ACP

SDGs

Photo: Uniformed children in class in Ha Nqabeni primary school, Lesotho. CC BY-SA 2.0

By Ntsoaki Nkoe

MASERU (ACP-IDN) – Lesotho has launched a landmark project with the European Union willing to provide Euros 12.5 million (approx. USD14.4 million) and the United Nations USD 2 million. Known as the Lesotho National Dialogue and Stabilization Project (LNDSP), the initiative aims to stimulate a comprehensive national reforms process the southern African country is undertaking.

Explaining the genesis of the project, UN Resident Coordinator Salvator Niyonzima said the launch of the project was the result of several months of consultations, project formulation and fund raising going back to September 2017 when Prime Minister Thomas Thabane wrote to the UN Secretary-General requesting UN support to Lesotho’s long-anticipated national reforms.

NEWS

Photo: An EU-backed private equity fund plans to invest in renewable energy firms across sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

By Jeffrey Moyo

MWENEZI (ACP-IDN) – Sixty-seven-year old Sarudzai Msipa heavily blows air in and out of her mouth, seated in the open-air on a goat skin mat outside her hut as she battles to revive a dying fire on her cooking place set up in the middle of her yard at her remote home in Mwenezi district in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province.

Just three sticks are in the fire to keep it alive and there is no sign of leftover firewood nearby. To Msipa, this means times are tough for her and many other villagers as the energy hunger takes a knock on them in this part of Southern Africa.

Even getting solar for lighting, is a non-starter for the Southern African region's many rural dwellers like Msipa who have to bear the brunt of the region’s deepening energy hunger.

NEWS

Photo: The walkway of the UN Headquarters in Nairobi. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – African countries are faced with the huge challenge of funding climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes to ensure sustainable development. Hard hit by the impacts of climate change manifested in persistent droughts, floods, storms, rising sea levels and other forms of disasters, they are linking actions on tackling climate change as key to attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A joint project of the 79-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States is providing support for the purpose as part of a joint project with the Global Climate Change Alliance+ (GCCA) by way of offering technical assistance, promoting knowledge sharing, initiating regional dialogue, and facilitating regional partnership on climate change issues.

NEWS

Photo: Boy stands in front of debris as hurricane Irma moves off from the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Credit: UNICEF

By J C Suresh

TORONTO (ACP-IDN) – Ahead of the next hurricane season in the Caribbean, faith leaders are calling for action from government leaders, the United Nations system, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and regional development institutions.

A statement signed and endorsed by 22 religious leaders from Grenada to Saint Lucia is urging the establishment of debt relief as an instrument for emergency support and reconstruction.

"Across the Caribbean, we still see immense suffering from the hurricanes that landed last year," said Jubilee USA Executive Director Eric LeCompte who endorsed the statement. "Islands that are struggling to recover after natural disasters and meet basic needs of their people should not be making debt payments."

NEWS

Photo: As infrastructural boom spreads across Southern Africa, in Zimbabwe, workmen are busy on highways giving an upgrade to the country's major roads. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo | IDN-INPS

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (ACP-IDN) – Waving a red cloth tied to a stick while signalling vehicles to stop, 35-year old Denford Muzvidziwa who dons blue overalls and a white helmet, joyfully busies himself on the Harare-Mutare high way which is still being upgraded.

For over a decade after he completed a degree in Social Work at the University of Zimbabwe, Muzvidziwa has never found a formal job that suits his qualification, but he is happy with his new found job in the construction sector, saying the job nevertheless earns him some bit of money to caution him in the face of this country’s fledgling economy.

NEWS
SDGs

Photo: 5th Meeting of ACP Ministers in charge of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Nassau, the Bahamas. Credit: ACP Press.

By Jaya Ramachandran

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) - The African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, constituting the ACP Group of States, are determined to develop the fisheries and aquaculture sector in their countries, and unlock the potential of the ‘blue economy’ through a new 40 million Euro (about US$46.8 million) "ACP Blue Growth Initiative".

