Day: April 23, 2024

Addis Ababa: Africa is making progress in 12 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but the current pace of progress is insufficient to achieve the goals by 2030, according to an experts report on the progress on Africa Sustainable Development.

The report launched ahead of the 10th Session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia indicates that progress on the SDG agendas varies across sub-regions.

The report was produced by a team of experts convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in collaboration with African Union Commission, the United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Africa (UNDP-RBA), and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

On the occasion, the Deputy Executive Secretary for Programme Support at the ECA, Antonio Pedro underlined the lack of robust data as a major hurdle in tracking progress accurately. Improving data systems to effectively monitor and achieve the SDGs is essential, he stressed.

‘Addressin
g wide-ranging challenges-including social, political, environmental, and economic-is essential; specific focus areas like women’s empowerment, peacebuilding, and security need targeted attention,’ said Pedro, stressing the need to take advantage of technological advances, including artificial intelligence, to target interventions and achieve the SDGs with greater efficiency.

He said there is need to foster domestic resource mobilization through evolving a better and innovative tax system. Countries need to improve institutional governance, strengthen data collection, analysis and reporting and devise better strategies for debt restructuring.

Africa still accounts for over half (54.8 Percent) of global poverty. Particular attention therefore needs to be paid to addressing child poverty – the number of children living in extremely poor households, as about 7 out of 10 poor children live in Africa. In addition, lack of access to clean water, sanitation, energy, health, and education services coupled with ineq
uality, infrastructure gaps, climate change, ethnic conflicts and limited employment opportunities are among the key drivers of poverty in Africa.

On climate financing, the progress report shows the high climate financing gap in Africa. A large chunk of these resources emanates from public sector compared to private sector climate financing.

‘Issues of policies on carbon market, debt for climate swaps, and carbon tax on natural resources, as well as the establishment of national sustainable financial framework for climate change should be addressed,’ says the report.

The surge in debt across African countries is impeding Africa’s development, as debt servicing costs crowd out resources for social spending.

There has also been limited donor support for capacity building; on average, African countries spend a trivial 0.5 percent of GDP on science, technology, and innovation.

To bridge the gap and ensure that the continent achieves the SDG goals by 2030, the report recommends investing in data and capacity,
integrating different data sources, developing new and alternate indicators, identifying new partners with tools and solutions such as the private sector, NGOs/CSO and academia.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency

Addis Ababa: The government of Ethiopia has been implementing various homegrown initiatives with a view to mitigate the impacts of climate change and ensure food security of the people, Minister of Agriculture Girma Amente remarked.

The minister made the remark at the opening of High-Level Side Event on the margins of the 14th Session of the African Risk Capacity Conference of Parties in Addis Ababa.

The High-Level Panel aims to convene a diverse array of stakeholders, including policymakers, executives and representatives and experts of continental institutions to share lessons, build on existing strengths, and address the multifaceted challenges that the African food system faces.

The meeting will also addresses the interlinkages between climate change and food systems for food security, and resilience in Africa by fostering dialogue and knowledge exchange on climate-smart agricultural practices, technologies, and policies as well as resilience building efforts that enhance food security while mitigating
climate change impacts.

Attempting to identify Africa’s major opportunities and challenges in implementing climate-smart solutions and resilience building efforts at national, regional, and continental levels is also the other objetive.

Ethiopia’s Agriculture Minister Girma Amente said on the occasion that despite Africa is endowed with immense resources vital to ensuring food security; the continent has still been suffering from the harsh impacts of natural and manmade disasters.

However, he said Ethiopia is exerting efforts in order to alleviate the negative impacts of climate change and ensure food security in the country by implementing various homegrown development initiatives.

The minister mentioned the ongoing Green Legacy Initiative which has so far enabled the nation plant more than 32.5 billion tree seedlings stating that the objective is to reach 50 billion at the end of 2026.

The initiative is playing critical role in increasing the forest coverage of the country, he added.

The Minister has
also shared Ethiopia’s success registered in wheat development program that was initiated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed pointing out the national wheat irrigation development currently underway on 3 million hectares of land across the country.

Girma said Ethiopia is sharing its success being registered in wheat development to other African countries.

Ethiopia has also been implementing National Food System Roadmap with view to successfully achieve efforts being carried out to ensure food security, the minister stated.

He called on African nations to strengthen cooperation in order to fight the impacts of climate change and food insecurity.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency