Dear All,

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in partnership with the African Union, is organizing the First Conference of Ministers Responsible for Meteorology in Africa, in order to maximise the potential of weather and climate information for societal benefits.

The Conference will be hosted by the Government of Kenya from 12 to 16 April 2010, in Nairobi.

Journalists are cordially invited to a press conference about this event.

Date and Time: Tuesday 16 March 2010 at 12h00 Venue: Palais des Nations, Room III, Geneva, Switzerland.

—-

Speakers:    Mr Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General, WMO

Mrs Khadija Rachida Masri, Permanent Observer, African Union

Mr Philip Richard Owade, Permanent Representative of Kenya

Ms Shree Badoo Chekitan Servansing, Permanent Representative of Mauritius and Coordinator of the African Group

will be represented at the press conference. Mr Jeremiah Lengoasa, Deputy-Secretary General, and Mr Alioune N’Diaye, Director of the Regional Office for Africa, WMO, will also be present.

Journalists not accredited to the United Nations Office at Geneva but who wish to participate in the press conference are kindly requested to contact Ms Catherine Fegli: tel: +41 22 917 23 13; fax: +41 22 917 00 73; e-mail: cfegli@unog.ch, and visit the following link:

www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpPages)/70991F6887C73B2280256EE700379C58?Open

For information about the African Ministerial Conference:

http://www.wmo.int/pages/africaconf/index_en.html

For more information please contact the Communications and Public Affairs Office, WMO

Ms Carine Richard-Van Maele, Chief, Tel: +41 (0)22 730 83 15, E-mail: cpa@wmo.int ,

Ms Marie Heuzé, Special Advisor, Tel: + 41 (0)22 730 84 78, E-mail: mheuze@wmo.int

Ms Gaëlle Sévenier, Press Officer, Tel: +41 (0) 22 730 8417, E-mail: gsevenier@wmo.int

Internet website: http://www.wmo.int

from:     sniakan at worldbank.org

date:    Thu, Feb 25, 2010
subject:    World Bank participates in the Africa Carbon Forum

Africa Carbon Forum – March 3-5, Nairobi, Kenya

The World Bank Group is pleased to support the Africa Carbon Forum taking place in Gigiri, right outside Nairobi on March 3-5. Bank staff will be participating in a number of plenary sessions as well as side events.
Furthermore, a press conference will be held on March 3, briefing media on the recently registered Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project. The press conference will take place at 1pm in the UNEP Press Room (Lower Library) in Gigiri – that is the location of the UNEP headqarters near Nairobi. Transportation from downtown Nairobi will be provided.

The Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project is located in Ethiopia and is Africa’s first large-scale forestry project under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It was recently registered under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The project, developed by World Vision, brings both economic and social benefits to poor communities in Ethiopia as well as environmental benefits, cutting an estimated 880,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 30 years. The future sales of carbon credits will bring more than US$700,000 to the local communities over ten years.

At the press conference, the National Director of World Vision Ethiopia, Mrs. Tenagne Lemma, will present the project together with Ms. Ellysar Baroudy, the manager of the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund, which is purchasing a share of the carbon credits generated by this project.

For more information, please contact sniakan@worldbank.org by email.

For more information on the World Bank BioCarbon Fund, please see: http://wbcarbonfinance.org/Router.cfm?Pa…

For more information on World Vision, please see: http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf

For more information on and registration for the Africa Carbon Forum, please see their website: http://www.africacarbonforum.com/2009/en…. Registration is free.

_______________________________________________
Isabel Hagbrink
Senior Communications Officer
Carbon Finance Unit
Environment Department, The World Bank Group
1818 H Street, NW, Washington D.C. 20433

Tel : 202 458 0422 Fax : 202 522 7432
email :  ihagbrink at worldbank.org
Web : www.CarbonFinance.org (See attached file: Africa Carbon Forum Events Booklet external.pdf)

Kenya to get ¥29 billion in Yen – for power plants. (about $213 million, at today’s exchange rate, out of a $5 billion foreign aid allocation for 2010 climate expenditure by Japan.)
Kyodo News, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has unveiled plans to provide Kenyawith ¥29.5 billion in yen-denominated loans for a thermal power plant project there as part of Tokyo’s support for the east African country’s efforts on climate change.

Hatoyama and visiting Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga agreed Friday in their talks in Tokyo to cooperate in building momentum for the next key U.N. climate conference to be held in Mexico from late November to early December.

Japan plans to implement the loan by the end of next month, a Foreign Ministry official said.

Odinga praised Hatoyama for Tokyo’s $15 billion offer for poor, vulnerable nations to tackle climate change over the three years through 2012 under the Hatoyama Initiative, calling it a voice of reason that emerged amid clashing interests and discord.

He said a nonbinding accord reached at the key U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December has become a good starting point and the foundation for the next round of talks in Mexico.

“I was very encouraged by hearing that Kenya approved the Copenhagen accord,” Hatoyama was quoted by the official as telling his Kenyan counterpart, adding he wants to cooperate with Odinga in working to produce a binding accord at the next talks.

Odinga said in June Kenya plans to host the next summit of the so-called Climate Vulnerable Forum, which groups 25 countries facing the threat of climate change impacts such as rising sea levels.

The Kenyan leader called for Japanese support and invited Hatoyama to take part in the June event.

 http://ipsterraviva.net/UN/currentNew.as…

South-South Cooperation Key to MDGs
IPS Correspondents

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 (IPS) – Member states meeting here Thursday called for the immediate implementation of development commitments made during the Nairobi high-level U.N. conference on cooperation between developing countries.

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark highlighted the importance of the Nairobi meeting on South-South cooperation in sharing information, technologies, and experiences across the South. The Nairobi outcome document calls for concrete measures to mainstream support for South-South and triangular cooperation in the U.N.’s work.

“I can assure you that we in UNDP have received that loud and clear message,” Clark said. “We have long proudly hosted the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation and fully supported its work.” On the heels of Thursday’s General Assembly High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation (HLC) meeting, focal points of South-South cooperation at 29 U.N. agencies met Friday at headquarters to discuss follow-up to the Nairobi conference.

“South-South cooperation is an expression of solidarity that has proven its relevance by a rapid growth,” said Ambassador Abdullah M. Alsaidi of Yemen, the chair of the Group of 77 developing countries.

“Cooperation across the South has been transformed by the growth of the emerging economies,” Clark explained.

The share of global GDP generated by low and middle income countries has grown from 15 percent to 25 percent over the last 50 years according to UNDP estimates, and analysts predict that emerging markets will outperform developed markets over the course of the next decade.

“Strengthening of regional integration and improved networking among members of regional blocs and organisations has a multiplier effect to South-South cooperation,” said Ambassador Zachary Muburi-Muita of Kenya, who was elected president of the HLC meeting here.

“The emerging economies in the South are attracting international attention and will increasingly acquire the muscle to influence the course of economic growth and development,” said Ambassador Gyan Chandra Acharya of Nepal, stressing that the recent successes of the developing world are in danger of being reversed and are not being felt equally across countries or regions.

Despite the gains achieved through trade and finance, delegations noted the deepening economic asymmetries among developing countries, particularly in regard to the least developed countries (LDCs) and landlocked developing countries.

The HLC stressed that the current financial, food and energy crises have exacerbated the vulnerabilities of developing countries that lack the capacity to withstand shocks.

There is an “implementation gap” that has been looming over the recommendations of the major U.N. conferences in the economic and social areas, delegates agreed.

It is only with “political will towards fulfilling the commitments that parties have undertaken in Nairobi that we can make real progress,” an Egyptian delegate stressed.

“South-South cooperation is immensely important at this time for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed goals, and for tackling climate change,” said Clark.

Clark urged delegations to take a particularly close look at the gender aspects of achieving the MDGs.

“Progress is lagging behind particularly on MDG5 on maternal health; on MDG3 on empowering women; and on MDG2 with respect to gender parity in access to education,” Clark said, “To achieve the MDGs and indeed other internationally agreed development goals, women have to be an equal part of the equation.”

In order to effectively implement the Nairobi outcome with demonstrable results, stakeholders need to identify “quick wins” whose implementation should be devoid of unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy, said Muburi-Muita.

The government of Brazil and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) have signed agreements on South-South cooperation to prevent and combat child labour and to promote good practices and lessons learned in Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and Asia.

“This is an excellent example of how member states are able to engage entities of the U.N. system through a South-South and triangular partnership in support of their national development strategies,” according to the ILO delegation.

The HLC stressed local ownership of solutions as a key component of South-South cooperation.

“Now, as UNDP positions itself to be of the greatest possible relevance and support to developing countries in the 21st century, we see facilitating South-South exchanges of experience and knowledge as absolutely central to what we do,” Clark explained.

A growing priority of the U.N. will be to share experience on climate change adaptation and mitigation. This could include sharing knowledge on growing drought-tolerant crops, on reforestation, or on providing low-cost access to clean energy and transport technology.

Clark emphasised that a very wide range of developing countries make contributions to South-South cooperation. In the recent weeks “we have seen least developed and low-income countries, along with middle-income and net-contributing countries, digging deep into their pockets for Haiti,” she said.

