Africa – News Agency nabakhabar

World Animal Protection have new evidence of cruel and illegal activity at “secret” lion farms: Why South Africa’s commercial captive lion industry should end

News Agency nabakhabar — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 05:00:11 +0000

The commercial lion farming industry in South Africa is a cause for concern due to unclear regulations and weak enforcement. This puts animal welfare at risk and threatens the country’s reputation.

Despite the government’s announcement to phase out the industry in 2021, commercial lion breeding remains legal, and there are disturbing practices at closed-access facilities, allowing the illegal international trade to continue.

The disturbing practices of ‘secret’ lion farms

World Animal Protection provided evidence from anonymous sources who shared insights into how some closed-access (i.e., not open to the public) lion farms actually operate. These sources described how some lions are being deliberately starved during the low-hunting season to save money and how some lions are being released for canned trophy hunting while still sedated.

Canned trophy hunting

Canned trophy hunting involves killing captive-bred, often tame and confined animals within a controlled environment, solely for the purpose of obtaining trophies such as heads or skins.

Hunting occurs legally in a purpose-built enclosure on the facility’s premises. Still, illegal and cruel hunting practices also happen, including hunting within an hour of release and using sedation drugs.

In the photo: Cub that looks weak and with sickness in direct contact with visitors, generating concern in terms of public safety. Credit: World Animal Protection/Roberto Vieto

The illegal international bone trade

The skin, paws, and skill of lions are often prize trophies to hunters, while the bones are often kept by facilities for the big cat bone trade, Some bones are transported illegally to be used in traditional Asian medicine.

The bones are packed into boxes or left as complete carcasses to certify authenticity and prevent tracking device insertion.

The Report: Why South Africa’s commercial captive lion industry should end

Uncover this industry’s disturbing impact on innocent wildlife and society as we shine a light on the heart-wrenching accounts of cruelty and illicit practices that persist in this grim trade.

While the government may be considering a voluntary exit strategy for this industry, this evidence demonstrates why the government of South Africa must stop this inhumane industry and end the suffering once and for all. Financial gain cannot be above crucial matters such as animal welfare, public health safety, and ethical responsibility.

credit by World Animal Protection

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Real influencers: Faith leaders find ‘hidden’ children living with HIV

News Agency nabakhabar — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 15:00:04 +0000

To find “hidden” children living with HIV around the world, you need to find their mothers. To do so, innovative projects in Africa are entering places of worship and finding thousands who are now receiving life-saving treatment.

Every hour, 11 children die of AIDS, so finding them and offering treatment is as critical as ever, according to the UN entity UNAIDS, which released a new report about how imams, pastors, and priests are reaching those most in need. While three-quarters of adults living with HIV are on treatment, only half of children are, the agency reported.

There are still 1.7 million children around the world living with HIV, and they are particularly vulnerable, said Stuart Kean, author of the Compendium of Promising Practices on the Role of African Faith Community Interventions to End Paediatric and Adolescent HIV, co-published by UNAIDS and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

“If they’re born with HIV, then 50 percent of them will die by the age of two,” he told UN News. “If they don’t and if they are not found and put on treatment, 80 percent of them will die by the age of five, so there’s much greater urgency to find these hidden children.”

Promising practices

The new compendium documents 41 promising practices that provide evidence of the core roles that faith communities have played. This includes significant strides in identifying undiagnosed children living with HIV, improving continuity of treatment, supporting adolescents to access psychosocial support, care, and treatment, and enabling peer support groups to empower children and adolescents living with HIV.

“This report shows how vital is the role of faith-based organizations in helping children living with HIV to access life-saving treatment, in advocating in support of their needs, and in tackling stigma,” Jacek Tyszko, Senior Programme Advisor at UNAIDS told UN News. “It demonstrates to the approaches that have been most effective so that they can be scaled up. It’s a report that will help save lives.”

Zambian influencers

Courtesy of Circle of Hope / Community Influencers, including civic and faith leaders, sensitizing community members of the services being provided in Circle of Hope health posts.

“If you want to find women, go to their places of worship,” said Gibstar Makangila, head of a Zambia-based non-governmental organization, Circle of Hope.

Since a new community-outreach model unrolled across Zambia’s capital city, Lusaka, in 2018, faith leaders have helped to reach 60,000 people across the country who were not receiving antiretroviral treatment, or ART, he said.

“As a faith community, we are the bridge between the community and health services,” he told UN News. “It is the most influential group in sub-Saharan Africa.”

When social media spread mis- and disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, Circle of Hope consulted faith leaders, the “real influencers”, he said. After convincing their congregants of the benefits, vaccination rates in Zambia soared, to 75 percent from 34 percent within six months.

Now, these imams, pastors, and priests are now playing a key role in making sure no one is left behind in the global bid to rid the world of HIV/AIDS, according to UNAIDS.

Abstinence and condoms

Contrary to anti-condom or anti-gay myths about religions, faith leaders are driving advocacy efforts to tackle the stigma and discrimination of those living with HIV and advocating for abstinence or at least prevention, including condom use, Mr. Makangila said.

