Président de la Commission de l’Union Africaine (depuis le 1er. février 2008)
Président du Ghana,
Président de l’Union Africaine (depuis janvier 2007)
APRM
3-23 February 2008, APRM Country Review Mission for Uganda.
February 2008, Country Review Mission for Nigeria (date to be finalised). Source : NEPAD, february 22, 2008
The next programme schedule for the NEPAD TV slot on the SABC Africa channel (DSTV Channel 286) is : African Views
27 February, 8pm-9pm (SA time)
This phone-in panel discussion will feature Prof. Mzobanzi Mboya, NEPAD Secretariat education advisor. The topic of discussion will be Inclusive Education in Africa.
The panel will include : Bhekie Jele, advocacy and campaigns manager, Leonard Cheshire Disability Southern Africa Office, Maurice Kilduff, Leonard Cheshire national director, A.K. Dube, African Decade of the Disabled CEO, Lewis Nzimande, a South African MP, and Magic Nkhwashu, independent disability analyst and activist.
The Land and Water Management Applied Research Programme in the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Directorate of the Southern African Development Community Secretariat are organising a scientific symposium in liaison with various partners including the host, the University of Zambia.
Held annually the SADC-EU International Scientific Symposium serves to facilitate the sharing and dissemination of research results in land and water management and sustainable natural resource management. Great emphasis is placed on integration of knowledge, particularly involving scholars from the natural and social sciences.
The theme for the 2008 symposium which will be held in the Mulungushi International Conference Centre, Lusaka, Zambia, in May is “Institutional structures and best practices in land and water management in Southern Africa – towards meeting the challenges of climate change”.
There is a broad scientific consensus that global climatic change is a real problem and that it will alter the hydrologic cycle in a variety of important ways.
Climate change also has implications for land and water resources and these resources are vulnerable to a wide range of effects, some of which are already occurring.
These effects include, among others :
Physical effects, such as droughts, floods and sea level rise ;
Biological effects, such as increases in insect and disease infestations, shifts in species distribution, and changes in the timing of natural events ;
Economic and social effects, such as adverse impacts on tourism, infrastructure and other resource uses.
Resource managers face challenges in addressing the observed and potential effects of climate change in their management and planning efforts.
Additionally, the enduring changes in climate, water supply and soil moisture could make it less feasible to continue crop production in Southern African region.
The agriculture unit of the NEPAD Secretariat, in its mission to implement the CAADP programme, recently held a retreat to review progress and finalise a new strategic plan. The plan comes at an opportune time as the development community renews the consensus around agriculture as a key development vehicle and issues such as climate change sit high on the agenda.
The basis of the strategy follows a close examination of how the agriculture team at the NEPAD Secretariat sees the progress currently being made in CAADP implementation and the major bottlenecks and challenges to making more substantial progress in 2008.
From this position, the team has identified five major strategic areas around which the work programmes will be structured. These include :
Partnership and coalition development at international, continental and regional levels ;
Management of the "quality" of CAADP implementation at regional and national levels ;
Managing communication and information in support of CAADP implementation and partnership ;
Monitoring and assessment of CAADP impacts ;
Harnessing key thinking and experience on African agricultural Issues to articulate perspectives and contribute to the evolution of the CAADP agenda.
The intention of the strategy is to help focus the agriculture unit on the support needed to contribute directly to the five points.
This will mean among other things, robust engagement with partners to move towards resource mobilisation ; engagement with RECs and national governments in support of their identified CAADP priorities ; management of a CAADP calendar and communications strategy ; and pursuing new MoUs with the CAADP pillar institutions and RECs, outlining clear roles and responsibilities.
One of the first achievements of this new strategy will be the launching of a new CAADP Trust Fund with contributions from a number of major development partners. The fund will provide resources to support the country roundtables and pillar frameworks in realising quality agricultural investment programmes at the national level.
In parallel with the development of the trust fund, the NEPAD Secretariat hosted an interactive learning session on the CAADP Roundtable processes and pillar frameworks on 9-10 February.
The purpose of this session was to not only take stock of emerging lessons, but to strengthen the depth of understanding of these processes to provide a deeper consensus and a strengthened model of both the Roundtable process and pillar framework concepts. This is critical to ensuring the success and quality of both the ongoing Roundtable processes and those scheduled to launch in 2008. Source : NEPAD, february 22, 2008