The kernel of the future – the projected five world leaders – are in trouble. With the US and China in a tiff because of Taiwan (arm sales by US manufacturers) and Tibet (a visit with the Dalai Lama), now South Africa, one of the three IBSAs that met with the G2 in Copenhagen, shows sings of 21st century immaturity. You just cannot go on living by Zulu rules if you want to lead your people out of poverty. Tiger Woods learned that very very fast that the limelight of world media will do you in, and even oil rich monarchs do not father now 20 children anymore. The stories about Zuma’s ascent in South Africa were plenty and his people we know told us so when it was rumored that he is in line to take over his country’s helm. It seems that Mandela’s South Africa deserves better – so does the 15 States group of Southern Africa { http://www.sadc.int }, and black Sub-Sahara Africa at large. We said before, South Africa is the third IBSA not alone, but as the symbol of all that immense Sub-Sahara black chunk of resources rich land and its one billion people that have the potential of evolving into next great consumers market to drive their own economy and the world economy. To this mass of people, the South African President must be an example and our prejudice that we knowingly attempt to show by this posting, calls for an exemplary leader for South Africa – someone fit to try on Mandela’s shoes.

This week the African Union rejected the attempt of Libya’s rambling Gaddafi to hold on to the chairmanship of Africa for another year, and voted instead to give the position to Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika. We attach the story about that event at the end of this posting, as we focus on the further ramblings by a Libyan-sponsored group of African traditional leaders from an unnamed French speaking African country, who crowned Qaddafi “King of Kings.” Africa seems to react indeed with understanding to the fact that the world is changing into a 7 to 10 countries structure and that Africa wants one of its own, and that means not Qaddafi, to be part of this structure – a modern man rather then a traditional chieftain – neither do they think anymore that the position of leader in Addis Ababa belongs to a Mediterranean North African settler. They want a black leader – but hiding under a Zulu mantle, and invoking rules of the desert, simply  can not do anymore.

——————–
South Africa’s President Sows (Another) Sex Scandal.

Theunis Bates
 http://abbaymedia.com/News/?p=3699
By JASON McLURE

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, delivered a rambling rebuke of fellow African heads of state Sunday after they chose to replace him as chairman of the African Union and failed to endorse his push for the creation of a United States of Africa.

“I do not believe we can achieve something concrete in the coming future,” said Colonel Qaddafi, before introducing President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi as his successor at the African Union’s annual summit meeting, held in Addis Ababa. “The political elite of our continent lacks political awareness and political determination. The world is changing into 7 or 10 countries, and we are not even aware of it.”

South Africa, Ethiopia and Nigeria were among the countries opposing Colonel Qaddafi’s attempts to form a continental government, which many view as impractical given the political and economic disparities in Africa.

Colonel Qaddafi argued that individual African states are too weak to negotiate with major powers like the European Union, the United States and China. His efforts to become the first African leader to win another one-year term as chairman of the African Union were thwarted by a push for Mr. Mutharika, 75, by the 15-member Southern African Development Community.

The Libyan leader also complained that such summit meetings were boring, that his colleagues were too long-winded and that he often was not informed of African Union decisions.

Colonel Qaddafi did not leave the lectern before giving the microphone to an unnamed representative of a Libyan-sponsored group of African traditional leaders who had crowned him “King of Kings” in a ceremony in 2008.

The representative, bearing a golden scepter and trailed by an aide fanning him with a large feather, spent much of his address praising Colonel Qaddafi.

“You have the African people with you,” said the man, who spoke in French and did not identify himself. “This is what is important, not politicking. It is politicians who have destroyed us.”

From Kim Coetze

You are invited to apply to attend the conference: “PUTTING A PRICE ON CARBON: Economic instruments to mitigate climate change in South Africa and other developing countries” to be held at the University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa on 23 and 24 March 2010.

The objectives of this conference are to:
* Build on discussions undertaken at a side-event and a workshop at the Climate Change Summit 2009
* Contribute to the development of climate policy in South Africa, by further exploring practical options for putting a price on carbon,
* Deepen the understanding of economic instruments, through a conference with peer-reviewed papers,
* Broaden the community of experts working in this emerging field, by having attracted papers from researchers and analysts in cognate disciplines that are not currently working on carbon pricing
* including economics and environmental economics, but also
* researchers working on institutional and political dimensions
* Draw on experiences and lessons from other countries, in particular
* other developing countries in their exploration of the same issues in similar contexts, and
* experiences of implementation in developed countries examining the applicability in the context of development.

Further details can be found on the conference website – a link to which is on the ERC website http://www.erc.uct.ac.za. Or direct queries to Meagan Jooste at  erc-climatechange at uct.ac.za.
Participation is free, but no costs will be covered.

Regards,
Kim Coetzee
Energy Research Centre
University of Cape Town

Foreign Drillers Rush at Uganda’s Promising Oil Reserves.

By GUY CHAZAN in London And NICHOLAS BARIYO in Kampala, Uganda
 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…

A skirmish over an oil field on the shores of Africa’s Lake Albert highlights Big Oil’s intense interest in Uganda—a rising star of African energy. Tullow Oil is competing with Eni, Total and Cnooc to secure an oilfield stake owned by partner Heritage.

The battle centers on the Ugandan assets of Heritage Oil PLC, a small U.K.-based explorer, which is selling its stakes in the much-coveted Lake Albert Rift Basin. The area has yielded some of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest onshore oil discoveries of recent years.

Big energy companies like Italy’s Eni SpA, France’s Total SA and China National Offshore Oil Co. all are vying for access to Uganda’s oil wealth. Uganda’s onshore oil is particularly appealing because it is relatively inexpensive to produce. That sets it apart from other frontier provinces, like the deep waters off Brazil’s coast and the Arctic Ocean, where the majors require an oil price of around $60 a barrel just to break even.

Initially, Eni looked to be the likely winner, announcing in November that it was buying Heritage’s stakes for $1.5 billion in cash and assets. But Tullow Oil PLC, Heritage’s partner in the oil field, exercised its contractual right to block the sale and acquire the stakes itself at the same price. Tullow’s purchase, however, is subject to approval by the Ugandan government. The initial reaction was negative, with the country’s energy minister saying the government didn’t want one company to end up with control of the whole oil field and would prevent the sale if necessary. Heritage and Tullow share ownership of two blocks in the oil field, while Tullow owns all of a third. Acquiring Heritage’s stakes would give Tullow full ownership of all three blocks, covering 10,000 square kilometers—about one-third the size of Belgium.

The government’s position appeared to soften after Tullow Chief Executive Aidan Heavey met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala recently. Tullow said that once in full possession of the oil field it would sell half to either Cnooc or Total to help finance the construction of a refinery and a 1,300-kilometer pipeline that would carry Uganda’s oil to world markets.

Such an arrangement would allow Tullow to control who it works with as well as concentrate on its core activities—exploring for and pumping oil, rather than refining and transporting it to market.

Tullow also announced plans last Wednesday to raise around $1.6 billion in a rights issue to help it develop Uganda’s oil.

Tullow now is the favorite to take the Heritage stakes, with Cnooc edging out Total as Tullow’s most-likely partner, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Museveni met with Cnooc executives in Kampala last week and is expected to meet them again this week to finalize details, the person said. Cnooc and Total declined to comment.

Eni hasn’t given up, however, and last week sweetened its package. The company’s CEO, Paolo Scaroni, said in a newspaper interview that Eni would not only develop the Lake Albert field and build a refinery and pipeline to the Indian Ocean, but also would construct an electricity plant in Uganda and upgrade a railway line from Kampala to the Kenyan port of Mombasa. He said Eni would invest $13 billion in the “integrated development plan.” Eni declined to comment for this article.

Tullow declined to comment on Eni’s new offer.

What has attracted companies like Eni to Uganda is the one billion barrels of crude already discovered in the Lake Albert Rift Basin, a vast, oil-rich area close to Uganda’s border with Congo to the west, and the huge untapped potential of the region. Tullow estimates that about 1.5 billion barrels, roughly the same amount as Yemen’s oil reserves, remain to be discovered in the basin.

Uganda also is seen as more stable politically than many of its neighbors, though the north of the country is wracked by armed conflict between the army and a rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Some of the most promising prospects are in Lake Albert itself, however, and will require offshore drilling using floating platforms. Industry experts have said there could be large amounts of oil on the Congo side of the lake, which remains largely unexplored.

Uganda plans to produce around 150,000 barrels of oil a day in four to six years, most of which will be exported. For comparison, that is slightly less than the output of Brunei. The steady revenue stream from oil could radically change the fortunes of the east African country, one of the world’s poorest.

“It doesn’t move the needle in terms of global oil supply, but it’s one of the few countries that will see growth in the coming years in a world of shrinking opportunity,” said Bob McKnight, an oil expert at consulting firm PFC Energy.

Tullow and Heritage have had an almost unbroken run of successes since they started drilling for oil in the Lake Albert area five years ago, with most of their wells encountering crude. Tullow’s share price nearly doubled last year on the back of the discoveries.

Write to Guy Chazan at  guy.chazan at wsj.com and Nicholas Bariyoat  nicholas.bariyo at dowjones.com

From the latest news coming from Washington – “Under the new airport
rules, all citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen must receive a pat
down and an extra check of their carry-on bags before boarding a plane
bound for the United States, officials said. Citizens of Cuba, Iran,
Sudan and Syria — nations considered ’state sponsors of terrorism’ —
face the same requirement.”

That means Cuba and thirteen Muslim states: Afghanistan, Algeria,
Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

These news caused a lot of comments, but we think the wrong comments.