They also readily direct congregants to projects for adolescents and to community health posts, set up as discreet unbranded stalls in markets. Now, 130 community health posts across the country, offer, with Ministry of Health and PEPFAR support, free services, from condoms to on-site treatment. Targeted programs are also reaching teenagers, he said.

“I’ve seen this result thousands of times in people who would be dead without treatment,” Mr. Makangila said, adding that “the best is yet to come”, with health posts being planned for Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

Courtesy of Circle of Hope / Health providers, local civic and faith leaders, and health workers meet in a one-room Circle of Hope community post in Zambia.

Baby baskets in Nigeria

A new baby is a celebration, commonly marked in Nigeria in places of worship, where a pregnant congregant typically receives a baby shower basket chock full of goodies, from blankets to diapers.

Now, these welcome baskets include information on HIV testing and support services from local healthcare providers, Mr. Kean explained.

Building on a successful trial, the Catholic Caritas Foundation implemented this “congregational approach” in Benue state demonstrating the effectiveness of using on-site confidential testing in such congregational settings as churches.

Across Nigeria, this approach has already reached thousands. From April 2018 to March 2019 alone, 22,197 children under age 15 were referred for HIV testing, 21,142 of them were tested, and 106 new HIV-positive children were identified and linked to treatment.

Eswatini: Community action

The faith-based organization Shiselweni Home Based Care in Eswatini launched an intervention involving community members visiting people who may be living with HIV, referring them to testing facilities and, if testing positive, supporting them to start and adhere to ART medication.

The latest trend indicates a dramatic 71.4 percent decline in overall client mortality, from approximately one in three clients in 2007 and one in 10 in 2011.

Religious leaders and faith-based organizations like Circle of Hope in Zambia have also enrolled as “Faith Paediatric Champions”, who advocate to governments and community members for all children and adolescents to be supported to access HIV care and treatment.

Race to end AIDS

However, the global response to end AIDS in children continues to be inadequate, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima and John Nkengasong, US Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, said in the new report.

“The work of faith communities in addressing the challenge of HIV in children has been highly effective,” they wrote. “In that work of practical delivery, faith communities, and faith-based organizations have also reminded the world of a deeper lesson: to truly embrace those who are most vulnerable and excluded, caring, compassion, and love are essential.”

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Africa – Innovator or Imitator? Exploring narratives around Africa’s technological capabilities

News Agency nabakhabar — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 15:20:58 +0000

How do young Africans see African-led innovation and digital tech solutions within the global context? The latest study by Africa No Filter, Africa – innovator or imitator? Exploring narratives around Africa’s technological capabilities, unpacks the extent to which Africans believe in local innovations and if they are influenced by the dominance of narratives that promote the global North as superior innovators.

African innovation is increasingly beginning to yield more innovative contributions around the world, yet the image of Africa as an innovator appears to be overshadowed by the persistent, harmful stereotypes of a ‘backward’ ‘poverty stricken’ continent that is largely a recipient of global north innovations.

These narratives about Africa often fail to account for the innovative and technological successes that come from the continent and are enjoyed by Africans.

Given the rapid and global impact of technology and innovation shaping the world, this study was conducted with the aim of understanding how young Africans see African-led innovation and digital tech solutions within the global context. Africa No Filter wanted to assess the prevailing narratives that young Africans have about home-grown technology and innovation, to better understand their attitudes to it.

Africa – innovator or imitator? Exploring narratives around Africa’s technological capabilities unpacks the extent to which Africans believe in local innovations and if they are influenced by the dominance of narratives that promote the global North as superior innovators.

The report interviewed 4500 people aged 18 and 35 in Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The majority of respondents believed in the power of African innovation, saying they preferred to use local innovations where they were available. Even though they identified barriers to success such as poor infrastructure and challenges in education, they believed in home-grown innovation and innovators.

Additionally, just over half the respondents felt that it was possible to overcome barriers to success, and that it was possible for poor countries to produce great innovations that can influence the world.

Here are key findings from the report:

The West is not necessarily best when it comes to innovation: 62% of respondents believe in the power of African innovation and preferred using local innovations where they were available.
The next greatest innovation could emerge from Africa: Just under half of the respondents (48%) saw no reason innovators could not come from Africa. 24% said they already existed.
Africans trust location innovation: 62% respondents said they trusted and would prioritize using local innovations over international ones. West Africans were the most positive (66%) regionally, while Kenyans (71%) were the most supportive country.
Innovation could come from anyone, but government not seen as the most important driver of tech innovation: 50% of respondents believed that everyone should drive innovation, out of necessity and curiosity. Although 44% of respondents felt that government restrictions were a barrier to innovation, only 37% identified government as being mainly responsible for innovation.
African youth are very aware of the tech innovations in their countries: 64% of respondents said they were aware of the different innovations existing in their countries, and there was a high level of awareness of innovation across the continent.
Depending on where you are, innovation is encouraged and supported. Overall, most respondents (59%) felt that there was support for innovation and innovators, and that there was an enabling environment in their country. Respondents from Kenya (67%) and South Africa (65%) felt innovation and technology were encouraged, while only 39% of Nigerian respondents and 49% of Ghanaian respondents agreed.
Infrastructure deficiencies are the main barrier to digital technology and innovation: 53% of respondents cited infrastructure deficiencies as the main barrier to innovation, with East Africans much more likely to identify this problem as a key barrier (67%) and 49% in Southern Africa.

