ACP

Photo credit: Timothy Shitagwa

By Justus Wanzala

African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are among those most heavily affected by climate change. The EU is addressing climate change related issues – which are not confined to national or regional borders – throughout ACP regions.

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – African governments have been availing of two conferences at the UN Environment Headquarters in the Kenyan capital in September to gear up for the Biological Diversity Summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, and the Climate Summit in Katowice, Poland.

NEWS

Photo (l to r): President Danny Faure of the Republic of Seychelles, ACP Secretary-General Dr .Patrick I Gomes, Ambassador Peter Thompson of Fiji, the UN Special Envoy for Oceans. Credit: Seychelles Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.

By Shanta Roy

NEW YORK (ACP-IDN) – When the 79-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States – along with the government of Seychelles – sponsored a high-level forum at the United Nations on September 26, the primary focus was the emerging new "blue economy" underlining the protection and preservation of the world's heavily-exploited oceans.

The world's Small Island Developing States (SIDS), who comprise some of the most environmentally-vulnerable countries, are being increasingly threatened not only by climate change, resulting in rising seas and shrinking lakes, but also suffering the negative after-effects of pollution, sea-bed mining, illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing and the unauthorized extraction of marine resources in the high seas.

NEWS

Photo (left to right): ACP Group Secretary-General Dr Gomes and IFAD President Houngbo exchange letters of intent to strengthen cooperation. Credit: ACP

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (ACP-IDN) – The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an international financial institution and specialized United Nations agency based in Rome, and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States with Secretariat in Brussels plan to intensify their collaboration in several areas of common interest, such as joint financing, research, studies, and policy dialogue.

With this in view, ACP Secretary-General Dr. Patrick I. Gomes and IFAD President Gilbert Houngbo have signed a letter of intent on September 25 on the margins of the 73rd Session of UN General Assembly (UNGA73).

NEWS

Photo: Development minerals in Zambia. Credit: developmentminerals.org

A global conference in Zambia aims at the improvement of the miners' productivity and its cumulative impact on poverty reduction at local and national levels.

By Dr. Patrick I. Gomes

The author is Secretary General of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States comprising 79 member countries – 48 from sub-Saharan Africa, 16 in the Caribbean and 15 in the Pacific. ACP countries are endowed with enormous mineral resources. yet are characterised by chronic poverty, low human development and overall under-development; causing the categorisation of 39 ACP Member States as Least Developed Countries. – The Editor

OPINION

Photo: Now Media earns enough to feed her five children. Credit: Kizito Makoye | IDN-INPS

By Kizito Makoye

BOYNA, Ethiopia (ACP-IDN) – A long spell of drought three years ago made life extremely challenging for 48-year-old Medina Igahle, a mother of five living in Boyna village in the Bubta Wodera region, when some of her goats, cattle and camels starved.

“When disaster hit, I had to bundle up what little I owned and together with my family head out to meet an uncertain future,” she says.

In many parts of Africa, changing weather patterns and environmental degradation are putting small-scale farmers at risk of extreme poverty, hunger and displacement.

NEWS

Photo credit: Seychelles News Agency

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The Secretariat of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the government of 115-island Seychelles east of mainland East Africa are organizing a joint event at the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 25, 2018 – enabling Small Island Developing States (SIDS) share experiences in harnessing the blue economy and to identify areas of further development.

The event will be taking place one year after Ministers in charge of Fisheries and Aquaculture in ACP countries concluded two days of comprehensive talks in Nassau, the Bahamas on September 21, 2017. They renewed commitment to developing the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in their countries, as well as unlocking the potential of the 'blue economy' through a new 'ACP Blue Growth Initiative'.

NEWS

Photo: Space science and earth observation can help institutions in sub-Saharan Africa face many challenges in integrating climate information to inform policy making in the management of natural resources, and reducing disaster risks. Credit: RCMD

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Space science and earth observation are some of the key pillars in the attainment of most of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to experts participating in an international conference, organized by the Regional Centre for Mapping Resources for Development (RCMRD) in Kenya's capital city.

The central theme of the RCMRD International Conference (RIC 2018) was 'Space Science for Sustainable Development' with particular focus on agriculture and food security, weather and climate, water and hydro-climatic disasters, land use land cover and ecosystems, land management and surveying, and cross cutting themes.

NEWS

Photo: Seaweed farmers. Credit: Mwinyi Sadallah

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.

NEWS

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

Image Credit: European Commission

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.

OPINION

  1. The ACP Group Reinventing for a Stronger Post-Cotonou Agreement with the EU
  2. Building Resilience to Climate Change in ACP Countries
  3. ACP Group Striving for Interrelated Sustainable Development
  4. African Experts Decry Information Gap on Climate Change
  5. Namibia Supports ACP States For Post 2020 Cotonou Agreement

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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