The decision to that effect was announced at the conclusion of the 5th ACP Meeting of Ministers in charge of Fisheries and Aquaculture, who gathered in Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas – the coral-based archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean Bahamas with 700-plus islands – from September 18 to 21, 2017.

NEWS

Photo: A river in Mozambique. Shortage of water is set to hit Maputo. Credit: Construction Review Online

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (ACP-IDN) – Evelyn Mbiza struggles with a wheelbarrow laden with multiple five litre containers filled with water while her eight-year-old child follows behind carrying another container as the two head home after spending several hours queuing for the precious liquid at a local borehole in Malbereign, a medium-income suburb in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital.

For 26-year-old Mbiza, despite the heavy rains that have pounded this Southern African nation, tap water has become a scarce commodity as local authorities constantly cut water supplies in the capital claiming to be doing maintenance work.

NEWS
SDGs

Photo: The ACP Secretary-General Dr. Patrick I. Gomes and the Prime Minister of Estonia Jüri Ratas signed a Memorandum of Understanding on May 31 in the margins of the 2017 Tallinn Conference on E-Governance, on behalf of the ACP Group of States and the Government of Estonia.

By Dr Patrick I. Gomes, ACP Secretary-General

Following are extensive excerpts from the opening remarks by the Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) at the high-level E-Governance Conference on 30 May 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia.

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – Many institutions and organizations (public and private) in developing countries, such as ACP (the African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries, have embraced the utilization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to address the various opportunities and challenges in the context of their respective development strategies.

OPINION

Photo: Caribbean policy makers get practical options for establishing and enhancing their national institutional framework for implementation of the SDGs.

By Desmond Brown

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (ACP-IDN) – While there have been several activities at sub-regional level aimed at stimulating Caribbean countries to position themselves for successfully implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the pace of implementation has remained slow.

Specifically, the lack of national institutional frameworks for SDG implementation in most Caribbean countries constitutes a major obstacle to effective implementation of the goals.

The SDGs are the cornerstone of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which became effective on January 1, 2016, and is supposed to shape sustainable development efforts globally.

NEWS
SDGs

Photo: Liz Thompson, Former environment minister of Barbados. Credit: Barbados Today.

By Desmond Brown

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (ACP-IDN) – The tiny Caribbean island of Barbados has taken a major step towards ensuring gender equality in its judicial system with the development of a draft gender equality protocol for magistrates and judges.

The document, being hailed as the first of its kind within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), will support the judiciary in using gender analysis to ensure that both women and men have equal access to justice.

“If gender stereotypes are unconsciously held, if they are not the product of a deliberate intention to discriminate, how can we as judges avoid falling prey to them? This is where the establishment of this protocol is so important,” said Justice Adrian Saunders, a judge at the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

NEWS
SDGs

  1. ‘Innovative Volunteerism’ Key to Africa’s Development Blueprint
  2. Southern Africa’s Khoisan Tribe Victimised by War on Climate Change
  3. Caribbean Faith Leaders United to End HIV-AIDS
  4. Caribbean Countries Strive For Energy Security
  5. Southern Africa’s Women Wrestle Climate Change On Their Own

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ACP-IDN

This website is a joint project of the Secretariat of the ACP Group of States and IDN, a flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate (INPS) and its partner, the Global Cooperation Council. It serves as a source for development news and monitoring Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

The ACP Group comprises: Sub-Saharan Africa (48), The Caribbean (16), The Pacific (15).

The ACP Group´s main objectives are:

Sustainable development of its Member-States and their gradual integration into the global economy, which entails making poverty reduction a matter of priority and establishing a new, fairer, and more equitable world order;

Coordination of the activities of the ACP Group in the framework of the implementation of ACP-EC Partnership Agreements;

Consolidation of unity and solidarity among ACP States, as well as understanding among their peoples;

Establishment and consolidation of peace and stability in a free and democratic society.

 

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This website – launched on July 1, 2016 – is a joint project of the Secretariat of the ACP Group of States and IDN, a flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate (INPS). It serves as a source for development news and monitoring Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

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