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World welcomes 2023, leaving a stormy year behind

News Agency nabakhabar — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 14:18:28 +0000

New Year’s celebrations swept across the globe, ushering in 2023 with countdowns and fireworks – and marking an end to a year that brought the war in Europe and global worries over inflation.

The new year began in the tiny atoll nation of Kiribati in the Central Pacific, then moved across Russia and New Zealand before heading deeper, time zone by time zone, through Asia, Africa and Europe and into the Americas.

Australia kicked off the celebrations with its first restriction-free New Year’s Eve after two years of COVID disruptions. Sydney welcomed the New Year with a typically dazzling fireworks display, which for the first time featured a rainbow waterfall off the Harbour Bridge.

In China, rigorous COVID-19 restrictions were lifted only in December as the government abruptly reversed its “zero-COVID” policy, a switch that has led to soaring infections and meant some people were in no mood to celebrate.

Ukraine war

Meanwhile, Russian attacks on Ukraine continued on New Year’s Eve.

At midnight, the streets of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, were desolate. The only sign of a new year came from local residents shouting from their balconies, “Happy New Year!” and “Glory to Ukraine!”

Only half an hour into 2023, air raid sirens rang across the city, followed by sounds of explosions.

In a video message to mark the New Year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Time Magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year, said: “I want to wish all of us one thing – victory.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his New Year’s address to rallying the Russian people behind his troops. But festivities in Moscow were muted, without the usual fireworks on Red Square.

“One should not pretend that nothing is happening – our people are dying [in Ukraine],” said 68-year-old Yelena Popova. “A holiday is being celebrated, but there must be limits.”

Many Moscow residents said they hoped for peace in 2023.

Muted celebrations

Elsewhere in Europe, fireworks exploded over the Parthenon in Athens, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, where crowds gathered on the Champs-Elysees avenue to watch the French capital’s first New Year fireworks since 2019.

People gather on the Champs Elysees avenue during the New Year’s Eve celebrations 
near the Arc de Triomphe 
in Paris, France [Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters]

But, like many places, the Czech capital, Prague, was feeling the pinch economically and so did not hold a fireworks display.

“Holding celebrations did not seem appropriate,” said city hall spokesman Vit Hofman.

Big Ben chimed as more than 100,000 revellers gathered along the River Thames to watch spectacular fireworks show around the London Eye.

The display featured a drone light display of a crown and Queen Elizabeth II’s portrait on a coin hovering in the sky, paying tribute to Britain’s longest-serving monarch who died in September.

Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach welcomed a small crowd of a few thousand for a short fireworks display. Several Brazilian cities cancelled celebrations this year due to concerns about the coronavirus.

The Brazilian capital’s New Year’s bash usually drew more than two million people to Copacabana before the pandemic.

Turkey’s most populous city, Istanbul, brought in 2023 with street festivities and fireworks. At St Antuan Catholic Church, dozens of Christians prayed for the new year and marked former Pope Benedict XVI’s passing. The Vatican announced Benedict died on Saturday at age 95.

In New York, rain that was fierce at times did not deter the crowd at a dazzling Saturday night spectacle kicking off celebrations across the United States.

The Times Square party culminated with the descent from One Times Square of a glowing sphere 12 feet (3.6 metres) in diameter and comprised of nearly 2,700 Waterford crystals.

Before the ball dropped, there were heavy thoughts about the past year and the new one to come.

“2023 is about resurgence – resurgence of the world after COVID-19 and after the war in Ukraine. We want it to end,” said Arjun Singh, as he took in the scene at Times Square.

Concerns about the Ukraine war and the economic shocks it has spawned across the globe were felt in Tokyo, where Shigeki Kawamura has seen better times but said he needed a free, hot meal this New Year’s.

“I hope the war will be over in Ukraine so prices will stabilise,” he said.

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Iran to set up 10 trade centers in Africa to boost trade ties

News Agency nabakhabar — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 15:14:43 +0000

The Director General of the African Bureau of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPOI) said that the country will set up 10 trade centers in Africa by the end of the current year (to end March 20, 2023) to bolster trade ties.

Seyyed Mohammad-Sadegh Ghannadzadeh made the remarks on Tuesday in the first meeting of the House of Iran and Africa, held in Tehran at the initiative taken by the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPOI), and stated that the contract between Iran and South Africa will be signed by the end of the year in the field of airlines to bolster bilateral trade and economic activities.

He put the current number of Iranian trade centers in the African continent at three which could be increased to 10 centers by the end of the current year (March 20, 2023).