We assume obviously that Washington is ready finally to address the
terrorism issue. Airplane terrorism, as we learned on 9/11, is not
about transport of weapons but about terrorists – to be specific since
9/11 – we speak here about Islamic terrorists. If you want to catch
terrorists you must look for terrorists. Looking for baby formula is
not the answer – but looking for those passengers whose profiles are
suspicious might be a better bet. Sure, obviously, not all Muslims are
terrorists, and profiling is terrible – even illegal, but if you want
to catch terrorists you start with the profile that most fits Islamic
terrorists, and you bet – they are Muslims of any color. Even though
they may be traveling with documents issued by non-Islamic States,
i.e. the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Switzerland, or even the
US.

So, it is not easy to define exactly what papers are carried by the
terrorists, but you can have some guidelines to increase your chance
of catching them. looking for a profile of an Asian or African Muslim.
Then, learn from the Israelis how to talk to them – you may even find
out that they are so convinced that their cause is the right one, that
they will lower their guard and just plainly disclose that what you
see is all they got.

There may be a Jamaican convert to Islam who preached terrorism in the UK
and resides now in Kenya – a case in point. Kenya does want him either and
he will be sent back to Jamaica a second time. yes, this is a problem if you
are American and Jamaica does not cooperate – but he is a Muslim and no
Anti-Defamation league is enrtitled to tell you Mr. President that he should
not be stripped and searched if he wants to travel via the US to Jamaica.
This is simple.

But what about Cuba? Fidel Castro is more atheist then Catholic, surely
no Muslim. Whatever went on in the past is history to me and I do not believe
prologue to Mr. Castro. So why mix him and his country up with 13 Islamic
States involved in Islamic Terrorism? That is unless someone in the US longs
to see him give cover to such terrorists in the future so they get new reasons
to be after him? If the Jamaica case has anything to teach us – it is that the
US is better off reinsuring its rear parts from anger caused by mistreatment
and friendship is not achieved by mulling over past grief. Specially, as several
hundred former sugar baron families living in Florida should not be allowed to
hold hostage the US when it comes to real US interests.

Mr. President, I watched Bolivia and Venezuela leaders speak in Copenhagen,
they fumed and brimmed with words – no stones or missiles. Their ALBA is,
I think, the natural ally of a US that manages to disengage from the Islamic
world of oil. So, it is the US self interest that calls for you, Mr. President, to
invite Fidel Castro to Washington for a tete-a-tete and start on a way that
eventually will give the US the wall of safety it needs when addressing the 21st
Century centers of terror – the Islamists’ terror cancer that will continue to ooze
as long as we use oil.

Please start by taking him of that list!

The thirteen on that list include the obvious Iran – Syria – Lebanon
trio of the Shii’a Islam, it includes the Afghanistan/Pakistan US
theater of operations and Iraq, as well as the other US theater Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan that misses Egypt and the Gaza strip. A
fourth historic region includes Libya and Algeria, then with Nigeria,
these are newer sources of oil for the US, and as such clear potential
sources of unhappy Islamists who complain about the changes in their
countries as fueled by oil money. In very few countries terrorism
against the US was actually started by rulers decree. Libya, Iran,
Syria, Sudan, Somalia may be the exceptions, but Saudi Arabia and
Yemen may have seen rulers who deflected anger against themselves into
anger against foreigners. In the majority of cases the terrorist is a
person of convictions and the situation could have been avoided had
the US and the rest of the Western World, tried to be less squanderous
with the oil we got addicted to.

Having said the above – let us get now to the point – MR PRESIDENT -
PLEASE – TAKE CUBA OFF THAT LIST BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELONG ON THAT
LIST IN 2010.

* * * *

Please look – I am posting here four reference – links to news
articles of today’s New York Times.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05t…

New Air Security Checks From 14 Nations to U.S. Draw Criticism
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

In Yemen, U.S. Faces Leader Who Puts Family First
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

Kenya Seeks to Deport Muslim Cleric to Jamaica

————————

THE UPDATE:

We have received a comment on this post and it presents a very valid point supposedly made at the UN General Assembly by the Foreign Minister of Cuba: “I mean if they were going to include us, then they should have at least thrown in North Korea.”

Even if the e-mail we received from ajay -   akazif at gmail.com  as presented by www. eggplantpost.com in http://eggplantpost.com/2010/01/05/cuba-… were a made up story, the argument holds water nevertheless. DID THE US INCLUDE CUBA ON THAT LIST BECAUSE IT WANTED TO AVOID BEING SEEN AS GOING AFTER A RAG-TAG OF ISLANIC COUNTRIES? Now, we believe that US security should be spoken here – not again US appeasement-for-oil please!

Geothermal Power: Chinese Lead African Geothermal Exploration.

By Sam Hopkins
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

China built its Great Wall to keep foreigners out…
But Chinese company Great Wall Drilling is now making itself a foreign force in Africa, where a dire need to develop domestic energy resources means companies from the Middle Kingdom are moving in steadily.
Kenya’s state-run Geothermal Development Company (GDC) recently committed $240 million per year to the expansion of the national geothermal power resource.

Kenya is reliant on hydropower for most of its electricity, and droughts consistently threaten that resource and subsequent power delivery.

With its landscape cut across by the Great Rift Valley, which is in the process of splitting two parts of the tectonic African Plate, Kenya holds a geothermal output potential of 7000 megawatts (7 GW). Currently, only 167 MW of that has been tapped.
By 2030, the Kenyan government has set the goal of bringing 4000 MW of geothermal power online to serve one of Africa’s most promising developing nations.

Great Wall Drilling is furthering the recent trend of Chinese companies moving into African resource markets by launching a massive exploration and production campaign. Great Wall Drilling has 47 wells in Kenya either planned or already dug.
Those pilot wells will serve to give Kenyan officials in the capital Nairobi and throughout the country more of an idea of how to maximize official funds and draw investment from global geothermal leaders like Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA).
Great Wall Drilling will be just one of many international companies Kenya needs to get 72 wells drilled per year to reach 4 GW by 2030.

Stay with Green Chip Stocks to learn more about how the development of alternative energy resources in developing countries like Kenya could help them “leapfrog” fossil fuel. The same has already happened with telecoms, as Kenya bypassed fixed-line infrastructure for wireless communication.
-Sam Hopkins of www.greenchipstocks.com

We had the following as a posting on our future events button. Now we update after the events.

——————

Posted on October 12, 2009:

Dr. Perkins, a student of leadership, to speak October 15th at the Explorers Club annual Dinner.

Dr. Dennis Perkins is Keynote Speaker at the Explorers’ Club,
Lowell Thomas Annual Awards Dinner,
October 15th, 2009 Cipriani Wall Street, NY, NY

Dr. Perkins is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, served as a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam and subsequently received an MBA from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Perkins has spent his lifetime evaluating and analyzing leadership and teamwork of successful and doomed expeditions, first as a front line military leader and subsequently in the field and as faculty at our nation’s top universities. Dr. Perkins’ passion to experience and understand risk has taken him to disparate places including Antarctica, where he retraced the footsteps of famed explorer, Ernest Shackleton; and to Australia, where he sailed the Midnight Rambler, winning the challenging Sydney to Hobart Race, a 628 nautical mile race — often called “the Everest” of offshore racing – using a Volvo 60 racing boat.

Dr. Perkins has written extensively on leadership and organizational effectiveness all in the context of risk assessment and optimization.

——————–

I was intrigued by the interest in risk as described in the Explorers Club info material. Indeed, now I can report that both events did indeed stand in the shadow of the RISK idea – but please mind – this was not in the sense of getting involved in adventures for the sake of adventure, but rather the cold assessment of risk, and the intelligent process of learning how to get out from under dangerous conditions. You get to risks at the edge and might look at the brink – said one speaker.

The speakers were all old style explorers and by nature of this concept – risk takers. Those that were honored at the dinner were obviously members of the older generation, but at the Saturday “Mountain Stories” event we saw also younger people – so there is still a future for those that want to allow for risk taking. Now the problem is to find places to explore – but I learned that there is no shortage of such possibilities. Climbing new peaks in areas that were less accessible in the past is just one possibility, but going back to mountain peaks that have been explored many times in the past, but using new equipment, it is possible to open up new roots and even get a minor peak called by your name.

Going in the foots of Shackleton in the Antarctica, Dr. Perkins said that the good news was that we have been there before and we know how to do it.

Perkins speaks of “Balanced optimism grounded in reality – you damn well got to be optimistic to go on such a trip.” You must be wiling to take the big risk – not the unnecessary risk.”

What the explorer must do is to look calmly at the situation and step up to the risk worth taking. The challenge is to find innovative solutions to problems under least favorable conditions.

Dr. Perkins, when he speaks, he peppers his mental pictures with ideas from the world of business and policy – such as: “The IMF says global recovery has begun – but does not say when things will get better – so may be we cannot predict the future.”

We know we will have bad days, but we must be ready to take the worthwhile risk, and ended by saying “Thank you very much – go for the edge.”

Yvon Choinard, a Patagonian man, climed mountains on every continent. Long time ago, he looked for the true source of the Nile at Mt. Stanley in Uganda. He said that he never goes on an adventure trip – it just happens when you take small risks on the way.

Richard Wilson, told about racing a boat for 120 days and 28,000 miles, from Port la Foret, Brittany. 

