ACP

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.

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Photo: A beach at Funafuti atoll, Tuvalu, on a sunny day. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

By Ramesh Jaura

BONN (IDN) – The world's 48 poorest countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change are profoundly concerned whether "substantive progress" will be made in the months ahead on implementing the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement in all its aspects.

This was emphasised by Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, Gebru Jember Endalew of Ethiopia, as delegates from 140 countries closed the two-week session of the United Nations climate change negotiations on May 18 in Bonn.

The LDCs are a group of countries that have been classified by the UN as "least developed" in terms of their low gross national income (GNI), their weak human assets and their high degree of economic vulnerability.

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Photo credit: World Conference Center Bonn

By ACP Press Office

BONN (ACP-IDN): The European Union and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific developing countries, who together make up more than half of the signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate change, today reaffirmed their strong and steadfast commitment to full implementation of the agreement, urging all partners to keep up the momentum created in 2015.

The EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) made the call at a UN climate change conference taking place in Bonn, ahead of the upcoming G7 and G20 leaders' summits and the next annual UN climate negotiations (COP23) in November, which will gather world governments to turn the global climate commitments into action.

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Photo (left to right): ACP Secretary-General Dr Patrick I Gomes, UNGA President Peter Thomson, Council of Ministers President, Ethiopia's Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Dr Abraham Tekeste. UNGA President addressing ACP Council of Ministers on May 3 in Brussels. Credit: UN.

By Jaya Ramachandran

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are determined to "undertake the reforms needed to transform the ACP Group into an effective global player, fit for the 21st century, and responsive to the emerging priorities" of member states.

This emerged from the two-day gathering of the ACP Council of Ministers who concluded the 105th session on May 4 with key decisions that will influence how the bloc of 79 countries will carve out a more effective role in the international arena.

According to the President of the Council, Ethiopia's Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Dr Abraham Tekeste, "The current occupancy of the Presidency of the UN General Assembly by Fiji, and the current membership of Senegal and Ethiopia in the UN Security Council, serve to underscore the positive contributions by ACP countries at the global levels."

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Image credit: WiredJa Online News

By Klara Smits

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The future of relations between the Sub-Saharan countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) on the one hand and the European Union (EU) on the other will be a central issue when the Council of Ministers of the two groupings gathers in Brussels on May 4-5.

The current treaty between the two blocs – the ACP-EU Cotonou Partnership Agreement – was signed in 2000 for a period of 20 years. It expires in 2020. Preparations for formal negotiations for the post-Cotonou period, scheduled to start in 2018, are currently underway.

The Agreement is named after Cotonou, a large port city on the south coast of Benin, in West Africa.

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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).

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Photo: Panellists speaking during the First All Africa Post-Harvest Congress held in Nairobi, Kenya from March 28 to 31, 2017. Photo taken on March 30 by Justus Wanzala.

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Forty percent of the food produced in Africa is lost, largely due to poor product handling, storage and processing practices, with aflatoxins often responsible for much of this loss in the post-harvest phase.

Aflatoxins are poisonous and cancer-causing chemical produced by certain moulds (Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus) which grow in soil, decaying vegetation, hay and grains.

At the 1st All Africa Post-Harvest Congress held in Nairobi from March 28 -31 to tackle the problem of post-harvest food losses in Africa, ‘aflatoxin management, food safety and nutrition’ was one of the issues on the agenda, with experts calling for improved post-harvest handling of food.

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Photo: Enos Masini, (in a grey suit and a tie) head of Kenya’s National Tuberculosis Leprosy and Lung Disease Programme, speaking during an event to mark the 2017 World TB Day in Kiambu Town, Central Kenya. Credit: Justus Wanzala

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – In Kenya, a high burden tuberculosis (TB) country, infants and young children are at very high risk of developing severe and often fatal strains of the disease, and are estimated to comprise 10-11 percent of all TB cases.

In order to combat the disease, primarily among children but also the population in general, the country is putting mechanisms in place, including better equipment for TB testing, and in 2016 became the first country in the world to roll out child-friendly TB medicines.

Overseen by TB Alliance, an international non-governmental organisation that supports the development of affordable tuberculosis drugs, the medicines are easier for caregivers to give and for children to take and are expected to help improve treatment and child survival.

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Photo: ACP Secretary General Dr. Patrick I. Gomes.

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) - Seventy-nine countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) are determined to speak with one voice as they prepare to negotiate a major partnership framework with the 27-nation European Union (EU).

The new accord will follow on the current ACP-EU Partnership Agreement (also known as the Cotonou Agreement), which covers trade, development cooperation and political dialogue between the two parties until 2020.

Leading up to the launch of negotiations for the post-Cotonou period in 2018, there is a clear common interest in aligning future ACP-EU cooperation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Photo: Viwanou Gnassounou, Assistant Secretary General of the ACP Group. Credit: IISD

By Ronald Joshua

BRUSSELS | MAPUTO, Mozambique (ACP-IDN) - Once neglected minerals and materials may hold the key to millions of jobs across Southern Africa at a time when oil and metal exporting countries are grappling with low commodity prices.

Mega infrastructure projects agreed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State are projected to draw in 986 billion dollars in investments over the next ten years, ramping up the demand for construction materials exponentially. Estimates from the African Development Bank indicate that for each billion invested in African infrastructure, between 3-7 million jobs are created.

NEWS

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  5. ‘Innovative Volunteerism’ Key to Africa’s Development Blueprint

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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