Impact of sea level rise on Banjul, the need to plan and design a new city

The Gambia is not just economically poor and highly indebted but equally vulnerable and exposed to the debilitating impacts of climate change, particularly the rise in global sea level. (Photo: Access Gambia)

Journalists’ leader attributes ‘little reporting' on environment to low capacity

Participants and facilitators pose after opening ceremony (Photo Credit:BAJ-Gambia/March2014)

President of The Gambia Press Union, Bai Emil Touray, has said “capacity on environment issues is at low ebb since there are little reports on environmental issues on [local] radio stations and newspapers.”

The protection of the environment is a collective responsibility - especially for journalists, Mr Touray told a March 15 Biodiversity Action Journalists The Gambia (BAJ-Gambia)-organised training workshop for editors, web designers and radio producers at Wellingara Horticulture Model Centre.

He said it is important that journalists provide the people with accurate and timely information on environmental matters – and encourages BAJ and its partners to not only train journalists but also embark on research projects.

BAJ coordinator attends Kenya climate change training

BAJ Coordinator, Abdou Rahman Sallah (Photo: Mansa Banko)

The national coordinator of Biodiversity Action Journalists (BAJ Gambia), Abdou Rahman Sallah, left for Kenya on January 25 to take part in a two weeks training on Climate Change.

Mr Sallah, an environmental journalist, selected from a pool of applicants by the organisers, the Kenya-based Youth Encounter on Sustainability (YES) to partake  in the January 28–February 14 climate change course.

The two weeks intensive course is facilitate by myclimate, a Swiss non-profit foundation together with ACTIS, a spin-off organisation of ETH Zürich, in cooperation with UNEP, and the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) – an environmental research partnership between the ETH Zürich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Tokyo (UT) and the Chalmers Technical University in Göteborg, Sweden.

BAJ social secretary among 2014 'Earth Hour champions'

Cropped image of Mamadou Edrisa Njie at the signing of a memorandum of understanding between GYIN and Visaca Apex (Photo Credit: Mansa Banko)

The Social Secretary of Biodiversity Action Journalists (BAJ-The Gambia), Mamadou Edrisa Njie, is taking part in this year’s Earth Hour, a two months project set out to empower 14 local communities in the West Africa.

The Earth Hour Walk-to-Mali will engage 12 Earth Hour Champions that will embark on a 3,404km round road trip from Nigeria to Mali from January 18 to March 15, 2014.

Set in motion by the Earth Hour Team in Nigeria and the Earth Hour Global Team, the Walk-to-Mali initiative was born out of the “I Will If You Will Campaign” of the Earth Hour at the beginning of 2013.

Africa continues to grow strongly despite global slowdown

Africa’s economy rebounds strongly, but poverty remain elusive, says World Bank Africa Pulse (Photo credit: Africa Renewal)

But lessening poverty remains significantly elusive

Floods will help insects’ facilitate people’s death

Climate change (floods) helps insect vectors facilitate your death, says a 2007 report in Gambia. Pix: Barra Flood 2009 (photo credit: The Point)

World’s rich could end global poverty: Oxfam

“Political equality...[is] meaningless in the face of economic inequality.”(Photo Credit: Oxfam)

Highlights from the Africa Carbon Forum in Addis Ababa

Highlights for Friday, 20 April 2012

DAILY WEB COVERAGE

| Wed 18 April | Thu 19 April | Fri 20 April |

The fourth Africa Carbon Forum concluded its discussions today at the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Participants convened over three days to discuss the latest developments in the carbon market and to identify means by which the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and other mitigation mechanisms can be successfully applied in Africa. Today’s meeting included plenary sessions on forestry and agriculture and on global perspectives on the future demands for offsets; two round table discussions on benefits to Africa from “climate smart agriculture” and on carbon market linkages. Two workshops were also conducted on new market mechanisms and on REDD+ linkages between projects and national frameworks. As well, two training sessions provided participants with information on establishing national/regional grid emission factors and on carbon and sustainable agriculture land management. John Kilani closed the Forum at 5:20pm.

Africa must face climate change head on

 + More from our continent...