Eventually someone defined the topic of risk as – “Risk is to take new exploration and the unknown, and this without knowing about success.”

—————

The Saturday event was set up to honor further six outstanding explorers and mountain climbers. I was there for three of the six.

The last presenter was Jennifer Loew-Anker - born in Montana to the outdoors from birth – she sounded like a proof that genetics, or call it upbringing – have something to do with it. When you ride a horse at two years of age, and horse-riding is in effect more dangerous then mountain climbing … you get my point.

Jennifer is an artist with wildlife her major topic. She presented to us her book “Forget Me Not” about her first husband – her childhood friend from Montana – Alex Lowe, who died in 1999, in an avalanche on the Himalayan mountain Shishapangma. Alex was considered one of the greatest modern climbers. Jennifer showed us a movie about their lives – she herself also a great climber. After 18 years of marriage, she was left with three children. Eventually, two years later she remarried another climber who worked with Alex.

Jennifer told us about climbing done in the Pinar del Rio region of Cuba, and of philanthropic work she does now with the Alex foundation. They built a climbing wall in Mongolia and established a school for sherpas when they realized that the sherpas actually never learned to take care for themselves, and the number of casualties among the sherpas is so much higher then among the foreign climbers.

The other two – actually three speakers – were the pair Freddie Wilkenson & Janet Bergman, and Kevin Mahoney. All of them from the Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, Mountain Climber community.  All of them connected to the Dartmouth Club and to “Mountain Hardware,” and from their base they work as guides and climbers all over the world.

Kevin Mahoney sees his job as a “mitigator of risk – so people discover their own worth.” He defined himself as a winter person – he climbs ice. He said that skying has many more accidents then ice climbing.

Freddie Wilkinson and Janet Bergman are young people from Kevin Mahoney’s group. They gave us a run down on today’s ice climbing – mentioning that 95% of climbing is done in a handful of peaks in the Himalayas. They described themselves as a great team as Freddie looks for opportunities and Janet for barriers – this when trying to identify new targets for climbing or new ways of climbing in areas that have been covered earlier.

——-

Now I come to the real reason why I looked at these two fascinating programs at the Explorers Club – this because of an obsession I developed at the UN when I realized that the New York based Explorers Club is an NGO affiliated to the UN, but not part of the environmental NGOs active at the UN. I realized at the time that the Club was dominated by people that would rather shoot an elephant and turn it over to a taxidermist so it be a trophy for them. Could they find the last dinosaur, they would have stuffed him also. That might have been right for the days of President Theodore Roosevelt, but I thought that today you ought  not love the outdoors in order to kill them. Also climate change is a rather important issue and I saw tremendous potential here to get the Explorers involved. Eventually I approached a young new President of the Club, we met but nothing happened.

Now, at the Saturday event I spoke with some of those that were honored at the event. These were young people and clearly not of the riffle kind, but still did not find a feel for activism present on our kind of issues. Nevertheless, I found hope for change.

When I asked Kevin Mahoney if he found signs of climate change in Nepal, he started to tell me about the farmer who complained that he has to go higher uphill with the sheep he owns, because there is no grass for them as there is a lack of water. So he goes up higher to areas that used to be covered snow! This clearly gave me the opening to talk a little about the melting glaciers, and I found real interest among the young climbers. So there may be hope that someday the Explorers might indeed become Environmentalists as well – provided by that time there will still be left some  environment to explore. Just think of the snow caps of Kenya and Tanzania and my statement above might not sound absurd at all. 

Is this a different meaning for RISK?

The US Chamber of Commerce has commissioned from Baird’s Communications Management Consultants (Baird’s CMC) in partnership with the Africa Business Initiative, an “inside-the-boardroom survey of attitudes toward corporate investment in Africa among leading U.S. corporations.” The information was gathered between January and November 2008 in a series of closed door interviews with senior officers of 30 American Fortune 100 corporations.

The report can be found at:   http://www.usafricainvestment.com

Among the conclusions I found:

“USA Inc. is more interested in Africa than before, because the African market appears increasingly attractive, but Africa has tough competition and high hurdles for US investment. Education is at the top of the US corporate wish list for Africa; ‘educate your people so that we can employ them.’

The African countries that hold most interest are South Africa and some countries in the North, like Egypt; there are also some pockets of interest in West Africa, most notably Ghana, Nigeria and to some extent Angola; while some in the South (Botswana and Mozambique) and East (Uganda and Kenya), are also being watched.”

——-

The report is in two parts:

Part One: Understand how US corporations view Africa as an investment destination and what their requirements are for investing in Africa on the same scale as their investments in the rest of the developing world.

Part Two: The response of African political and government leaders to these private sector views will be telling; what is the conversation about FDI behind government’s closed doors, when policy is made?

——-

Why has Africa not attracted more interest from the U.S. business community?

Rule of law – The rule of law does not prevail to the degree required to make Africa an attractive investment destination. This applies to corporate, societal, and criminal law

Attraction — While the enormous natural resources are an attraction, Africa does not offer a sufficiently large middle class of consumers or show consistent economic growth that could promise a future market. Most African countries are small and have poor markets, and there are barriers to regional markets–such as taxes and the freedom of movement of people and goods

Risks versus rewards– Given the currently perceived risks in Africa, the rewards have to be very high to make it worthwhile to invest. Presently, U.S. corporations say that there are very few visible promises of future returns high enough to justify significant interest in investing

Supportive business framework–Transportation and communications infrastructure, trained or trainable human resources, and equitable trade and employment practices are insufficient to support corporate investment

A welcoming environment– African countries are not doing a sufficient job of providing education and health services to the potential workforce, which makes the potential hire-able local insufficient to support investment.

———

From the www.SustainabiliTank.info   angle we found the most important comment to be:  

“Africa may want to consider the benefits of encouraging US Corporations whose stated desire is to employ Africans, unlike others who merely exploit African mineral resources without contributing to local employment. Africa may also benefit in the long term from the US approach of skills transfer and technology development, provided that its intellectual property is protected.” This obviously requires African leaders to help educate their people which might then also lead to the obvious requirement to allow in new spirits such as more democratic stiles of government and distribution of wealth produced from this more intimate interaction with the outside world and we hope that this can be agreed upon for a true benefit of Africa.

If this study could open African eyes to such potentialities, then the study might indeed provide the positive basis for moving Africa away from the present dead point where the export of commodities such as oil, minerals, and diamonds, are the one way connections that masquerades as business relations between African governments and US corporations. On the other hand, the US public will have to allow also the opening of the US market to goods manufactured in Africa.All of this while US corporations become also investors in the creation of a more developed African internal market.

The report was brought to our attention by   Fabiane Dal-Ri   –  fabianedalri at usafricainvestment.com

January 29, 2009

Contact: ATA Communications
Tel: (212) 447-1357
 info at africatravelassociation.org
www.africatravelassociation.org

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S ELECTION SPARKS INTEREST IN TOURISM TO AFRICA

Africa Travel Association (ATA) Opens Registration for its Second Annual
U.S.-Africa Tourism Seminar in Washington, D.C. from February 19-20, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 29, 2009 – The recent inauguration of President Barack Obama is more than a landmark in America’s political history, it is also an opportunity for the travel and tourism industry to take a more focused approach to increasing visitors and investment in Africa from the U.S.

“All over Africa, we can see how excited everyone is about President Obama’s connection to the continent,” said Edward Bergman, ATA Executive Director. “We have already seen a surge in interest about travel specials to Africa not only to Kenya, where President Obama traces his roots, but also throughout East Africa.”

ATA, the world’s leading global travel trade organization, is gearing up for its Second Annual U.S.-Africa Tourism Seminar. The two-day event takes place at the Washington Convention Center from February 19-20, immediately prior to the Adventures in Travel Expo (ATE). The seminar’s timing and location affords ATA an opportunity to build on the recent historic events, including President Obama’s commitment to service.

With travel to Africa on the rise and an emerging interest in Africa as a culture and heritage destination, Africa is garnering more and more attention from American tourists as one of the world’s premier travel destinations.

Focusing on sports, adventure and diaspora travel and tourism, the seminar will showcase Africa as a top tourism destination from the U.S., as well as a site for investment and business opportunity in one of the world’s fastest growing tourism markets.

Manute Bol, former NBA star and Ethiopian Airlines official spokesperson, will speak about different possibilities for responsible tourism and sports tourism in Africa.

Stephen Hayes, President of the Corporate Council on Africa, and Edward Bergman, among other travel professionals, will speak about tourism policy choices at the opening plenary session.

Sthu Zungu, President of South African Tourism-USA, will speak about travel trends, relating to who is traveling to Africa, why they are going, and what can be improved on the travel front to increase tourism to the continent. Alongside experts in sports tourism in Africa, she will also address how mega sporting events, such as 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, can be leveraged to increase tourism to and within Africa.

The timely topic of responsible tourism and how the industry and the individual tourist can make a difference in local communities will be explored by senior representatives from the Center for Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, Africare, and the African Wildlife Foundation.

Senior representatives from the World Bank, IFC (International Finance Corporation), and US Department of Commerce’s Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, will explore entrepreneurship, finance and investment opportunities, as well as travel trends in separate workshops.

South African Airways representatives will participate in a workshop on the growth and modernization of travel to Africa and the growth and modernization of intra-Africa air service. Representatives from other airlines serving Africa and Boeing will also participate in the seminar.