The main objective behind organizing this meeting is to review Iran’s investment and business opportunities so that Senegal is one of the important countries in West Africa and it is trying to develop relations between the two countries by defining its economic capacities.

It is hoped that the volume of trade and economic ties between the two countries of Iran and Senegal would further be expanded in the current year the same as in previous years, he emphasized.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ghannadzadeh pointed to the development of infrastructures and creating incentives for boosting trade ties with African states and said that various contracts have been concluded in the field of developing air- and sea transportation, so that air route contracts will be concluded between Iran and South Africa by the end of the current year.

South African countries were introduced among Iran’s 30 trade partners in the first four months of the current year (from March 21 to July 23), he added.

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EU risks token climate offer to Africa

News Agency nabakhabar — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 21:25:29 +0000

As the EU looks for a big reset with Africa this week, it risks turning up largely empty-handed on one of the southern continent’s greatest problems: climate change.

When European and African leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, the French EU presidency is planning to announce a “flagship” for climate deals in Africa, according to two EU officials.

A French diplomat said the presidency wants “to make a very concrete offer, shared with African countries, of projects that are emblematic” of an approach French President Emmanuel Macron has said will “completely overhaul” the relationship.

But on climate, some EU officials told POLITICO, what’s being planned for this week’s summit looks undercooked, and the French announcement was “more about looks than about substance,” said one European Commission official.

The flagship is supposed to offer the chance for other countries to repeat a blockbuster $8.5 billion deal announced during the COP26 climate summit in November. That was made after South Africa asked France, Germany, the U.K., the U.S. and the EU to bail out and clean up its flagging coal-heavy utility Eskom and support coal workers to change jobs.

These so-called “country platforms” are seen as a way to move away from a donor-recipient model of international climate spending, toward more equal partnerships. It’s hoped they can decisively shift big emitting developing economies to green energy, while politically isolating China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter.

There is a serious political appetite in Europe, the U.K. and the U.S. for more of these deals — as well as some financial backing for Africa’s energy transition. Last week, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a seven-year public-private investment package of €150 billion to support sustainable development in Africa — part of its China-countering Global Gateway initiative.

That zeal has not gone unnoticed in Paris, where the need for a successful summit with big announcements is being seen through the lens of Macron’s expected bid for reelection in April.

According to a French presidency document prepared ahead of the summit and seen by POLITICO, countries deemed good targets for future deals include African Union presidency Senegal, COP27 host Egypt, large oil and gas producer Nigeria as well as francophone Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco and Rwanda.

But France and the Commission are not aligned on what, if anything, should be announced this week. The Commission official questioned how applicable the South Africa model could be in places with little coal — as is the case with the six target countries.

The EU also appears to have a different approach to other donor governments likely to be involved in the deals. A U.K. official said countries inside and outside Africa were being considered and large coal industry was not a prerequisite.

Any announcement at the EU-Africa summit would automatically exclude the U.S. and U.K. That would be “awkward,” said Mafalda Duarte, the CEO of the Climate Investment Funds, which is facilitating the South Africa partnership.

Deal doubts

Those who negotiated South Africa deal privately warn that such complex agreements should not be rushed and should respond to needs outlined by the beneficiary.

Adding to the sense that any announcement this week may be premature, several officials in the EU and the U.K. said most attention for South Africa-style deals was focused on huge coal-burning countries in Asia: India, Indonesia and Vietnam. “We have to start where the majority of global emissions are, and that is with the G20,” said Jochen Flasbarth, a state secretary in Germany’s development ministry.

Multiple African and European officials said no advanced talks had taken place with any of the African countries on France’s list.

Rwandan Infrastructure Minister Ernest Nsabimana said that while he welcomed the idea, his country had “not been involved in any specific discussions.”

A senior Egyptian diplomat said Cairo was “very much interested if the EU is really serious about it and it’s not just a [memorandum of understanding].”

The need to move cautiously is highlighted by the explosive politics of translating the South African deal into action.

President Cyril Ramaphosa faces a fight for reelection as leader of the governing African National Congress (ANC) in December. Mining unions helped him into office the first time around, and their support — along with that of Energy Minister and ANC Chairman Gwende Mantashe, a self-described “coal fundamentalist” campaigning against a phaseout — will also be crucial this year.

Others in Africa are skeptical about whether such deals are even the right model.

Youba Sokona, a Malian energy specialist and vice-chair of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he was “really questioning” why it was necessary to have specific bilateral deals when global finance bodies like the Green Climate Fund already exist.

The summit comes just days before a major new report from the IPCC — the premier global science body on climate heating — that is expected to lay out an exceptionally bleak picture of the present and future for many countries in Africa. That will in turn spur African demands for finance to gird the continent for a deadly climate assault — a top priority for November’s COP27 climate conference in Egypt.

In two recent speeches, African Union President and President of Senegal Macky Sall said: “African economies are among those who are polluting the least but we are the part of the world that is most affected by the aftermath and the consequences of climate change.”

The summit will also feature a new resilience initiative, said Germany’s Flasbarth, meant to strengthen disaster management and access to insurance.

