By Kizito Makoye
PAJE, Zanzibar (ACP-IDN) – As the morning breeze sweeps Mwanamkasi Jumbe wade through knee-deep water, her gown flapping in the wind as she drags a pile of seaweed seedlings to her farm before it is too hot.
Armed with a bundle of sticks, she hangs pieces of fresh seaweed haphazardly hooked on a yellow polyethylene rope.
"It's a tough job, but I love doing it. I get something to support my family," she says. "The seedling takes six weeks to mature," she adds.
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.
By Phil Pascal
The writer is a Caribbean journalist and Commentator on development issues. This is the second article in a two-part Series on the next stage of ACP-EU relations in the Post-Cotonou Agreement with the EU. In the earlier commentary the writer explained the principles and processes by which the ACP Group has set about establishing the inclusive and participatory inter-governmental framework for negotiations of a Post-Cotonou Partnership Agreement (PCPA).
BRIDGETOWN (ACP-IDN) –The single undertaking of the new Agreement builds on the successes of the present one signed in Cotonou, Benin in West Africa for a 20-year period. But it also shows evidence of being ready to critique weaknesses and adapt seriously to the changing circumstances – political, economic and cultural – of the 21st century.
By Phil Pascal
The writer is a Caribbean journalist and Commentator on development issues. This is the first article in a two-part Series on the next stage of ACP-EU relations in the Post-Cotonou Agreement with the EU.
BRIDGETOWN (ACP-IDN) – The historic partnership agreement between 107 industrialized and developing nations – known as the Cotonou Partnership Agreement between the 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) and the European Union – will expire on February 29, 2020. Negotiations on a successor agreement impacting more than 1.5 billion people of states constituting more than half of the UN membership are set to officially begin on October 1, 2018, according to reliable EU sources.
By ACP Press
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The Intra-ACP Global Climate Change Alliance Plus (GCCA+) Programme is a €70 million initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States funded by the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) to strengthen dialogue and cooperation on climate change with the most vulnerable developing countries.
The programme was launched in the margins of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 23) in Bonn in November 2017. The Programme conducted its first Regional Coordination Meeting on March 26-28, 2018 at the ACP House in Brussels.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit opens a new era for a repositioned African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP Group) to continue and deepen its decisive role in supporting all 79 member states "to achieve the 17 SDGs as the basis for the Sustainable Development of their societies and our only home we have for humanity".
The basis and raison d'étre of the ACP is development and this implies "ending poverty in all its forms everywhere" (SDG 1). The unity and solidarity on which the ACP is founded provides a unifying force in adopting measures to end poverty, says a policy paper.
By Justus Wanzala
NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in Africa are being undermined by lack of information on climate issues among the public, policy-makers and leaders in Africa, leading to poor and delayed decision making as well as untimely undertaking of remedial actions.
This emerged during a Regional Climate Change Dialogue and Training Workshop organised by the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) held on June 25-27, 2018 in Nairobi.
ATPS is a trans-disciplinary network of researchers, policy-makers, private sector actors and the civil society that promotes the generation, dissemination, use and mastery of science technology in Africa.
By ACP Press
BRUSSELS - President Hage Geingob of Namibia has affirmed that the country fully supports that the Caribbean and Pacific island states be part of the Cotonou agreement post 2020.
This was reported by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation on July 24, 2018.
Click to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-7PjvXs4_s&feature=youtu.be
By ACP Press
BRUSSELS - At CARICOM’s invitation, Assistant Secretary-General (ASG), Ambassador Léonard-Emile Ognimba and Culture Expert, Ms. Astrid Audibert, attended the 26th meeting of the Regional Cultural Committee, held in Georgetown, Guyana, on June 25 and June 26, 2018.
The objectives of the mission were to present the results of the ACPCultures+ Programme; to provide CARICOM Heads and the Directors of Culture of the region with a progress report on the programming of the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) and discuss the financing prospects that have opened up with regard to the future ACP-EU culture programme; to also look at strategies, programmes and policies implemented at the regional level, as well as the financial challenges and the opportunities of the cultural sector.
By ACP Press
BRUSSELS - “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
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.
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.