Another workshop on African diaspora tourism will examine the role of the diaspora in changing perceptions of Africa in the US market and emerging African diaspora tourism products, such as cultural and heritage tours. Panelists will also explore how the African diaspora and immigrant communities can serve as Africa’s tourism ambassadors in the U.S. tourism markets.

Panelists will also speak about branding and marketing Destination Africa and Africa’s newest travel products, particularly in the areas of sports tourism, and adventure travel.

Tourism experts and industry professionals from the U.S. and Africa, particularly travel agents and tour operators who market, sell and specialize in Africa, are expected to attend the seminar, as well as ministers of tourism, representatives from Washington D.C.’s diplomatic community, and Africa’s national tourism offices.

Representatives of the Spring Bank, Virginia Quanders family (1684), referred to as – America’s oldest documented African American family’ by Ebony and Jet magazines, will attend the event. Henderson Travel Services, the first African American travel agency in the U.S. to specialize in sending visitors to Africa, will also participate.

Public relations firms specializing in marketing Africa destinations, such as the Bradford Group, will participate in the seminar, alongside faculty and students from George Washington University.

ATA welcomes travel industry professionals to participate in the ATE expo immediately following the seminar. ATA members should contact ATA for discounts to exhibit.

To register and to find more information on the seminar, as well as sponsorship opportunities, visit http://www.africatravelassociation.org/a….

About the Africa Travel Association (ATA) The Africa Travel Association, a U.S.-based non-profit, is the world’s premier travel industry trade association promoting tourism to Africa and intra-Africa travel and partnership since 1975. ATA members include ministries of tourism and culture, national tourism boards, airlines, hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators, travel trade media, public relations firms, NGOs, and SME’s. For more on ATA, visit www.africatravelassociation.org.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2009

Q&A: World Social Forum is Not a Static Platform.
Terna Gyuse interviews ONYANGO OLOO, activist

CAPE TOWN, Jan 29 (IPS) – Onyango Oloo was the national coordinator of the Kenyan Social Forum in 2007 when the last global World Social Forum (WSF)took place in Nairobi. As another gathering of activists from around the world unfolds in Belem, Brazil, IPS asked Oloo for his views on the Forum’s past and future.

IPS: Two years on from Nairobi, how would you evaluate the last WSF? What were the successes? What were the shortcomings?

Oloo: WSF Nairobi 2007 was a groundbreaking event. The fact that it took place at all given its myriad challenges, was definitely an indicator of success. We were able to bring thousands of activists from around Africa and across the world together on Kenyan soil.

Issues to do with climate change, food sovereignty, awareness about GMOs, South-South solidarity, campaigns against the EPAs to cite a few were foregrounded and later on became a basis of pan-African initiatives across the continent. Locally, the emergence of the Kenyan gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community was a dramatic manifestation how the WSF can strengthen the struggles of marginalized social groups.

One of the key shortcomings had to with locking poor communities out of the event. Another drawback was how elements within the organising committee fostered the privatisation and commercialisation of the WSF space. Unfortunately, corruption – which is endemic in Kenyan society – reared its ugly head at the 2007 event.

IPS: There were many who expressed disappointment after Nairobi, who suggested the WSF may have outlived its purpose as an alternative to the very different ideas and networking at the World Economic Forum, and has been domesticated into a trade fair for NGOs and the better-funded sections of civil society – what’s your view?

OO: While I sympathized with the essence of the sentiments described above, I do not fully share that pessimistic assessment.

As a social justice activist, I firmly believe that cynicism is a luxury we can ill afford. The World Social Forum is an arena of struggle, not just between the big imperialist forces and those working for fundamental transformation, but also of contestation within and among progressive forces. It is not a static platform.

From time to time, negative tendencies will appear in the WSF process. It is our responsibility to combat and transcend these reactionary tendencies within our movements and communities.

IPS: How has the WSF been good for African civil society?

OO: I strongly feel that activists should challenge the very definition of “African civil society”. Is it limited just to the NGO community and those organisations associated with the African petit-bourgeois elite? Or does it extend to embrace social movements, radical and revolutionary forces (some of them in the anti-establishment political arena) and other spheres?

I am conscious that I am pushing the envelope here since the WSF process is quite wary about including organised political actors [ie. political parties] within its milieu.

IPS: “Another world is possible” – it feels like a limited set of those possibilities have been absorbed into mainstream.

Africa is maybe just past the crest of a wave of elections, of the steady consolidation of bodies like the AU and regional bodies. The continent is in the relative aftermath of the IMF’s economic prescriptions to liberalise and privatise, cut back on government spending and instead recover costs from citizens-as-clients – the casualties of structural adjustment have been buried and now we see solid macro-economic numbers in Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa…

And it seems some of the passion and effectiveness of the Jubilee campaigns, of various pro-democracy movements, the urgent and organised demands for things like free anti-retrovirals has subsided.

Is this it? Are we already living in the other possible world? Who and how is pushing beyond this?

OO: As a slogan, “Another World Is Possible” is woefully inadequate with its core assumption that all possible worlds can only be better than the existing one.

Yet the experience of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Bush in the USA, Idi Amin in Uganda, Pinochet in Chile, Papa Doc in Haiti, Suharto in Indonesia and a slew of blood stained dictators and despots across the globe attests that for every utopia, there is a nightmarish dystopia waiting in the wings.

We need to define the contents and parameters of these other possible worlds.

It is a weakness of the WSF process that over the years it has valorised ideologically ambiguous terminology that seems, in my view, calculated to mollify the waffling liberals and right-leaning social democrats. What happened to old-fashioned terms like imperialism, socialism, revolutionary transformation and so on?

I am saying that the WSF will eventually lose relevance as long as it is unable to frontally confront global monopoly capitalism and suggest clear socialist alternatives and organize progressive humanity to defeat this imperialist monster.

————-

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2009

Makers and Shakers of the Post-Crisis World.
Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jan 29 (IPS) – Of all the questions raised by the global economic crisis, one that is by no means insignificant may be answered this week: How will the pressure groups that influenced the policies that led to the present chaos adapt to the new world situation?

Clues to their behaviour will begin to be revealed from Wednesday, as the annual session of the World Economic Forum (WEF), a think-tank for the elite that looks to the interests of transnational companies and is regularly attended by executives, experts and government officials from rich countries, kicks off at the winter resort of Davos in Switzerland.

At first sight it would appear that nothing has changed, as the WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab has already forthrightly announced that the first goal of this Davos Forum will be “to assist the G20 process”. Schwab was referring to the group of more than 20 large and emerging economies which began examining ways of reforming the world’s financial architecture and policies to revitalise the global economy in Washington in November 2008. Leaders of the G20 are due to meet again on Apr. 2 in London.

Even more unambiguously, Schwab said “what we want is to allow business leaders and ’stakeholders’ such as trade unionists and non-governmental organisations to contribute to the G20’s goals.” This is sheer arrogance, Swiss academic Jean Ziegler told IPS.

It demonstrates that the Davos Forum will once again “be simply an exercise in cynicism, arrogance and blindness,” Ziegler said in an interview with IPS between sessions of the consultative committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council, meeting this week in Geneva.

Some 2,500 people are expected to attend the Davos Forum, over half of them representatives of the business community, but also members of governments, politicians, trade unionists, religious leaders and members of non-governmental organisations.

As happens every year, press accreditation is largely confined to journalists representing media that are in sympathy with the liberal (free market) ideology of the WEF.

The organisers of the Davos Forum have underscored the secrecy surrounding some sessions by prohibiting writers of press releases, who attend the closed meetings, from having any personal contact with journalists.

Schwab has recently been at pains to deny the idea that the WEF has an ideology, saying that the Davos Forum does not express opinions, it just provides a platform.

Neither did he accept that the Davos Forum has embraced certain economic dogmas, such as complete rejection of state intervention and regulations. It was individual participants at the meetings who promoted these ideas, he said.

Some programmes developed by the WEF have always called for a coordinated system of global regulation, he said.

At a press conference, Schwab expressed the view that “a reform of capitalism” is necessary. He said there was a need to return to certain values that had been lost in the past 10 years because of too much greed and too little regulation.

The WEF chairman acknowledged that after 39 annual meetings of the Davos Forum, this year’s session will be one of the most challenging and significant. Titled “Shaping the Post-Crisis World,” the central topic for debate is what kind of world the forum wants to see emerging when the crisis is over, and how to design it.

Ziegler criticised the conspicuous spending by WEF participants. For example, the delegates of UBS (United Bank of Switzerland) are staying in luxury hotels in Davos.

UBS was one of the financial institutions hardest hit by the crisis, so much so that the Swiss government had to bail it out to the tune of 64 billion Swiss francs (56.3 million dollars) to save it from bankruptcy.

“The Swiss taxpayer is paying for these luxuries. It’s disgusting,” Ziegler told IPS.

“Half the bankers and industrialists at Davos should have been sent to prison a long time ago,” he said. “All these years, the Davos Forum has provided the ideological basis for plundering the world.”

Twenty years ago, the Davos Forum was celebrating deregulation, headlong liberalisation of the markets, privatisations and the heyday of profit, Ziegler said.

Former president of the World Bank James Wolfensohn coined the phrase: “The end of history is a world government without a state,” which was roundly applauded by participants at the WEF, Ziegler said.

