assessments of the performance of Africa countries in the past year and envision how the Bank can help them cope with the difficult economic situation they face due to the global economic downturn and the fall in commodity prices.

AFDB President, Akinwumi Adesina, who will be presiding over his first Annual Meetings since assuming office as the Bank’s 8th President on September 1, 2015, said that participants would examine a host of burning issues in Africa as well as approve its activities and budget for the coming year.

Amongst the Bank’s five new priority actions – designed to scale up its operations for the continent’s transformation – are Light up and power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialise Africa, Integrate Africa and improve the quality of life for the people of Africa.

“All of them need to be debated and owned, as much by governments, as by business, as by civil society, as by the press, as by the people of Africa. The agenda is huge: We want to see nothing less than the social and economic transformation of Africa. We want to unleash massive potential – for Africa and for the world,” he said.

The 2016 Annual Meetings theme is aligned with two of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 7 to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” and SDG 13 to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”.

The Bank’s Annual Meetings are its largest annual event, and its biggest window on the world.  They bring together some 5,000 delegates and participants, and feature some 40 official events in addition to the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors, which constitutes the core purpose of the Meetings.

The Executive Boards of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire took a significant step towards the continent’s economic transformation with the approval of the Bank Group’s 2016-2025 Strategy for the New Deal on Energy for Africa.

According to the AfDB, the Strategy sets out the priorities for the it’s interventions in the energy sector from 2016 to 2025. It aims to spur the transformation of Africa’s energy sector, promoting inclusive growth and the transition to green growth by increasing energy production, scaling-up energy access, improving affordability, reliability and energy efficiency as well as the sustainability of energy systems.

The New Deal on Energy for Africa is built on five inter-related and mutually reinforcing principles: raising aspirations to solve Africa’s energy challenges; establishing a Transformative Partnership on Energy for Africa; mobilising domestic and international capital for innovative financing in Africa’s energy sector; supporting African governments in strengthening energy policy, regulation and sector governance; and increasing the African Development Bank’s investments in energy and climate financing.

With over 645 million people in Africa without access to electricity and some 730 million reliant on biomass for cooking, the New Deal proposes to be a game changer for the continent’s energy sector.

To tackle this deficit, the New Deal intends to focus on seven themes that are holding back the development of the energy sector.

These strategic themes are: (i) setting up the right enabling policy environment, (ii) enabling utility companies for success, (iii) dramatically increasing the number of bankable energy projects, (iv) increasing the funding pool to deliver new projects, (v) supporting ‘bottom of the pyramid’ energy access programmes, (vi) accelerating major regional projects and driving integration and (vii) rolling out waves of country-wide energy ‘transformations’.

The AfDB intends to address these themes through a series of flagship programmes such as: Independent Power Producers (IPP) procurement, renewable energy, energy efficiency, power utility transformation, early stage project support facility, bottom of the pyramid energy financing, regional project acceleration, energy efficiency, country wide energy sector turnarounds, and transformative partnerships.

Designed to support the implementation of the new strategic goals of the Bank, the High 5s, the New Deal is critical to achieving these goals because energy drives socioeconomic development. Feeding Africa, Industrialising Africa, Integrating Africa, and Improving the Quality of Life of Africans, will rely on Lighting up and Powering Africa. The Strategy is therefore designed to unlock productivity potentials across agribusiness zones and hubs as well as industrial value chains in all economic sectors in rural and urban areas with a focus on reaching the unserved populations across the continent.

The New Deal will contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa. It will contribute directly to achieving in particular, SDG7 – on ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, modern energy for all; SDG 1 – on ending poverty in all forms; SDG 13 – on combating climate change and its impact; SDG 3 – on improving health and well-being; SDG 5 – on achieving gender equality and empower all women and girls; and SDG 10 – on reducing inequality within and among countries. In addition, by improving access to clean energy, the New Deal will have co-benefits for social, economic and environment sustainability in Africa. The New Deal will also assist African countries in achieving the COP21 Agreement on climate change, especially the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) of African countries.

The AfDB has developed a significant energy sector portfolio in recent years with over 100 active projects. The volume of the Bank’s energy sector approvals from 2006-2015 amounts to about USD 15 billion (UA 10 billion). At the end of 2015, the energy sector portfolio stood at over USD 12 billion (UA 8 billion).

The New Deal is coupled with internal reforms, following the previous approval by the Board of the new Business Delivery Model, which envisages the creation of a Vice Presidency for Power, Energy, Climate, and Green Growth, making the AfDB the only Multilateral Development Bank to do so.