Given the scale of the changes, helping Africa adapt to climate change will be vital, said Laurence Tubiana, a former French diplomat and head of the European Climate Foundation. To focus too closely on investments in clean energy while ignoring the need to help with climate impacts “would be really, really crazy,” she added.

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Africa’s most populous city is battling floods and rising seas. It may soon be unlivable, experts warn

News Agency nabakhabar — Sun, 01 Aug 2021 18:17:48 +0000

Cars and houses submerged in water, commuters wading through buses knee-high in floods, and homeowners counting the cost of destroyed properties.

Welcome to Lagos during the rainy season. Residents of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, are used to the yearly floods that engulf the coastal city during the months of March to November. In mid-July, however, the major business district of Lagos Island experienced one of its worst floods in recent years.

“It was very bad, and unusual,” Eselebor Oseluonamhen, 32 told CNN.

“I drove out of my house … I didn’t realize it had rained so much … There was heavy traffic on my route because of the flood. The more we went, the higher the water level. The water kept rising until it covered the bumper of my car … then there was water flowing inside my car,” Oseluonamhen, who runs a media firm on the Lagos mainland, recalled.

Photos and videos posted to social media showed dozens of vehicles inundated with water after torrential rain. The floods paralyze economic activity, at an estimated cost of around $4bn per year. Home to more than 24 million people, Lagos, a low-lying city on Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, may become uninhabitable by the end of this century as sea levels rise due to climate change, scientific projections suggest. The problem is exacerbated by “inadequate and poorly maintained drainage systems and uncontrolled urban growth,” among others, according to a study led by the Institute of Development Studies.

Nigeria’s hydrological agency NIHSA has predicted more catastrophic flooding in September, usually the peak of the rainy season.

Eroding coastline

Lagos is partly built on the mainland and has a string of islands. It is grappling with an eroding coastline that makes the city vulnerable to flooding, which Nigerian environmentalist Seyifunmi Adebote says is attributable to global warming and “human-induced action over a prolonged period.”

Sand mining for construction is a major contributor to shoreline erosion in Lagos, environmental experts have said.

Manzo Ezekiel, a spokesman for Nigeria’s emergency management agency (NEMA), told CNN that the riverbank of Lagos’ Victoria Island is already being “washed away … particularly in the V.I area of Lagos.” “There’s this problem of the river bank being washed away. The increase in water level is eating into the land,” Ezekiel added.

In Victoria Island, an affluent Lagos neighborhood — an entirely new coastal city christened ‘Eko Atlantic’ — is being built on land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, and will be protected from rising waters by an 8 kilometer-long wall made from concrete blocks, developers say.

While the ambitious project could contribute to reducing housing shortages in other parts of the city, Ezekiel fears that “reclaiming land from the sea will put pressure on other coastal areas.” Other critics have argued that adjacent areas not protected by the wall will be left vulnerable to tidal surges. CNN has contacted Eko Atlantic for comment.

Coastal cities at risk of being submerged

Low-lying coastal cities in some parts of the world may be permanently submerged by 2100, one study’s findings showed. The study published by the research group Climate Central stated that affected areas could sink below the high tide line if sea levels continue to rise.

“As a result of heat-trapping pollution from human activities, rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods higher than land currently home to 300 million people,” the study said. “By 2100, areas now home to 200 million people could fall permanently below the high tide line,” it added.

Global sea levels have been predicted to rise more than 6 feet (2 meters) by the end of this century. This leaves Lagos, which experts say is less than two meters above the sea, in a precarious state, given that a chunk of Nigeria’s coastline is low-lying. In a study from 2012, the UK’s University of Plymouth found that a sea-level rise of just 3 to 9 feet (about 1 to 3 meters) “will have a catastrophic effect on the human activities” in Nigerian coastal environments.Adebote told CNN that Lagos’ fate “would depend on how we prioritize this science prediction and what corresponding actions we take as a response.” “It is only a matter of time before nature pushes back and this could be a disaster,” he added.

Nigeria deadly floods

Perennial flooding in Nigeria’s coastal areas has left many dead and scores displaced. According to NEMA data, more than 2 million people were directly affected by flooding in 2020.

At least 69 people lost their lives in flood disasters last year. In 2019, more than 200,000 people were affected by floods with 158 fatalities. “Every year we witness flooding in Nigeria. It is a problem that climate change has brought and we are living with it,” Ezekiel told CNN.

Beyond Lagos’ vulnerability to climate change, poor drainage systems and clogged street gutters in large swathes of the city are believed to have escalated its flooding challenges.

“As much as climate change plays a part in rising sea levels, what you can see in this video is predominantly a drainage system issue,” a social media user tweeted while reacting to a video of the recent flooding in Lagos.

However, as flooding rages in some areas, low-income neighborhoods constructed on reclaimed wetlands have to contend with sinking buildings.

Keeping Lagos afloat

Adebote told CNN that for Lagos to stay afloat in the face of floods and rising sea levels, it must adapt to climate change.