Africa must face climate change head on 

The FAO and African leaders are working together to move quickly to adopt a “climate-smart” approach to agriculture to fight the impacts of climate change and increasing scarcity of natural resources.

 “Africa needs increased productivity in its agriculture and higher incomes in its rural areas, and rural communities and the agro-ecosystems on which they depend have to adapt to climate change and become more resilient to its impacts,” Alexander Mueller, FAO’s Assistant-Director General for Natural Resources, said in remarks at the conference “Climate Smart Agriculture: Africa – A Call to Action,” convened by the Government of South Africa (13-14 September, Johannesburg).

$8.7M to finance three environment priority areas under GEF

Biodiversity

The Gambia has been allocated US$8.7 million to spend on land degradation, biodiversity and climate change between now until 2014.

The funding, generated through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) 5 STAR Allocation, will devout $4.57 million to the management of land degradation, under the United Nations Climate Change Desertification Convention (UNCCD); $2 million on biodiversity, under the auspices of the UN Convention on Biodiversity (UNCBD); and $1.5 million on climate change mitigation, within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

GADHOH laments the ‘non-prioritization’ of rehabilitation and integration of the Deaf

Also in the news...

• Minority Leader disagrees with Finance Minister on road project  

• GAMCOTRAP officials to open defence

• $12 million to finance UTG project

Murder: NDEA officers’ case to be heard by the SCD/HC

More news....

• Bachilly urges expunge of charge against Indian NationalImproving Reproductive Health - UNFPA 
• Treason Trial: Tamba, Fofana’s fate to be decide today 
• Our future and survival matters more than anything else  
• NDEA deputy director testifies against the former

News Round-Up From Around Africa/World

• News media identified as presidential enemy No. 1
• Achieving a Ceasefire, Moving towards Legitimate Government
• Agricultural experts push for a strong seed sector in West Africa
• Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent visits Portugal
• 2011 Euro Mediterranean Award goes to the Crisis Unit
• Tanzania: Development partners to provide USD 453 million
• New UNIDO Study Builds Case for Agribusiness Development as Path to Africa’s Prosperity
• UN launches photo contest on green issues ‘Worldwide’
• IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn Resigns

Africa’s $30 Billion, ‘a Drop in the Ocean’

• Posted by Modou S. Joof on January 5, 2010 at 6:39pm
• View Modou S. Joof's blog

Gambian Delegation Dejected With ‘Climate Change No Deal’
 

Banjul, The Gambia (TNBES) After what seemed nearly an age of arguments, developed nations at the recently concluded Conference of Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark agreed upon what they called a collective commitment to provide new and additional resources, approximately USD 30 billion for the period 2010-2012 for the African Continent.
This includes forestry and investment through international institutions, with balance allocation between adaptation and mitigation.

UNDERSTANDING COPENHAGEN

Ibrahim Ceesay- National Coordinator Children for Children Organization
 

Copenhagen, Denmark (TNBES) I spent eight weeks traveling Europe with a group of 13 AVAAZ climate activists from five different continents, organizing for a better Copenhagen. For the past three days I’ve been trying to make sense of what happened in the final moments of that journey.
The story of Copenhagen began in Bali, Indonesia two years ago. After an intensive two weeks of negotiations, 192 countries, including the Bush Administration, signed on to the Bali Roadmap, a plan to complete a binding global climate treaty in Copenhagen. The Bali Roadmap was a political agreement acknowledging that the evidence for the planet warming is “unequivocal”, and that further delays in reducing emissions would further increase the risks of “severe climate change impacts.”

Book Entitled ‘Climate Frontline’ Launched

“African Voices Feeling Impacts Largely Perpetrated by Industrialised Nations”

 

VOL:1 ISSN:15 Concern Universal recently launched a book entitle ‘Climate Frontline’ at the Coconut Residence in Kerr Serigne.

The book, which is jointly published by Concern Universal, FARM-Africa, Find Your Feet, Self Help Africa and Utviklingsfondet/The Development Fund, focuses on issues of climate change and its impact on the world as well as the lives of people in African communities.

In climate frontline, African women and men describe, in their own words, how climate change is affecting their lives and how they are adapting to survive. These communities are not only living with climate change, instead they are implementing strategies in order to adapt to the changing conditions.