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Photo: The 35th plenary session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels from June18-20, 2018, in the presence of MEPs and their counterparts from the national parliaments of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Credit: multimedia.europarl.europa.eu

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – As negotiators inch towards updating the most comprehensive but 20-year old partnership agreement between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, they have a broad array of issues on their plate.

These include the name change to the 'Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACP)', ensuring the consistency of participation in parliamentary assemblies, establishment of the ACP Information Centre for South-South and Triangular Cooperation, and enhancing ACP's financial stability.

The current Cotonou Partnership Agreement, signed in the capital city of Benin in June 2000 between the EU and the ACP involving relations with 79 countries, including 48 from Sub-Saharan Africa, covers one in five people in the world. It will expire in February 2020.

NEWS

Photo: Lesotho has had its fair share of the climate change impacts owing to the El Nino crisis in the past years. Credit: Lesotho: Agence Kaolin

By Jeffrey Moyo

MASERU (ACP-IDN) – Three years ago, Lesotho, Southern Africa’s small mountain kingdom surrounded by South Africa, was hit hard by the drought that led to the driest season in the region in 35 years. In the tiny dynastic nation, the El Niño driven-phenomenon resulted in a fall in maize production, the country's staple food.

But now thanks to ACP, the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, a group that was created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975, climate change impacts in African countries like Lesotho have met their match.

The Georgetown Agreement of June 6, 1975 created the ACP, an organization, which aims to ensure sustainable development within its member states, and strives for their greater integration into the world economy. All ACP member states, except Cuba, are signatories to the Cotonou Agreement with the EU.

NEWS

Photo: A boy watches the shore from a boat near Sirajganj, a community affected by severe erosion that has left many displaced. Sirajganj, Bangladesh. October 2016. Credit: IOM/Amanda Nero.

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – A new study finds that the 79-nation African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Group of States can boost climate action with technical and financial support amounting to a minimum of USD 2,317 billion. Capacity building, an important aspect of efforts to halt climate catastrophe, is expected to draw considerable attention at the forthcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland.

The urgency of climate action is underlined also by the new report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It shows that global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rose again during 2017 after a three-year break, highlighting the imperative for countries to deliver on the historic Paris Agreement to keep global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

NEWS

Photo: The picture shows two women from Lesotho trafficked in South Africa. Credit: Sunday Times.

By Jeffrey Moyo

BEITBRIDGE (ACP-IDN) – At the age of 39, Ndikonyaga Muleya hailing from Beitbridge, Zimbabwe’s border town with South Africa, has found illegal crossing into South Africa convenient.

Over the years he became experienced crossing into the neighboring country looking for casual jobs in Musina, also a South African border town with Zimbabwe, which he now frequents as an illegal transporter of undocumented Zimbabweans itching to cross into South Africa fleeing from this country’s mounting economic woes.

“I earn money from transporting people through unmanned crossing points into South Africa. I was also helped before when I started crossing to SA,” Muleya told IDN.

NEWS

Photo: A landscape in the Serengeti national park, Tanzania. Credit: iStock. Source: ACP-EU NDRR Activity Report 2017-2018.

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The African, Caribbean and Pacific-European Union Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Program (ACP-EU NDRR) launched in 2011 has worked to build climate and disaster resilience in ACP countries, where the impacts of climate change are increasingly visible, says a new report.

The Program is an initiative of the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) Group of States, in partnership with the European Union (EU), and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).

According to the Activity Report 2017-2018 for Fiscal Year 18 (1 July 2017-30 June 2018), development stakeholders, governments, and civil society organizations have become increasingly aware of the importance of partnerships in meeting these challenges.

NEWS

Image credit: UN-Habitat

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – Transforming ACP cities, leaving no one behind engaging in large scale investments in slums is the central theme of the three-day 3rd ACP-EC-UN-Habitat International Tripartite Conference in Brussels, headquarters of the European Union and the capital of Belgium.

The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) is an organisation composed of 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states: 48 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, 16 from the Caribbean and 15 from the Pacific. All of them, save Cuba, are signatories to the Cotonou Agreement, also known as the "ACP-EC Partnership Agreement" which binds them to the European Union.

NEWS

Photo: Nukufetau coastal damages by cyclone in Tuvalu. © EU GCCA+ LoCAL-UNCDF. Photo Hendrik Visser 2016.

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The Intra-ACP GCCA Plus Programme, which has several success stories to tell, is supporting 79 members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) in preparing for the UN Climate Change conference in December in Katowice, Poland.

The ACP Secretariat and the Programme hosted a Joint Policy Dialogue (JPD) at the ACP House in Brussels on November 5, 2018. The JPD showcased the findings of a draft ACP report analysing the implementation status of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of ACP countries.

NEWS

Photo: The first migrants from the Aquarius ship arrive at the port of Valencia on an Italian ship, the Dattilo, June 2018. Credit: UNHCR

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – As the United Nations Global Compact fractures, migration has become a key issue in negotiations between the European Union (EU) and 79 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) which kicked off in September 2018 to hammer out a successor to the Cotonou Partnership Agreement set to expire in 2020.

The ACP-EU Partnership Agreement, signed in Cotonou, Benin, on June 23, 2000, was concluded for a 20-year period from 2000 to 2020. It is the most comprehensive partnership agreement between developing countries and the EU. In 2010, ACP-EU cooperation was adapted to new challenges such as climate change, food security, regional integration, State fragility and aid effectiveness.

NEWS

Graphic credit: The World Bank

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK | BALI (ACP-IDN) – The Government of the Republic of Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 granite and coral islands in the Indian Ocean, off East Africa, has been acclaimed for showing "the leadership to create the world's first sustainable Blue Bond".

The pioneering financial instrument was launched within four weeks of the High-Level Forum the government of Seychelles organised together with the 79-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States at the United Nations headquarters in New York focusing on the emerging new "blue economy" underlining the protection and preservation of the world's heavily-exploited oceans.

NEWS

Photo: ACP chief negotiator Professor Robert Dussey, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and African Integration from Togo addressing a press conference in Brussels. On the left is ACP Secretary-General Dr Patrick I Gomes.

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – Barbados, an eastern Caribbean island, will host a private sector consultation on the post-Cotonou agreement on November 1-2, 2018 with a view to  producing an African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) private sector declaration as inputs to the ACP technical negotiating team.

The Cotonou Agreement is a treaty between the European Union (EU) and the ACP that was signed in June 2000 in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city. It entered into force in 2003 and was subsequently revised in 2005 and 2010. The current agreement expires in 2020.

NEWS

  1. Africa Eyes Accelerated Investment in Nutrition
  2. Southern Africa Experiencing Energy Boom
  3. Africa Gets Ready for Biodiversity and Climate Change Summits
  4. Blue Economy Key to Small Islands' Survival & Prosperity
  5. 79-Nation ACP Group and IFAD Agree to Strengthen Cooperation

SDGs

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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) 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.

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