“We need to look at our infrastructures — drainage systems, waste management facilities, housing structures … How resilient and adaptive are these infrastructures in the face of environmental pressures and when put side-by-side with our growing population?” he said.

An aerial view of Lagos Island in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, in April 2016.

Authorities in Lagos have since commenced the clearing of the state’s water channels to mitigate perennial flooding. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has also expressed the country’s willingness to partner with global allies in tackling climate change.

“We look forward working with President [Joe] Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris. We have great hope and optimism for the strengthening of existing cordial relationships, working together to tackle global terrorism, climate change, poverty, and to improve economic ties and trade,” Buhari wrote in a January tweet. But Adebote remarks that government responses to climate action “have been largely poor.”

“There is a lot that must be done and will take consistent and deliberate actions on the parts of various stakeholders for Nigeria to properly take climate actions, especially in adapting to the impacts that are already threatening our livelihood,” he added.

An environmental activist, Olumide Idowu, urged government authorities to partner with the private sector in order to boost funds to tackle the issues. “Government should look at private sector partnerships in order for them to drive climate finance to solve the flooding issues,” Idowu told CNN.

Nigeria’s economy has struggled in recent years, shrinking financing for climate change and other critical sectors. Authorities are nonetheless still pledging to ramp up the country’s climate change response.

Last month, Nigeria’s Ministry of Environment announced a presidential approval for a revamped national policy on climate change, aimed at addressing “most, if not all, of the challenges posed by climate change and climate vulnerability in the country,” a spokesman for the ministry wrote in a Twitter post.

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Africa wants to produce a coronavirus vaccine — and Big Pharma’s not happy

News Agency nabakhabar — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 17:09:31 +0000

Africa is poised to make a bold move that could turn around its fortunes in coronavirus vaccine manufacturing — taking the continent from import dependence to self-sufficient production of life-saving jabs for coronavirus, TB and maybe even one day for HIV.

Two manufacturers are establishing an mRNA vaccine technology-transfer hub at the tip of the continent that could let it produce its own vaccines, on its own terms. It’s a way to address just how exposed countries are if they don’t have their own vaccine manufacturing capacity. Africa imports about 99 percent of routine immunizations — and is the least vaccinated against coronavirus in the world.

One counter-measure to address this dearth of vaccines kicked off in October 2020, when South Africa and India, scrambling for options, proposed an intellectual property waiver at the World Trade Organization. The move would allow lower-income countries to produce coronavirus vaccines without fear of infringing on patents.

The proposal has remained deadlocked, with the EU being the major blocker. But even if the proposal were accepted, it wouldn’t address one important problem — how to actually produce the vaccines.

That’s how another idea took off: The World Health Organization pitched an mRNA tech-transfer hub that would let multiple companies share the knowledge of how to produce vaccines from start to finish. Even French President Emmanuel Macron gave his stamp of approval.

Two South African companies have been chosen as the initial partners for the first hub — Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines and Biovac. Afrigen will take the role of trainer in chief and transfer the technology for the mRNA vaccines to other sites, the first being Biovac.

The choice of mRNA technology was also no coincidence.

Before the pandemic, no vaccine or therapy produced using mRNA technology had ever been approved. But the runaway success of the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines convinced the EU to completely pivot to mRNA for future supplies.

Its promise goes beyond coronavirus and holds the potential for applications related to cancer, Ebola, or HIV. But it’s exactly this potential that makes pharmaceutical companies all the keener to cling to their newly minted technology even more tightly.

And therein lies the rub: To get the hub up and running in a year — when it could still help end the pandemic — its partners need Big Pharma’s help. And Big Pharma isn’t keen: Neither Moderna nor Pfizer has signaled interest in working with the facility.

The two drugmakers also declined to comment to POLITICO on their potential involvement.

Pharma is playing “a really dangerous game,” warned Jaume Vidal, senior policy advisor for European projects at Health Action International. He believes that its actions are, in effect, “condemning thousands.”

From theory to practice

Through the hub, the WHO aims to bring together companies with knowledge of how to produce mRNA vaccines — ideally a drugmaker that has one already approved — with manufacturers that can be trained to produce the vaccine. In this instance, Afrigen would be in the middle, helping to transfer the technology from an mRNA vaccine developer to other manufacturers, with the support of a network of universities and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It’s not the first time the WHO has done this. A similar technology-transfer program for influenza vaccines has led to hundreds of millions of extra flu jabs since 2007.

Under the terms set out by the WHO, there are two ways the hub can use the technology: It either needs to be free of intellectual property constraints in low- and middle-income countries, or it can make such rights available to recipients through non-exclusive licenses to produce, export and distribute the COVID-19 vaccine in these countries.

Marie-Paule Kieny, director of research at Inserm and chair of the U.N.-backed Medicines Patent Pool — a hub partner — argues it isn’t going to run roughshod over existing licensing agreements.

