The 2022 Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) Summit ended in Kigali, Rwanda, with policymakers, activists, researchers, business leaders, and agricultural experts divided over the right pace to build resilient agri-food systems on the continent.
2021 is going to be critical, not only for curbing the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic, but also for meeting the climate challenge.
But as Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) was clear to point out, the climate challenge is essentially an energy challenge. And as large polluters continue to commit to targets of net zero emissions by 2050, the world could -- in theory -- potentially address the climate challenge.
A premium chocolate maker in São Tomé and Príncipe is on a drive to promote the taste for "made in Africa" chocolate, and tap into a $100 billion global indulgence associated with Valentine’s Day.
Africa needs to invest in agriculture by putting more resources into innovative research and development that can boost food and nutritional security, according to leading scientist, Nteranya Sanginga.
Africa’s inability to produce adequate skills is negatively impacting its economic growth.
What stands between Soi Cate Chelang and her dream of turning her small pallet-making business into a major enterprise is capital.
Africa will starve or survive on expensive food imports because it is not growing new farmers, research shows. And the challenge remains among researchers, policy makers, public and private sector actors to get African youth interested in agriculture on a continent where a growing number of people go to bed hungry every night.
African legislators have been challenged to come up with legal frameworks for climate change to enable countries avoid catastrophes and reactionary emergencies that eat up their budgets.
When Rwandan-born, Senegalese-raised entrepreneur and businesswoman Kristine Ngiriye was 18 she had a brilliant idea that she wanted to translate into a business. But when she went to her local bank for a loan they told her to rather get married, because “ a woman must be married instead of venturing into business”, Ngiriye tells IPS.
Africa,
where close to half of its 1.2 billion people have access to electricity, is set to become a world leader in renewable energy. As global business and development leaders met in Johannesburg, South Africa, to attend the
Africa Investment Forum (AIF), held Nov. 11 to 13, one of the key focuses of the deals being discussed was around sustainable, renewable energy.
Buses carrying cross-border traders and goods from Cotonou in Benin to Bamako in Mali have recently been using the Lomé route — travelling through the capital of Togo and then getting onto the Ouagadougou corridor on their way to the Malian capital.
As a result of climate change, resource extraction industries in Africa will be impacted by asset stranding, researchers say.
"We don't have a good appreciation of our local weather systems," says Dr James Kinyangi head of the African Development Bank's climate and development Africa special fund, which supports investments in climate and weather observations networks in Africa.
Arama Sire Camara, a fruit and vegetable seller in the province of Kindia, some 135 km from the Guinean capital of Conakry, feels safer trading well into the night thanks to the Rural Electrification Project, financed by 21-million-dollar investment by the African Development Bank.
“With lighting on the road at night and illuminating our goods, it means we are safer, especially with all the cars on the road. You can work for longer after nightfall, and so we can make more of our products,” she says.
When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched the International Solar Alliance last October, he applauded the goal of mobilizing about $1 trillion dollars towards the deployment of some 1,000 gigawatts of solar energy by 2030.
IPS Correspondent Isaiah Esipisu reports from the Climate Change and Development in Africa Conference taking place at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
African leaders have been asked to walk the talk, and lead from the front, in order to build resilience and adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change on the continent.
The Sasakawa Association will work with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to help double rice production to 50 million tonnes by 2030. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the announcement at the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) symposium held on Wednesday during TICAD7.
In December 2015, nations of the world took a giant step to combat climate change through the landmark Paris Agreement. But African experts who met in Nairobi, Kenya at last week’s Seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA VII) say the rise of far-right wing and nationalist movements in the West are threatening the collapse of the agreement.