Their unrestrained neoliberal ideology has landed the world in its worst economic crisis since 1929, and those responsible are the very same people who are here at Davos squandering money, he concluded.

———-

UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
29 January,  2009
=========================================================================

BAN Ki-MOON URGES LEADERS AT DAVOS TO FORGE ‘GREEN NEW DEAL’ TO FIGHT WORLD
RECESSION

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the world’s business and
other leaders to use the current economic crisis to launch a new Global
Compact entailing a “Green New Deal” that creates jobs and fights climate
change by investing in renewable energy and technological development.

“Climate change threatens all our goals for development and social
progress. Indeed, it is the one true existential threat to the planet,” he
told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in a speech that drew
parallels from the Global Compact of corporate responsibility launched 10
years ago by then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the same hall.

“On the other hand, it also presents us with a gilt-edged opportunity. By
tackling climate change head-on we can solve many of our current troubles,
including the threat of global recession. We stand at a crossroads. It is
important that we realize we have a choice. We can choose short-sighted
unilateralism and business as usual. Or we can grasp global cooperation and
partnership on a scale never before seen.”

Just as Mr. Annan had launched a Compact that sought to give a human face
to the global market, challenging business to embrace universal principles
and partner with the UN on big issues, such as the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) that seek to slash poverty, hunger, lack of access to health
care and education and a host of other social ills by 2015, so now the time
has came for what Mr. Ban called “Global Compact 2.0.”

“We live in a new era. Its challenges can all be solved by cooperation –
and only by cooperation,” he said, stressing how the earlier compact, the
world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, involves over 6,000
business participants in more than 130 countries, pioneering new standards
of “best practice” in human rights and labour law, helping to protect the
environment, fight against corruption and promote health, education and
infrastructure.

“Now, a new set of crises prompts a renewed sense of mission,” he declared.
“Our times demand a new definition of leadership – global leadership. They
demand a new constellation of international cooperation – governments,
civil society and the private sector, working together for a collective
global good.

“Some might say such a vision is naïve. That it is wishful thinking. Yet we
have inspiring examples proving the contrary,” he added, citing the
critical role of business in the 1960s Green Revolution that lifted
hundreds of millions out of poverty in Asia, the global vaccination
campaign that eradicated smallpox by 1979, and solid progress in the fight
against AIDS, tuberculosis, polio and malaria.

“But we must break the tyranny of short-term thinking in favour of
long-term solutions. This will demand a renewed commitment to core
principles. A new Global Compact,” he added, noting new United States
President Barack Obama has made a clear commitment to re-energizing the
American economy by boosting the “green economy.”

Mr. Ban cited initiatives already underway under the old Global Compact,
such as “Caring for Climate,” the world’s largest business-led project on
climate change in which chief executives disclose their carbon emissions
and commit to comprehensive climate policies, and the “CEO Water Mandate”
advancing water stewardship through drip irrigation and water harvesting.

“The problem is that we have no coordinated global [water] management
authority in the UN system or the world at large,” the Secretary-General
said. “There is no overall responsibility, accountability or vision for how
to address the related problems of climate change, agricultural stress and
water technology.”

While in Davos, the Secretary-General also met, last night and today, with
a number of leaders. He discussed climate change and the Middle East peace
process with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

In addition, he discussed Haiti with former United States President Bill
Clinton. And in a bilateral meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon,
he talked about climate change, food security, the MDGs and Haiti.

What will Obama do with Churchill’s bust?
Srdjan Vucetic, 20 – 01 – 2009   http://www.opendemocracy.net/usa/article/srdjan_vucetic/churchill_bust_oval_office

The task of redecorating the Oval Office includes remembering and re-imagining trans-Atlantic relations
One of the first jobs of an American president is to redecorate the Oval Office. Each new president is expected to update the furniture, replace the carpet, repaint the walls and woodwork as well as add some new paintings. There are also the sculptures, usually three or four. So when he moves in today, President Barack Obama will have to decide what to do with a bronze bust of Winston Churchill.
The bust is on loan from the British government and was installed by his predecessor, President George W Bush in 2001. Bush explains it in an official White House tour video [my transcript]: “my friend the prime minister of Great Britain heard me say that I greatly admired Winston Churchill and so he saw to it that the government loaned me this and I am most honored to have this Jacob Epstein bust of Winston Churchill. I like Churchill because he was a great war leader. He was resolute, he was tough, he knew what he believed, and he had a fabulous sense of humor. And in this job, believe me, you’ve gotta have a sense of humor. Otherwise it makes for the days awfully long and for the nights awfully short.” (Predictably, the video inspired a spoof.)
Officially, Her Majesty’s government loaned the bust to Bush for the duration of his term. At the end of this month, the bust can therefore go back to the Government Art Collection on Cockspur Street. But there is little to prevent Obama from retaining the sculpture, just like there was little that prevented him from retaining Bush’s Defense Secretary and several other “holdover” officials.
Downing Street, always ready to cultivate Britain’s “special relationship” with America, would probably happily extend the loan to another four to eight years. After all, no figure in the world better symbolizes the “special relationship” than Churchill. In his last Lord Mayor’s Banquet Speech, Prime Minister Gordon Brown explained it yet again: “Winston Churchill described the joint inheritance of Britain and America as not just a shared history but a shared belief in the great principles of freedom, and the rights of man – of what Barack Obama described in his election night speech as the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.”
Will Obama keep his Churchill? Obama’s speech writers would certainly appreciate it. In the United States, the signifier “Churchill” is as positively evaluated as “Obama” in the United Kingdom right now. As Christopher Hitchens observes, in America, Churchill “occupies an unrivaled place in the common stock of reference, ranging from the mock-heroic to the downright kitsch.” The man voted the Greatest Briton in a 2002, argues Hitchens, “can be quoted even more safely than Lincoln in that he was never a member of any American faction.”
Good politics is not the only reason for Obama to retain the bust. Last year, the New England Historic Genealogical Society discovered that Obama is in fact related to Churchill. (The researchers also found that Obama is a ninth cousin of Brad Pitt and a distant relative to five former U.S. presidents, including George W Bush.) So why not keep a bust of a distant family member which happens to be a great war leader that most Americans love?
As it is often the case, family history cuts both ways. In Kenya, the land of Obama’s father, the signifier “Churchill” carries nothing but negative connotations. Several times in his long political career, Churchill was responsible for Britain’s empire, which until 1963 included Kenya. It was his government which in 1952 declared the so-called Kenya Emergency – an attempt to quash a rebellion against colonial rule known as Mau Mau. For the next eight years, suspected rebels were routinely detained, tortured, hanged and shot. According to Caroline Elkins, the colonial soldiers killed between fifteen and twenty thousand Kenyans in combat, while up to one hundred thousand perished in the detention camps. One of those who endured torture in a British prison was Hussein Onyango Obama, US president’s Kenyan grandfather. Traces of this story can be found in Obama’s memoir Dreams from my Father as well as in a few interviews; much more is sure to come. For now, it behooves us to remember it when Obama sends his Churchill packing. The time for the Anglo-American “special relationship” to move beyond Churchill is long overdue.
Srdjan Vucetic is Dillard Fellow in International Studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge

In First Family, a Nation’s Many Faces

WASHINGTON — The president’s elderly stepgrandmother brought him an oxtail fly whisk, a mark of power at home in Kenya. Cousins journeyed from the South Carolina town where the first lady’s great-great-grandfather was born into slavery, while the rabbi in the family came from the synagogue where he had been commemorating Martin Luther King’s Birthday. The president and first lady’s siblings were there, too, of course: his Indonesian-American half-sister, who brought her Chinese-Canadian husband, and her brother, a black man with a white wife.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Maya Soetoro-Ng

When President Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday, he was surrounded by an extended clan that would have shocked past generations of Americans and instantly redrew the image of a first family for future ones.

As they convened to take their family’s final step in its journey from Africa and into the White House, the group seemed as if it had stepped out of the pages of Mr. Obama’s memoir — no longer the disparate kin of a young man wondering how he fit in, but the embodiment of a new president’s promise of change.

For well over two centuries, the United States has been vastly more diverse than its ruling families. Now the Obama family has flipped that around, with a Technicolor cast that looks almost nothing like their overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Protestant predecessors in the role. The family that produced Barack and Michelle Obama is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; African languages including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Very few are wealthy, and some — like Sarah Obama, the stepgrandmother who only recently got electricity and running water in her metal-roofed shack — are quite poor.

“Our family is new in terms of the White House, but I don’t think it’s new in terms of the country,” Maya Soetoro-Ng, the president’s younger half-sister, said last week. “I don’t think the White House has always reflected the textures and flavors of this country.”

Though the world is recognizing the inauguration of the first African-American president, the story is a more complex narrative, about immigration, social mobility and the desegregation of one of the last divided institutions in American life: the family. It is a tale of self-determination, full of refusals to follow the tracks laid by history or religion or parentage.

Mr. Obama follows the second President Bush, who had a presidential son’s self-assured grip on power. Aside from a top-quality education, the new president came to politics with none of his predecessor’s advantages: no famous last name, no deep-pocketed parents to finance early forays into politics and, in fact, not much of a father at all. So Mr. Obama built his political career from scratch, with best-selling books and long-shot runs for office, leaving his relatives astonished at where he has brought them.

