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PM launches appeal to save forest

 

Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Wednesday launched a 400 million dollars (Sh7.6 billion) appeal to save the country's largest forest, the Mau Forest Complex.

 

In conference with foreign envoys, representatives of international donors , the private sector and civil society which was held in UN headquarters in Nairobi, Raila said the Mau issue was no longer ‘a Kenya problem’ but an international concern, urging international community to play a role in saving the forest.

 

“When oil prices went up, so did the prices of fertilizer, tractor diesel and transportation.

 

“I wish to appeal to every Kenyan and development partner to support the government's efforts to rehabilitate the Mau,” he told the conference.

 

According to a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report, around 25 percent of the 400,000-hectare (988,000 acres) Mau forest cover has been destroyed by human encroachment, illegal logging and destructive agriculture over the last two decades.

 

UNEP's director Achim Steiner said the work ahead to save the complex needs substantial resources and political goodwill, underscoring the importance of the forest to Kenya’s development.

 

“The Mau complex is of critical importance for sustaining current and future ecological, social and economic development in Kenya. The rehabilitation of the ecosystem will require substantial resources and political goodwill. UNEP is privileged to work in partnership with the government of Kenya towards the implementation of this vital project,” he noted.

 

MAU forest, which is in the heart of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, is a source of several rivers and lakes including Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest freshwater lake.

 

Government’s effort to forcible evict people from the forest has been met with stiff resistance from the local Members of the Parliament who advocated for compensation instead.

 

 

Agricultural knowledge share plan to boost food security

African countries have been told that they need to do more to share agricultural knowledge and information - including the wider dissemination of research results - if they are to drive the continent's economic growth.

 

The recommendation is included in a four-year strategic plan, launched by the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) at its General Assembly in Accra, Ghana, last week (12-14 April 2011).

 

According to the AFAAS, advisory services are critical to boosting food security. It wants to see "agricultural advisory services that effectively and efficiently contribute to sustained productivity and profitable growth of African agriculture".

This is in line with the aims of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) - a brainchild of the New Partnership for Africa's Development - which seeks to raise agricultural productivity by at least six per cent by 2015.

The goal of the 2011-14 plan is to bring national agricultural advisors - from policymakers and government agencies to non-governmental organisations and extension workers - under a single umbrella to share information.

 

The plan advocates wider dissemination of research outputs, for example through documenting and sharing innovations; increasing the uptake of improved technologies and making a practical commitment to research over the next four years. It also includes training for providers of agricultural advisory services.

The AFAAS said a lack of synergy between farmers, researchers and policymakers has meant African farmers have been slow to adopt innovations and research findings. Speakers cited poor information exchange, a lack of sharing best practices at the continental level, and low levels of networking and partnerships, as some of the causes.

Dan Kisauzi, AFAAS managing consultant told SciDev.Net that the strategy "reflects the importance of knowledge, and knowledge management, in improving agricultural productivity in Africa".

 

But he said that productivity is not the only issue.

"In the past, advisory services have equated agriculture solely with production, but the interest of farmers is not just in production, but in making money and surviving. The constraints that farmers face in getting value from their production lies outside the farm - and the strategy is addressing this through an improved two-way dialogue with farmers."

 

Scola Bwali, a district National Agricultural Advisory Services coordinator in Uganda's Hoima district, said: "The challenge for the AFAAS is to assist service providers with delivering articulate, country-level interventions that can bring food security and money."

The plan presented at the symposium is not exhaustive and delegates agreed that it should be continuously refined to accommodate changing needs.

Bwali said climate change, gender and market value are issues of key importance to smallholder farmers.

Martin Eweg, an extension service provider working with sugar cane farmers in South Africa, said the strategic plan would help African countries to set up advisory services across the continent.

 

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Kenya: Budget Cushions Agricultural Sector Amidst Staggering Inflation

5 July 2011

 

Nairobi — As the country's inflation rate hits a staggering 14.5 percent - compared to 4.5 percent in December 2010 - Kenyans are struggling to afford basic commodities like maize, amid a shortage of the staple food.

Although the country produces its own maize, because of climate change and the resultant drought in some parts of the country, most farmers are only harvesting their crop for their own consumption.

 

"One packet of maize flour has shot to almost two dollars when we always bought it for slightly above a dollar. Without maize floor, the country is facing a severe food crisis that has not been experienced since the 90's," explains Tim Njiru, a maize trader in Eldoret, Rift Valley.

