By Justus Wanjala
NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Despite possessing huge potential for agricultural growth due to the availability of vast land and water resources, Africa’s food production sector is seriously under-performing.
Steps are now being taken in the direction of using and sharing agriculture data to boost food production and contribute to making the continent food secure.
Participants at the Ministerial Conference on Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition and 4th Agritec Africa Exhibition, held in Nairobi from June 14-16, 2017, agreed that a new mechanism is needed to ensure rapid and sustained growth of food production and put Africa on the path of ending hunger and improving nutrition.
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By Robert Kibet
NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Braving a scorching temperature, 38-year-old Caroline Rono rambles barefoot along a tiny path that snakes in the direction of the reptile-infested salty seasonal Lake Solai in Kenya’s Rift Valley with the giggling baby on her back swaying to the movement of her mother’s hips.
In the rural areas of Kenya, as in virtually in all African countries, the burden of collecting, carrying and managing water has always rested on the shoulders of women, and under the weight of recurrent droughts, this burden has almost become unbearable.
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ST. JULIAN'S, Malta (ACP-IDN) – Member of the European Parliament and ACP members called for common causes behind terrorism, famine and impunity to be tackled: poverty, bad governance, corruption and armed conflict.
During 33rd session of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and European Union (EU) Member States, members debated impunity on crimes against humanity with Sidiki Kaba, President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC.
Sidiki Kaba recalled the importance of judging crimes against humanity to allow victims to be heard, and for the guilty, whomever they may be, to be sanctioned and to prevent such atrocities.
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By Desmond Brown
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (ACP-IDN) – The Hubs and Spokes Programme, an innovative trade initiative for expanding opportunities for business, employment and prosperity in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, is to be extended until February 2019.
Through the Programme, which is a joint initiative of the European Union (EU), ACP Group Secretariat, Commonwealth Secretariat and Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), trade advisers are placed in government ministries and regional organisations to provide support and build local capacity to develop trade policies.
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By ACP Press
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) - The Heads of State of Senegal and Guyana have lent a boost to ongoing efforts to rally African, Caribbean and Pacific countries together to ensure they speak in one coherent voice, as they prepare to negotiate a future partnership agreement with the European Union.
Macky Sall, the President of Senegal, was the first to address the ACP Committee of Ambassadors on June 7 on the relations between the 79-member ACP Group of States and the EU post-2020. The current partnership framework, known as the Cotonou Agreement, is a legally-binding treaty that lays out parameters for trade, development cooperation, and political dialogue between the two blocs. The Agreement expires in February 2020, and talks for a follow-up accord are set to begin in 2018.
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BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) - The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) joined the European Commission, the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from June 6-8 in Brussels to address the role of post-crisis recovery and reconstruction for resilience building and disaster risk reduction at the Third Edition of the World Reconstruction Conference (WRC3).
More than 800 participants from civil society, national and local governments, academia, the private sector and international organisations from around the world shared experience with a view to advancing the implementation of the 2015 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
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By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (ACP-IDN) – Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama of Fiji is firmly putting environmental protection over short-term economic gains, while calling on the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the international community to introduce the necessary changes to save the world’s seas and oceans.
Fiji presides over both the Oceans Conference and the upcoming COP23 Climate Change Conference in November in Bonn, Germany.
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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.
By Klara Smits
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States commemorated 'ACP Day 2017' on June 2, reflecting on "development partnership" with the European Union (EU), which it described as "a multi-dimensional and transformative experience".
These issues were discussed in two panels. But in greater detail in the book – The ACP Group and the EU Development Partnership: Beyond the North-South Debate – launched on the occasion. The book constitutes a systematic and critical assessment of the nature, evolution, and prospects of the development partnership between the 79-member African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) group of states and the 28-member European Union (EU).
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BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) developing countries, have reaffirmed their commitment to full implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change and called on the global community to maintain the momentum for ambitious action.
The 28 EU and 79 ACP developing countries, which together comprise more than half of the signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate change, reaffirmed on June 2 their commitment to full implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and called on the global community to maintain the momentum for ambitious action.
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