“It is so mind-boggling that there is a black president,” Craig Robinson, Mrs. Obama’s brother, said in an interview. “Then you layer on top of it that I am related to him? And then you layer on top of that that it’s my brother-in-law? That is so overwhelming, I can’t hardly think about it.”

Though Mr. Obama is the son of a black Kenyan, he has some conventionally presidential roots on his white mother’s side: abolitionists who, according to family legend, were chased out of Missouri, a slave state; Midwesterners who weathered the Depression; even a handful of distant ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. (Ever since he became a United States senator, the Sons of the American Revolution has tried to recruit him. )

But far less has been known about Mrs. Obama’s roots — even by the first lady herself. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, “it was sort of passed-down folklore that so-and-so was related to so-and-so and their mother and father was a slave,” Mr. Robinson said.

Drawing on old census data, family records and interviews, it is clear that Mrs. Obama is indeed the descendant of slaves and a daughter of the Great Migration, the mass movement of African-Americans northward in the first half of the 20th century in search of opportunity. Mrs. Obama’s family found it, but not without outsize measures of adversity and disappointment along the way.

Tracing Family Roots

Only five generations ago, the first lady’s great-great-grandfather, Jim Robinson, was born a slave on Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, S.C., where he almost certainly drained swamps, harvested rice and was buried in an unmarked grave. As a child, Mrs. Obama used to visit her Georgetown relatives, but she only learned during the campaign that her forebears had been enslaved in the same town where she and her cousins had played.

According to Megan Smolenyak, a genealogist who has uncovered the roots of many political figures, Mrs. Obama has ancestors with similar backgrounds across the South. The public records they left behind give only the briefest glimpses of their lives: Fanny Laws Humphrey, one of Mrs. Obama’s great-great-grandmothers, was a cook in Birmingham, Ala., born before the end of the Civil War. Another set of great-great-grandparents, Mary and Nelson Moten, seem to have left Kentucky for Chicago in the early 1860s, a hint they might have been free before the end of the Civil War. And in 1910, some of Mrs. Obama’s ancestors are listed in a census as mulatto, adding some support to family whispers of a white ancestor.

Barack Obama Campaign

The jobs that her relatives held in the early 20th century — domestic servant, coal sorter, dressmaker — suggest an escape from sharecropping, the system that trapped many former slaves and their children in penury for generations.

Still, the family’s progress has a two steps forward, one step back quality. Jim Robinson was born into slavery, but his son, Fraser, ran a lunch truck in Georgetown. In turn, his son, Fraser Jr., struck out for Chicago in search of something better. But he was unable to find work, and left his wife and children for 14 years, according to his son Nomenee Robinson. As a result, Mrs. Obama’s father was on welfare as a boy and started working on a milk truck at 11.

After serving in the Army in World War II and finally securing a job as a postal clerk, Fraser Robinson Jr. rejoined his family. He was so thrifty that he would bring home chemicals to do the family dry cleaning in the bathtub. But his son — Mrs. Obama’s father, Fraser Robinson III — became overwhelmed with debt and dropped out of college after a year. He worked in a city boiler room for the rest of his life, helping to send his four younger siblings to college, then his two children, Mrs. Obama and her brother, to Princeton.

Classroom Values

For all of the vast differences in the Obama and Robinson histories, a few common threads run through. Education is one of them. As a young man, Mr. Obama’s father herded goats, then won a scholarship to study in the Kenyan capital. When Mr. Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, his mother woke him up for at 4 a.m. for English lessons; meanwhile, in Chicago, Mrs. Obama’s mother was bringing home math and reading workbooks so her children would always be a few lessons ahead in school.

Only through education, generations of Robinsons taught their children, would they ever succeed in a racist society, relatives said. “My mother would say, ‘When you acquire knowledge, you acquire something no one could take away from you,’ ” Craig Robinson said.

The families also share a kind of adventurous self-determination. In the standard telling, the Obama side is the one that bent the rules of geography and ethnicity. Yet the first lady’s family, the supposed South Side traditionalists, includes several members who literally or figuratively ventured far from home. Nomenee Robinson was an early participant in the Peace Corps, serving in India for two years; later, he moved to Nigeria, where he met his wife; the couple now live in Chicago. Capers Funnye Jr., a cousin of Mrs. Obama’s and a rabbi, was brought up in the black church, he said, but as a young man, he felt a calling to Judaism he could not ignore.

In daring cross-cultural leaps, no figure quite matches Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, Mr. Obama’s mother. As a university student in Honolulu, she hung out at the East-West Center, a cultural exchange organization, meeting two successive husbands there: Barack Obama, an economics student from Kenya, and later, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian. Decades later, her daughter Maya Soetoro was picking up fliers at the same East-West Center when she noticed Konrad Ng, a Chinese-Canadian student, now her husband.

Now the Obama-Robinson family’s move to the White House seems like a symbolic end point for the once-firm idea that people of different backgrounds should not date, marry or bear children. In Mr. Obama’s lifetime, racial intermarriage not only became legal everywhere in the United States, but has started to flourish. As many as a quarter of white Americans and nearly half of black Americans belong to a multiracial family, estimates Joshua R. Goldstein of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.

Diversity inside families, said Michael J. Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford University, is “the most interesting kind of diversity there is, because it brings people together cheek by jowl in a way that they never were before.”

“There’s nothing as powerful as family relationships,” Mr. Rosenfeld said, “and that’s why interracial marriage was illegal for so long in the U.S.”

Initially, some of the unions in the Obama family caused consternation. “What can you say when your son announces he’s going to marry a Mzungu?” said Sarah Obama in an interview, using the Swahili term for “white person.” But it was too late, she said, because the couple was deeply in love.

Now, the relatives say, their family feels natural and right to them, that they think of each other as individuals, not as members of groups. Ms. Soetoro-Ng said she was not “the Indonesian sister,” but just Maya.

A Special Reunion

On Monday, some of Mr. Obama’s Kenyan relatives milled around the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel here, their colorful headscarves earning them more curious glances than even the sports and pop music stars in the room. Zeituni Onyango, the president’s aunt, explained that their family had always been able to absorb newcomers.

Pointing out that her male relatives used to take on multiple wives, she said, “My daddy said anyone coming into my family is my family.” (Ms. Onyango, who lives in Boston, recently faced deportation charges, but those orders have been stayed and she is pursuing a green card.)

At holidays and celebrations, “you get a whole lot of people who are happy to be around family,” Craig Robinson said. “They happen to be from different cultures, but the common thing is that they are all family.”

“Like the inauguration, those celebrations draw on a happy mishmash of traditions and histories. Take the Obamas’ 1992 wedding, which included Kenyan family in traditional dress, a cloth-binding ceremony in which the bride and groom’s hands were symbolically tied, and blues, jazz and classical music at the reception (held at a cultural center that was once a country club where black and Jewish Chicagoans were denied admission).

White House events may now take on some of the same feel. Four years ago, when the family descended on Washington for Mr. Obama’s Senate swearing-in, Mr. Ng strolled over to the White House gates and took a picture of his then-infant daughter, Suhaila — “gentle” in Swahili — sleeping in her stroller.

Days before leaving Hawaii for the inauguration, Mr. Ng stared at the picture and wondered how much had changed since it was taken. After Tuesday’s ceremony, he said, “folks like me will have a chance to be on the other side.”

“INNOVATION AFRICA”

The volume (405 pages) was edited by Pascal C.Sanginga, Ann Walter-Bayer, Susan Kaaria, Jemimah Njuki, and Chesha Wetlasinha.

Earthscan, is a publishing house for a sustainable future, based in Dunstan House, 14a St. Cross st., London EC1N 8XA, UK – with a branch at 22883 Quicksilver Derive, Sterling, VA, USA.

www.earthscan.co.uk

The project, meeting and book, were sponsored jointly by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the roof of the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The goal is tp promote African agricultural development through capacity-building, research and pilot testing of interventions.

At the Kampala meeting participated 140 practitioners and the best 24 articles appear in the 5 parts of this volume.

The conclusions led to five observations,   and I will mention here just the fifth – that says that real innovation emerges by encouraging creativity, and that is not achieved by over-engineering a multiple level of bureaucracy that poses the risk of stifling real discovery. So, it is better to create enabling conditions and incentive structures that encourage information exchange, cooperation and policy changes that unleash bottom-up or lateral innovation.

The first article is of 26 pages on “Conceptual and Methodological Developments in Innovation,” presented by Niels Roeling.

I found interesting his use of “innovation” as a noun – denoting a technology or even a product i.e. hybrid maize. Then he talks about the “diffusion curve” of introducing this innovation for gain by the users. That was the way the subject was taught in the American Mid-West. Eventually he mentions that his thinking was affected by the observation from Landcare in Australia, that “erosion, salination, desiccation and other environmental problems” resulted from the introduction of European farming practices to a continent to which they were not suited. Thus we reach out to grassroots innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the book presents many ways of organizing this sort of development of agricultural knowledge and information systems.

The book ends up presenting many conceptual and methodological developments in promoting innovation by showcasing on-the-ground experiences in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, South Africa, Nigeria.

The volume mentions the changes in global agriculture, the use of biofuels, the increase in meat consumption, droughts and extreme weather caused by climate change, and the resulting increase in the price of food, and asks if those events will make African smallholders competitive in African urban markets. The author is nevertheless not over optimistic. It is the global “treadmill” that prevents African farmers from contributing to global food security and African countries from gaining food sovereignty. The imports of food haveinterfered with the marketting of the local produce beyond the subsistence level.

