The African Climate Solution

The just-concluded Poznan conference saw the launch of the African Climate Solution, anchored by COMESA and supported by FANRPAN. The project entails the reduction of green house gas emissions by forest resources (REDD) and carbon sequestration through agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU) in Africa and throughout the developing world. Sindiso Ngwenya, Secretary General of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), who spoke at the launch of the Africa Climate Solution, said “ this initiative is African in origin but is intended to include all developing nations." A fully fledged project website will soon be launched but initial details have been posted on the FANRPAN website.

Land ownership and regional integration in the EAC

A news report out of Dar es Salaam a few days ago illustrated another stumbling block in moves towards regional integration: namely differing perspectives on the ability of foreigners to own land in African states. The report also spoke to the charge by foreign states and companies to gain access to "vast tracks" of land in Africa as a way of ensuring food supplies. The Deputy Minister for East African Co-operation, Mohammed Aboud, said Tanzania was not ready to adopt the controversial issue of cross-border private land ownership within the EAC. Why can't other countries adopt the Tanzanian model of state ownership of land, he asked?

A new land grab in Africa?

One of the many joys of what I do comes from the ability to spot emerging trends (thanks to my iGoogle system and the results of key word searches for material to post on websites): watching the countdown to the 2008 food crisis was one such trend. Of course the real sectoral specialists arguably dream about these issues. Against the background of the food crisis, a new trend is underway: for a good few months now news reports from a variety of very different sources indicate that foreign states want a slice of African farmland to produce not just biofuels but food for their own populations. Even Mauritius, as a member of the AU, seems to have struck a deal with Mozambique in this respect. The South Korean story about Madagascar made it into TIME last week. Now Gulf States have been advised to get in on the act as an article in the Gulf Times points out. "Bahrain Export Development Society chairman Dr Yousef Mashal warned the GCC must take steps to safeguard its food and water security, saying Africa was a major opportunity to do just that...a lot of joint ventures can be investigated in agriculture and Bahrain investors can look at buying land and farming it, producing goods, canning or freezing them and importing to Bahrain. This will be good for food security and in agro investment."

African kings, SADC-PF and ....

Two issues highlighted in recent blog entries have gone mainstream. Today's Business Day carries an article which brings the differing stances between Botswana and South Africa on an EPA with the EU right into the open (or at least into the South African press); it even quotes from the original Sunday Standard article! And IRIN has reported on the new poverty report out of Namibia (Ben Roberts, a former HSRC/SARPN colleague is a co-author of the report). The full report can be accessed via the link in the IRIN article. The just-concluded SADC-PF meeting in Arusha sees SADC parliamentarians again calling for a regional parliament - a regular refrain these last few years but which does not seem to get heard by those in power across the region. And on a less serious note "African kings" have called for a Union Government for Africa. What is in it for them? Read the article and you will see why it will not fly!