But with a recent budget allocation of almost 112 million dollars for agriculture, maize shortages may soon become less frequent in years to come. For the first time in the country's history, the agricultural sector has received a budget allocation of almost 112 million dollars. The allocation to agriculture leaped from a partly four percent to nine percent.

 

At nine percent, the budget allocation is only one percentage shy of meeting the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) policy framework. CAADP requires that countries signatory to the agreement allocate at least 10 percent of the national budget to agriculture.

Until now the sector has been underfunded despite its significance to sustainable human development, a situation that has further been complicated by extreme and unpredictable climatic conditions. Kenya's economy is predominantly dependent on agriculture, according to the ministry of agriculture, the sector directly contributes an estimated 26 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and an additional 25 percent indirectly.

 

According to Titus Warimi, an agricultural officer in the Rift Valley region, which is the country's breadbasket, "insufficient funds hamper research into various agricultural products. With the persistent and drastic climatic changes, it is imperative to venture into crop options that can flourish under the circumstances."

According to Kenya Food Security Meeting (KFSM) the country's main coordinating body that brings together various stakeholders to ensure that the country is food secure, the changing weather patterns will continue to impact heavily on the country's ability to feed its people.

"It will be difficult for the country to make any money from the agricultural sectors if farmers are hardly making any money," adds Warimi.

Ruth Ngige, a small-scale farmer in central Kenya echos Warimi's sentiments. "Farmers are plowing back much of their profits into buying farm inputs, this is due to lack of subsidies in fertilizers and seeds. The products then become too expensive and customers therefore buy only what they really need to survive," she says

It is because of the importance of agriculture on the continent that the African Union's (AU) NEPAD established CAADP in July 2003.

 

Africa needs its own indicators of scientific innovation

6 July 2011 | EN

Evidence-based indicators in science, technology and innovation (STI) help governments across the world to formulate policies and identify opportunities for development. The second round of a survey designed to capture such indicators across Africa, a project sponsored by SIDA, was recently launched in Ethiopia.

But if STI indicators are to contribute effectively to a sustainable path towards social and technological transformation, they need to be sensitive to the African context. Comparisons of indicators such as research and development (R&D) expenditure between African countries must not dominate policy discussions.

Besides, Africa is not well served by borrowing indicators from other regions. There is no point simply reinventing the wheel, but Africa must develop measures of STI activity that accurately reflect African economies and experiences that are likely to be neglected because existing methods to capture them are lacking.

In particular, we need to understand how to convert beneficial technologies into tangible benefits in Africa, and how to capture traditional as well as modern knowledge.

 

Collecting the right data

To develop effective indicators, African nations must first establish what resources they have and how to make the most of them.

Most African economies are dominated by agriculture, although some resource-rich countries have industries such as petroleum exploration or mining of minerals. In the current context of rapidly emerging economies such as China, the demand for natural resources will continue to grow, and these industries will continue to expand.

 

This demand is closely connected to the boom in the development of infrastructure across Africa, such as roads and ports, providing opportunities not only for economic activity, but also for learning about technology and applying scientific knowledge.

Ensuring that this development benefits people requires STI indicators that can help policymakers stimulate innovation in these sectors.

Existing methods of data collection provide neat and tidy indicators for manufacturing, among other sectors, but this is clearly not the main driver of most economies in Africa.

 

And although it is important to strengthen manufacturing, this must not come at the expense of other key sectors, such as agriculture, health, extractive industries and infrastructure development, even though these areas lag behind in useful methods for data collection and analysis.

 

Capturing complexity

Across Sub-Saharan Africa, the contribution of manufacturing to national income has not risen since the 1960s when it stood at 15 per cent. In Kenya, for example, manufacturing accounts for 12 per cent of national income, roughly half the contribution from agriculture (25 per cent) – and Kenya has one of the strongest manufacturing sectors on the continent.

Agriculture can involve the use of sophisticated technologies. And vegetables such as French beans and snow peas grown in Kenya are on supermarket shelves across Europe within 24 hours of being harvested.

But like other sectors, agriculture straddles the formal and informal economies. It also draws on both modern and traditional knowledge. The STI indicators used must capture this duality of knowledge systems, as well as the informality of the economic activity.

Agricultural innovation often results from work in research institutes — but also from the ingenuity of farmers, including those in remote areas, who use and adapt new ideas to suit their needs. These innovators are often part of informal networks that pool ideas and expertise, using them in novel ways to meet specific challenges.

 

This complexity raises the question of how STI indicators should be developed to capture innovative activity that is highly fragmented and informal, and that often goes undetected by existing processes.

