Day: October 16, 2022

JUBA — South Sudan’s plan to dredge the Jonglei Canal is sending jitters among local communities who are wary of a past bid to drain the Sudd swamps.

Authorities had suspended the Jonglei Canal Project to conduct public awareness and explain to locals that the intention this time is to remove silt, not drain the waters of the Sudd.

The project involves the dredging of massive silt deposits and aquatic weed control in the Bahr-el-Ghazal basin, especially on the Naam River, and creating landing spots along the canal. Officially, Juba wants the canal more navigable.

Once that happens, the swamp will free some 10 billion cubic metres of water to flow to Egypt and ease transportation between South Sudan and Sudan, reducing travel time upstream.

Those who support dredging also see it as a permanent solution to floods in the lower areas of Jonglei and Unity. They say dredging will allow the quick flow of water and solve the problem of stagnation, which results in loss through evaporation.

There are suspicions, however. The dredging is being done by Egypt, whose ultimate desire – it is alleged – is to have more water reach its soil as opposed to disappearing in the swamps.

Locals have opposed such bids in the past, including an UN-supported project in the 1980s to drain the Sudd, afraid it will result in an ecological disaster that will change South Sudan’s biodiversity forever, with effects on livelihoods and the ecosystem, such as the collapse of fisheries and drying of grazing lands.

In April 2021, Cairo signed an agreement with Juba to dredge the 30km stretch of the Bahr el Ghazal River system from Unity State capital Bentiu. Civil society groups opposed the project as soon as excavators from Cairo landed.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

World Food Day 2022 falls on 16 October, with the theme “Leave No One Behind”

To help mitigate the impacts of soaring food prices and grains, worsened by Russia’s war in Ukraine, the African Development Bank in May launched the African Emergency Food Production Facility to enable production of 38 million tonnes of food over the next two years.

The $1.5 billion facility stepped into action, with the Bank approving initial programs in 26 African countries at a value of $1.257 billion. The Bank Group’s African Emergency Food Production Plan will provide 20 million farmers across Africa with seed varieties of primarily wheat, maize, rice, soybean and oil palm, as well as access to fertilizers to produce additional food worth $12 billion.

“Africa should not be importing food. Africa should become a major food-producing region and export its surplus to the rest of the world. If there is one thing Africa can do – it is to help the world feed itself,” said African Development Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina at a knowledge exchange event organised by Yara International(link is external). Yara International, a Norwegian chemical company, produces, distributes, and sells nitrogen-based mineral fertilizers.

“Africa offers (…) enormous opportunities in agriculture, with 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land still available to feed the world’s population, so its actions will determine the future of global nutrition. Furthermore, Africa’s food and agriculture market will reach $1,000 billion by 2030,” Adesina assured Norwegian businessmen at the Norwegian-African Business Association (NABA) summit on 29 September.

The Bank’s initiative has drawn global support, including from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and US President Joe Biden(link is external). The Government of Japan, through the Japan International Cooperation Agency, has partnered with the Bank to boost agricultural production in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Côte d’Ivoire. In early October, Norway announced a $9.2 million allocation for the African Emergency Food Production Facility. International development agencies have also lauded the Bank’s initiative.

African countries expect to record a significant boost in agricultural production as a result. In With African Emergency Food Production Facility assistance, Senegal, for example, aims to harvest an additional 600,000 tonnes of cereals like rice, maize and millet, as well as about 120 tonnes of cowpeas and 150,000 tonnes of potatoes. In Côte d’Ivoire, the Bank’s support will help produce an additional 546,987 tonnes of maize, 796,323 tonnes of rice, and more than 1 million tonnes of cassava.

For the Bank Group, progress towards achieving these goals is irreversible, given the African Emergency Food Production Facility will center around another successful Bank initiative: Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program.

TAAT provides producers with climate-resilient seeds and innovative agricultural technologies. Launched in 2018, the program has been a resounding success. In Ethiopia, heat-tolerant wheat varieties have helped the country become wheat self-sufficient within just three years. Next year, the country expects to become a net exporter of wheat to Djibouti and Kenya. The program has provided improved agricultural technologies to nearly 12 million farmers and supported the production of 25 million tonnes of food.

The new year will mark new developments in the Bank’s partnership with the International Fund for Agriculture Development to establish a Financing Facility for Food and Nutrition in Africa. This Facility, now called Mission 1 for 200, targets mobilizing $1 billion, in the next two years, from primarily non-traditional donor sources to address more structural issues in the modernization of Africa’s agricultural sector. Its objective is to double the productivity of 40 million smallholder African farmers and produce 100 million metric tonnes of food and feed 200 million people. The Bank is scheduled to launch this financing facility in late January, with the aim to drive agricultural transformation across Africa and helping to ensure no one, is left behind.

African Emergency Food Production Facility Beneficiary countries as of October 2022

West Africa (8): Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.

East Africa (5): Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, South Sudan.

Southern Africa (6): Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Central Africa (4): Cameroon, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad.