Pointing to other partnerships done by the Medicines Patent Pool — whose work includes signing agreements with patent holders for 13 HIV antiretrovirals — Kieny said it’s aware of Pharma’s concerns about competition, and that most of the time, a license is limited to a certain territory. This means, for example, that an mRNA vaccine produced in South Africa wouldn’t be marketed or imported to the U.K.

Petro Terblanche, managing director of Afrigen, also sees the terms being decided on a “case by case basis,” adding: “It’s in none of our interests to infringe. This will be done in agreement.”

The choice of South Africa was also deliberate. “The due diligence, which was conducted by both by the Medicines Patent Pool and by WHO, indicates at this moment that there is no IP barrier in South Africa for the production of mRNA vaccines,” Kieny said. That means that there is currently no patent application for an mRNA vaccine in the country, even though a patent application could still emerge, she added.

This distinction is important: While the hub could potentially go hand in hand with the waiver, it’s not predicated on it. If implemented, the waiver would simply allow time for production to go on. But because a waiver is time-limited for the pandemic, it wouldn’t override the eventual need for voluntary or compulsory licensing.

Losing control

Aside from the legal fine print, there’s a bigger problem. Big Pharma isn’t convinced that companies would accept the terms of the hub.

Thomas Cueni, director-general of international pharma lobby IFPMA, said the debate needs to “be honest in expectation management.” While he said industry shares the objective of ensuring global equitable access, “you need to be pragmatic in terms of accepting that companies are not going for total sellout” and engage in tech transfer and voluntary licensing.

Drugmakers need to have high trust that “the recipient of the tech transfer, the licensing, has the skilled workforce, skilled people, and they can be trusted to stick to the agreements,” he explained.

The WHO also could have done a better job, he added, noting he only heard about the hub when the press release promoting it landed in his inbox.

To Alain Alsalhani, a pharmacist for Doctors Without Borders for nine years, the basic fact remains that Big Pharma won’t do anything without direct benefit. So if drugmakers want to share their technology with a manufacturer in Africa as a form of “social responsibility” or a way to improve their public image, “they can do it bilaterally,” he said.

“They get the good press … but they also hold complete control over everything,” he added. “What they see in the hub is clearly a way for them to lose control over [their] technology.”

He made those comments to POLITICO in early July. Just two weeks later, his prediction came true. On July 21, Pfizer and BioNTech announced their bilateral plans for expansion in Africa, with Biovac set to complete the final stage of production — or “fill and finish” — of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine in 2022.

While the initiative was welcomed, many access groups pointed out that fill and finish operations alone keep Africa reliant on Europe for the actual drug substance.

Future proof

Even the hub’s advocates concede they have to play the long game. Tech transfer is slow, and neither Afrigen nor Biovac has experience in mRNA technology. It’s likely to take a year for the first vaccines to be produced if existing technology is provided by manufacturers, and 18 months if the hub needs to use an mRNA vaccine still in development.

Is it even worth it, then, if the earliest of these jabs trickle in is mid-2022?

Kieny says it definitely is, pointing out that mRNA coronavirus vaccines may well be needed for booster doses or periodic vaccination.

And to Terblanche, it’s about more than this pandemic — the ambition in choosing mRNA as the platform is to go for a “next-generation, future relevant technology.”

The involvement of Big Pharma would be welcome, but the hub will go ahead without them if need be — and the platform needs to survive post-pandemic. “It has to be a multipurpose and a multi-product platform,” she said, indicating that flu, TB, HIV and Ebola were all areas that would be explored.

“It’s going to take time; this is not a sprint,” she said.

Terblanche spoke to POLITICO before BioNTech’s announcement on Monday that it plans to work with the hub — or its future iterations — for its mRNA malaria vaccine that’s still in development. BioNTech will assess multiple vaccine candidates, with the most promising being selected. It’s hoped that the first candidate would go to clinical trials at the end of 2022.

This is why activists like Vidal are excited about the hub’s potential — it could mean that in the future, there might be African manufacturers of mRNA vaccines for TB or malaria. “That’s why it’s so important that this hub is successful,” he said.

And for all the mystique around mRNA vaccines, the technology is actually fairly simple to use, said Kieny. Crucially, it can also be harnessed by manufacturers of drugs, not just those with experience in biologicals. Scaling up production using the technology is also less complex, as Pfizer’s dramatic ramp-up of production in Europe this past spring showed.

Playing politics?

The hub hasn’t only been hounded by questions of whether a pharma company will join, but whether it has the necessary expertise to succeed. IFPMA’s Cueni, for one, is doubtful of the WHO’s ability to run it.

While the Medicines Patent Pool has been successful in building up trust around licensing agreements, he thinks the WHO “has a long way to go to gain that trust.”

“They’re playing too much politics and their operational track record is not too impressive in the field,” he said.

Cueni was similarly scathing of the process by which the WHO created the hub, saying that it was created “unilaterally without any consultation.” He views it as almost the same as C-TAP, a technology-transfer initiative launched by the WHO in May 2020, that no pharmaceutical company has signed up to.

“What is their strategy? Are they floating these ideas in the hope that companies will sign up? In which case they will be the heroes [because] they announced it? Or if it fails, they can make us the villains because we didn’t do so?” he asked.