I am not suggesting that those responsible for collecting STI data should single-handedly deal with these issues. There must be broader national ownership of processes to develop such indicators in a systemic, strategic way. People need to understand that, like a national census, the collection of STI data is useful, meaningful and deserving of their cooperation.

 

Beneficial technologies

Another major gap in Africa's STI system is the lack of specialised capabilities for innovation — the process of converting knowledge to tangible benefits for people and communities.

 

This transformation depends on human capabilities or skills that can connect scientific output to local demand for solutions to existing problems. Without these capabilities, the products of scientific research will just gather dust.

Policymakers have tended to focus on capabilities for R&D to promote STI. But we need to give serious attention to the capabilities needed to translate the outputs from R&D into usable and accessible solutions to existing problems challenges — such as technical, engineering and managerial skills.

Producing STI indicators that overlook these capabilities is not likely to lead to evidence-based policies that can effectively leverage innovation for development.

Innovation is not just a technical process, but also a social and economic process of introducing beneficial technologies and helping countries achieve development. This is important for the shift from R&D as a determinant of progress to the broader perspective of innovation as a process of social transformation.

 

STI indicators must provide policymakers with the means to formulate evidence-based policy that is effective in mobilising innovation for development.

Watu Wamae is innovation and technology policy analyst for the non-profit research institute RAND Europe.

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Namibia: Transition to a Green Economy

13 July 2011

Windhoek — Namibia is taking its sustainable development approach to the next level, by exploring a possible transition to a "green economy".

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a green economy is one that results in improved human wellbeing and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

 

A green economy is an economy or economic development model based on sustainable development and knowledge of ecological economics.

The Ministry of Environment and Tourism has thus called for its first national multi-stakeholder dialogue to explore how a transition to a green economy would benefit Namibians.

 

Many critics of the conventional economic models are of the opinion that judging from the ongoing financial, economic and environmental crises, the business-as-usual economic approach will not lead to sustainable development.

 

Moreover, the upcoming 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Rio+20) emphasises green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication as a way of achieving sustainable development.

 

According to the environment ministry, Namibia's national goals such as Vision 2030, can be attained through a green economy but needs substantial investment in "green sectors such as conservation agriculture, renewable energy, clean technology, low carbon cities, waste management and mitigation, ecological infrastructure and biodiversity-based businesses.

 

The Director of Environmental Affairs, Teofilus Nghitila, who opened the dialogue, expressed hope that the meeting will identify challenges and options that Namibia will face on the way towards a green economy and how a transition could be designed.

 

"This could form the base for a green economy road map spelling out the 'what, how, and who' of this transition. This could only be achieved if we have the commitment of all stakeholders and at the end of this initiative show strong ownership for the final product," Nghitila said at the opening of the dialogue.

There are fears that the fragile natural resources base may be degraded and over exploited, as Namibia continues its process of industrialisation.

"It will be important to look into these issues within the context of a green economy," Nghitila advised.

 

 

Tanzania: Clove Business to Be Liberalised

 

Zanzibar — The Zanzibar government plans to liberalise the isles' clove sub-sector. First Vice President Seif Shariff Hamad told reporters yesterday that the government would start by raising clove prices this year to curb the smuggling of Zanzibar's main cash crop.

 

He said strategies to be implemented in the next ten years included reforming the Zanzibar State Trade Corporation (ZSTC) as well as clamping down on smuggling, which has been denying Zanzibar much needed revenue from the crop.Mr Hamad added that the move was aimed at restoring Zanzibar's status as the world's top producer and exporter of cloves.

 

"We are determined to pay farmers at least 80 per cent of the price of cloves in the world market. This translates into an average of Sh10,000 per kilo," he said, adding that the remaining 20 per cent would be retained by ZSTC, and would be spent on developing clove farming.

 

Mr Hamad also warned those engaging in clove smuggling that the government would be vigilant to control the vice and would have no mercy on those who would be caught in the act.He urged the public to report those involved in the illegal marketing and export of the crop, saying the activities were hurting Zanzibar's economy.

 

"We believe that people know those who smuggle cloves...we want to tell the public that the government is determined to deal with them. People should report clove smuggling, and I promise that we will act promptly."

 

The Zanzibar minister for Commerce, Industries and Marketing, Mr Nassor Ahmed Mazurui, who accompanied the First Vice President at the press briefing, said the government would first put in place laws and regulations that were meant to protect farmers in a free market environment.

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