North Africa (3): Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia

Source: African Development Bank

71 million people in the developing world have fallen into poverty in just three months as a direct consequence of global food and energy price surges. The impact on poverty rates is drastically faster than the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current cost-of-living crisis is expected to hit women the hardest, with persistent pay inequality and undervalued work being the main reasons behind the increased financial load they have to shoulder. Women are also usually the primary caretakers for children and the elderly, and in times of crisis, they are disproportionately pushed out of employment and forced to stay at home. Without sufficient government support, they are often left to struggle alone in increasingly dire conditions.

These difficulties are particularly challenging for rural women, who face additional hurdles on their way to financial independence and stability. When crisis hits, rural women are hit the hardest, usually due to poor access to resources, services and information, the heavy burden of unpaid care and domestic work, and discriminatory traditional social norms.

To support rural women in securing their livelihoods and building resilience in the face of crisis, the Joint Programme ‘Accelerating Progress Towards Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment’ (JP RWEE)—a unique partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the World Food Programme (WFP)—tackles barriers facing rural women through a holistic approach that encompasses social, economic and political domains of empowerment. The JP RWEE is currently being implemented in Nepal, Niger, Tanzania, Tunisia, Rwanda and the Pacific Islands (Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tonga).

Increasingly fragile agricultural systems

In many regions around the world, farming is the main source of livelihood and an important income source for the rural population. Such is the case in Tanzania, where approximately 80 percent of women rely on subsistence farming to feed themselves and their families; and in Tunisia, where 70 percent of the country’s agricultural workforce are women.

Rural women, who often struggle to secure their own land to farm in the first place, are facing heightened difficulties in the wake of global crises such as conflict and climate change. In 2022, a significant decrease in the global fertilizer supply—which mainly comes from Ukraine and Russia—has made it more challenging to produce enough food. This shortage is compounding more long-standing threats, such as disruptions to harvests caused by increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather conditions.

“As 95 percent of agricultural activity in Tanzania depends on rainfall, the impact of changes in precipitation on agriculture would be far reaching. The over-reliance on rain-fed agriculture for livelihoods restricts the adaptive capacity of rural communities […]”

—Cressida Mwamboma, JP RWEE national coordinator in Tanzania

The changing climate conditions are affecting not only land-based resources, but marine ones as well. As rising temperatures increase the risk of irreversible loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, communities that rely on the ocean for their livelihoods need support. In Zanzibar, Tanzania, where aquaculture revolves largely around seaweed farming, sea water and sea temperature rises are greatly affecting production. The Pacific Islands also face increasingly serious impacts of climate change, such as growing water scarcity, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and increasing water and soil salinity.

The JP RWEE will support rural women in improving production of seaweed, sardines and other products using climate-smart agriculture, which helps to transform agri-food systems via green and climate resilient practices. Through the introduction of climate-smart agriculture, the Programme will help create a local agricultural system centred around biodiversity, resilience and the nutritional needs of rural women and their households.

Restrictive socio-cultural norms

In many countries, rural women and girls spend most of their time on unpaid care and domestic work. Traditional gender norms retain a stronge hold on people’s daily lives in many rural communities, and women are expected to shoulder the majority of household chores and childcare. In Tanzania, women spend 3.7 times more of their time on unpaid care and domestic work than men—and thus have less time at their disposal to engage in paid work or entrepreneurship. Women in Tunisia, who face restricted mobility after certain hours of the day and limited interaction with people outside their families, are widely categorized as “helpers” to male workers rather than as workers in their own right. These long-existing traditions and beliefs discourage them from taking on leadership roles and speaking up, with many remaining unaware of their rights.

To help with the equal distribution of unpaid work and domestic responsibilities, the JP RWEE engages with men as religious and traditional leaders, local authorities and citizens to ensure political and social recognition of the role of women. In many participating countries, the Programme supports participants in developing more equitable household relationships, helping them to identify and address gender inequalities within the home.

“Recognising, reducing, and redistributing the responsibilities of unpaid care work has been highlighted as a priority need for women’s economic empowerment in the Pacific”.

—Ovini Ralulu, JP RWEE national coordinator in the Pacific

Limited access to services

Lack of access to financial, government and other services is a common obstacle for rural women around the world. Gender inequalities, rooted in discriminatory patriarchal systems and social norms, mean that women are less likely to access agricultural extension services, markets, land and formal financial services despite their high participation in the agriculture sector. In Tanzania, only 12.2 per cent of women use bank services, compared to 21.4 per cent of men. Women are less likely to have access to financial credit, loans, insurance on crops, livestock, and other productive resources, making it difficult for them to engage in economic opportunities such as entrepreneurship. These limitations are often compounded by a lack of finance management knowledge and business literacy.

Across participating countries, the JP RWEE will provide rural women with business and financial management training. In Tunisia, it will support women’s cooperatives to commercialize their products through digital solutions like user-friendly e-market platforms. In Tanzania, the Programme will establish and strengthen existing community-managed savings and loan groups to provide rural women and their households with a mechanism for accumulating savings and building financial security.

“National and local professional organizations play an important role in rural development, but on their own they have only made limited progress in addressing the challenges facing rural women. With the support of the JP RWEE, we will reinforce capacities of rural women to increase their income and access to inputs, knowledge, market and decent work, and strengthen national institutional capacity to implement laws to facilitate access to financial services and advance women’s land rights.”

Source: UN Women