STATEMENT BY SIR JOHN SAWERS, UNITED KINGDOM PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS, IN SECURITY COUNCIL DEBATE ON SOMALIA, 20 NOVEMBER 2008

Thank you Mr President and can I join others in thanking our briefers today, perhaps above all the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organisation whose presence today is very welcome – thank you for your contribution.

We have had the Secretary-General’s report.   It gives us a thorough and realistic analysis of what is clearly a very bleak picture on the ground in Somalia.   And that situation on the ground seems to be getting worse in three different dimensions:

First, the security on land.   Our hopes had been raised by the Djibouti Agreement.   The preliminary work to implement it was moving forward, but the hope that Somalia was finally turning a corner after some 17 years of violence has not been followed through on the ground.

Despite the best efforts of the Special Representative, Mr Ould Abdullah, in mediating dialogue, the political process now looks fragile, not helped, it has to be said, by the divisions that have opened up within the Transitional Federal Government.   And the recent reports of heightened violence and territorial advances by the Shabaab suggest a worsening security situation.   So the situation on the ground in Somalia is getting worse, not better.

Secondly, security at sea is also getting dramatically worse as colleagues have said.   The incidents of piracy off the Somali coast have reached new heights in the last weeks.   We deplore those acts of piracy, which can only make it even more difficult to bring stability to Somalia itself.   The United Kingdom is playing a full part in the international deployments to try to combat this.   We have a frigate of the Royal Navy dealing full time with piracy and two other frigates deployed in the area ready to act and we have also offered to support the upcoming European Union Mission by providing the operational headquarters and commanding the operation.

We have got Resolution 1816 which is due for renewal next month which authorises these operations.   We need to look at that carefully to ensure that the mandate for the naval operations gives those in the field the means needed to suppress and deter piracy.   Addressing the piracy problem cannot wait until peace and harmony returns to Somalia.

Thirdly, as the Secretary-General’s report notes, the humanitarian situation is getting worse again.   Over 3 million Somalis are now dependent on food aid and securing humanitarian access is going to remain a pressing and difficult challenge.   We would welcome advice from OCHA in the near future on how to address this problem.

So, what do we do in the face of these difficulties?   Well, I agree with my colleague Ambassador Kumalo that the problem with Somalia isn’t going to be solved solely by addressing the issue of piracy or tackling the humanitarian problem on the ground.   But equally, as we have so often said in this Chamber and as we have heard again today from several delegates, we can’t just address this with a military solution – there has to be a political framework.   So, from our perspective, we believe the Council should send a clear message that the best way forward for Somalia is through the full implementation of the Djibouti Agreement, which would give the space for the international community to assist.     But we do have to deal with the Somalia that we find, the Somalia that exists, and not the Somalia that we would like to see.   And that has to shape our approach to the idea of an international force on the ground.

Frankly, Mr President, it is hard to envisage a traditional UN peacekeeping force having the capabilities or the mandate required to deal with the challenges that Somalia currently poses.   And this Council should not mandate a force which we do not think is up to the task.   We must learn the lessons from elsewhere of what happens when we send an under-equipped force into a theatre where conflict persists.

We therefore encourage the Secretary-General to continue his efforts to identify states willing to contribute to a Multi-National Force as soon as possible.   In doing so, he will need high level political support from the Council members.   And we have heard some fine words around this table today and let’s hope that Delegations can take the steps necessary to turn those fine words into hard offers of military contributions.

We’d also welcome further work by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to prepare for the time when a peacekeeping operation is feasible, including being ready to conduct a technical assessment mission as soon as conditions on the ground allow.

Mr President,

Somalia is arguably the intractable challenge facing the Security Council in the period ahead.   I know that all of us around this table feel the need to act and to take our responsibilities here, but we have to learn the lessons of experience, not only in Somalia, but elsewhere, including, for example, Darfur.

The Secretary-General’s report may not satisfy all of us in all respects, but it is a sober and responsible effort to identify the very limited options that are available to this Council and we believe that we should proceed with our deliberations on its basis.

Thank you Mr President.

Hazel Foster (Miss)
Third Secretary Press
United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations
One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
885 Second Avenue (48th Street & 2nd Avenue, 28th Floor)
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E-Mail:    hazel.foster at fco.gov.uk
UKMis Web:   ukun.fco.gov.uk
FCO Web:   www.fco.gov.uk
Visit our blogs at http://blogs.fco.gov.uk

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So, South Africa’s Ambassador to the UN, Mr.Dumisani S. Kumalo says that solving the piracy issue is not the answer – more is needed. To be exact – “the problem with Somalia isn’t going to be solved solely by addressing the issue of piracy or tackling the humanitarian problem on the ground”

Did anyone ask him where the hundreds of millions of dollars went that were already paid in ransom for pirated ships?

Clearly, he does   not think that the poor in Somalia are starving because the rich countries do not send them help.

Does he think that outsiders would be welcome even if they come loaded with help?

Does he think that without an African real leadership there will be anything better then a future Blackwater fleet just killing anyone who will dare to use a speed boat and will not be lily white?

So, in effect, is there much difference between Somalia and other failed States – in major part this goes also for Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, like Iraq, Somalia is an agglomeration of different parts into one official State.

Would it not be better to agree that Somaliland is an independent State from Somalia? Let the local governing body get the responsibility to run their own business? Then we are left with the Southern two sections of Somalia and the claim that some of the tribes have on Ethiopian land. This is still very complicated, but it moves the problem at least away from a major part of the sea shore.Whatever – the grand piracy issue no less then a mega-tanker has finally landed the problem on the UNSC table.

Somalia, like Sudan, like much of Sub Sahara Africa, former colonies that nili-wili became States, have structural problems that are not of the IMF kind. That Is The Real Issue That Should Be Put On The UNSC Table.

The Drylands, Deserts, and Desertification – 2008 Conference. December 14-17, 2008, Sede Boqer Campus, The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Israel.

www.desertification.co.il

THE PROGRAM As Available on November 18, 2008. There might be still Changes and Additions, as well –   further Poster Sessions.

Download this schedule: detailed_program_sessions_1611_publish.doc

Please note that the list of presentations is still not final.

UPCOMING MEETINGS IN AFRICA: November 2008
African Ministerial Conference on the Financial Crisis: 12 November 2008: Tunis, Tunisia: African Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors are meeting   to discuss the global financial crisis and its potential impacts on African economies.   Organized by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Union Commission and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the Conference aims to mobilize Africans with a view to seeking an answer to the global financial crisis.
For more information, see:   http://www.afdb.org/portal/page?_pageid=…

African Conference of Ministers in Charge of Environment on Climate Change for post-2012: Algiers, Algiers; 19-20 November 2008: The African Conference of Ministers in Charge of Environment on Climate Change for post 2012 is expected to discuss and adopt outcomes related to: the Bali Action Plan: international Cooperation basis or obligation of the share of commitments; meaning   and scope   of the concepts of ” Comparable efforts” and     “Shared Vision” for developing countries; sectoral approach: impacts and consequences on African countries’   development; and   meaning and scope of the concepts of Measurable, Verifiable and Reportable (M.R.V) for developed and developing countries.
For more information, see: http://www.unep.org/roa

Meeting of the Executive Committee and Technical Advisory Committee of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW): 24-28 November 2008, Nairobi, Kenya. The AMCOW Executive Committee (AMCOW-EXCO) and the AMCOW Technical Advisory Committee will meet to consider approaches to carrying forward the Sharm El Sheikh Declaration and Commitments on Water and Sanitation (adopted by the African Union Summit, Egypt, June 2008).
For more information, see:   http://wwww.amcow.org/

Ecological Agriculture: Towards Food Security and Sustainable Rural Development in Africa: 26-28 November 2008, African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This conference is organized by the African Union, UN Food and Agriculture Organization and Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,   in collaboration with the Institute for Sustainable Development, Ethiopia and Third World Network. The conference aims to raise the awareness of policy makers so that they can enhance the capacity of Africa’s smallholder farmers.
For more information, contact: African Union Commission, Box 3243, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Tel: 251 (11) 552-5844; Fax 251-11-552-5835; E- mail:  ahono_olembo at yahoo.com

Richard Sherman
Programme Manager, Africa Regional Coverage Project
International Institute for Sustainable Development- Reporting Services
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US Mobile: 646 379 3250
E-mail:  richards at iisd.org
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International Institute for Sustainable Development http://www.iisd.org

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Further from IISD:

Dear AFRICASD-L Subscribers;
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This new distribution list, similar to IISD’s other announcement lists CLIMATE-L, FORESTS-L, WATER-L, CHEMICALS-L, MEA-L, OCEANS-L, ENERGY-L and AFRICASD-L, has been launched in conjunction with the new Comprehensive Communication Strategy of the UNCCD

The purpose of LAND-L is to provide a free, moderated, community communications tool, allowing subscribers to post announcements related to desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) as well as sustainable land management (SLM) events, policy developments, publications and new initiatives. LAND-L is not a discussion list and is limited to non-commercial, non-political announcements.

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Langston James “Kimo” Goree VI
Director, IISD Reporting Services
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) — United Nations Office
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Where:   Istanbul Nov 10-13, NY 15-28, Poznan 29-1 Dec, Rome 2-3