A WHO spokesperson declined to address Cueni’s assertions directly. But he noted the WHO will “continue to urge all pharmaceutical groups to do more to break the inequity, which means sharing licenses, technology and know-how, and waiving intellectual property temporarily.”

HAI’s Vidal, meanwhile, agrees with Cueni on one point — that the work of the hub and C-TAP not only overlap but could contradict each other. “That’s something that should be avoided at all costs,” he said.

However, those involved in the hub argue that while C-TAP’s main focus was on patents, the hub is about sharing technology and training others to use it.

As for questions about whether two small South African companies have the expertise, Terblanche is undaunted by the monumental challenge ahead. “I think it’s fair for the critics to say ‘wow, so how are these guys going to do it?'” she said.

“We don’t underestimate the challenge and we know the ambition is massive,” said Terblanche.

But she says that people do underrate the knowledge base in South Africa. Just in her small team of about 15, there are over 60 academic degrees between them.

They’re running at high energy at the moment, she said with a laugh: “We’re going to crash sometime down the line, but not before this hub is done.”

The post Africa wants to produce a coronavirus vaccine — and Big Pharma’s not happy appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

GLOBALink | How do people live in harmony with elephants in Africa?

3danews News Agency — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 07:58:12 +0000

https://vodpub2.v.news.cn/publish/20210608/XxjhmeE007056_20210608_CBVFN0A001.mp4

Recently a herd of wild Asian elephants, lingering in the outskirts of the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, has caught the eyes of the world.

Local authorities have evacuated local residents and mobilized thousands of people to monitor the migration of the herd.

In Africa, how do people keep a safe distance from wild elephants and live in harmony with them? Let’s check it out.

Produced by Xinhua Global Service

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-06/08/c_139996484.htm

The post GLOBALink | How do people live in harmony with elephants in Africa? appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

COVID-19 pandemic ‘feeding’ drivers of conflict and instability in Africa: Guterres

News Agency nabakhabar — Wed, 19 May 2021 19:12:30 +0000

Women and young people must be part of Africa’s plans to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, which is feeding factors driving conflict on the continent, UN Secretary-General told the Security Council on Wednesday.

Ambassadors met virtually to examine how to address root causes of conflict while promoting post-pandemic recovery in Africa.

Many communities and countries are already facing “a complex peace and security environment”, the UN chief said, and challenges such as long-standing inequalities, poverty, food insecurity and climate disruption, are raising risks of instability.

“One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, as we face the possibility of an uneven recovery, it is clear that the crisis is feeding many of these drivers of conflict and instability”, he said.

Lay down your arms

Since the pandemic began, the Secretary-General has repeatedly warned of the risks it poses to people and societies across the world, especially in countries affected by conflict.

“This was the backdrop to my appeal for a global ceasefire to enable us to focus on our common enemy: the virus”, he recalled.

With continued chronic violence in some countries, and re-emergence of old conflicts in others, he said the appeal is more relevant than ever.

Mr Guterres pointed out that violent extremist groups in Western and Central Africa and Mozambique, including those associated with Al-Qaeda and ISIL, have continued and even increased attacks on civilians, creating additional major challenges for societies and governments.

Lost opportunities, deepening inequalities

The Secretary-General listed some of the fallouts of the pandemic in Africa.

Economic growth has slowed, remittances are drying up, and debt is mounting. Meanwhile, some governments have also restricted civic space, while hate speech, divisive rhetoric, and misinformation have risen along with caseloads.

“The severe impact of the pandemic on young people – especially in Africa, the youngest continent – is contributing to increased risks. Loss of opportunities for education, employment and income drive a sense of alienation, marginalization and mental health stress that can be exploited by criminals and extremists,” he warned.

COVID-19 is also deepening existing gender inequalities, and threatening hard-won gains made in women’s participation in all areas of social, economic and political life, including peace processes.

Exiting the ‘conflict trap’

“I urge Member States to make proactive efforts to include women and young people when shaping post-pandemic recovery”, he said.

“Guaranteeing equal opportunities, social protection, access to resources and services and inclusive and meaningful participation in decision-making are not simply moral and legal obligations.  They are a necessary condition for countries to exit the conflict trap and get firmly on the pathway of peace and sustainable development.”

Vaccine inequity hampering recovery

Meanwhile, Africa has received less than two per cent of COVID-19 vaccines administered globally, the Secretary-General reported.

He said although African governments have shown commitment to fight the pandemic through a unified continent-wide approach, limited supply and access to vaccines, as well as insufficient support for pandemic response, are now hampering and delaying recovery.

“Out of 1.4 billion doses administered around the world today, only 24 million have reached Africa – less than two per cent”, Mr Guterres said.

The Secretary-General emphasized that equitable and sustainable vaccine roll-out worldwide is the quickest path to fast, and fair, recovery from the pandemic.

He said this requires countries to share doses, remove export restrictions, ramp up local production and fully fund global initiatives that promote equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.

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