Day: March 28, 2022

Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced today, at the 2022 Doha Forum, a new strategic partnership called Nanmo, or “growing together” in Arabic. Nanmo will invest in climate-adaptive agricultural tools and technologies to build resilient food systems and markets that provide nutrition, income, and economic opportunities to small-scale producers and their communities across the African continent.

QFFD and the Gates Foundation jointly pledged up to US$200 million toward agriculture, climate resilience, and economic development projects to support smallholder farmers on drylands on the African continent. These farmers are bearing the brunt of the effects of climate change and this partnership will aim to strengthen economies in sub-Saharan Africa in four key areas:

• Equity as a primary driver of inclusive growth

• Enterprise as a means of job creation and poverty alleviation

• Agriculture as a primary source of food, jobs, and income

• Access to technologies, financial tools, and emerging best practices as a driver of productivity, nutrition, and climate adaptation

The partnership will also seek to ensure that women small-scale producers can positively contribute to, and benefit from, decisions about how their communities grow food and create jobs.

“Hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are already seeing their livelihoods threatened by higher temperatures and changing weather patterns,” said Bill Gates. “We’re building on our longstanding collaboration with QFFD to help these farmers adapt. Together, we can prevent millions of people from falling into poverty and hunger due to climate change and increase agricultural yields to jumpstart equitable economic growth where it’s most needed.”

The strategic partnership was announced by Bill Gates and Mr. Khalifa Al-Kuwari, Director General of QFFD, in the presence of Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman during a panel at the Doha Forum. It will support climate-adaptive tools, practices, policies, and markets as sustainable drivers of resilient food systems that provide nutrition, income, and economic opportunities to small-scale producers and their communities. It will also include systems-level research and country-level implementation to adapt to local environments.

One of the first projects funded by Nanmo will focus on improving the livelihoods of low-income women farmers in a number of African countries, working with the World Poultry Foundation to provide them with improved breeds of chicken for egg and meat production.

Mr. Khalifa Al-Kuwari said, “We are thrilled to be announcing a new initiative in collaboration with our strategic partner, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, titled Nanmo, which aims at ensuring that sustainable development goals are met everywhere.” He added, “We have high hope that these valuable partnerships will expand our efforts to improve the lives of vulnerable communities, ensuring their economic security against the backdrop of this ever-evolving planet.”

The partnership will also fund projects with a clear path to achieving impact across multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including poverty alleviation, agricultural transformation, nutrition, and youth and women’s and youth economic empowerment. Investments like these are especially important at a time when conflict in one part of the world can threaten food security across the globe.

“A thriving agriculture sector generates economic growth, but that growth doesn’t automatically benefit everyone equally,” said Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation. “Nanmo isn’t just about protecting agriculture against climate change. It’s also about making sure that smallholder farmers, including millions of women, can lift themselves out of poverty and invest in a better future for their families and their communities.”

The Gates Foundation has spent over US$5 billion since 2009 on advancing agricultural development to support the needs of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Stronger food systems for smallholder farmers are urgently needed to avert more serious hunger crises in dryland regions. This will help boost economies and improve the ability of farmers to respond and adapt to climate change.

About Qatar Fund for Development

QFFD is a Qatari public institution committed, on behalf of the State of Qatar, to implement foreign aid projects by international best practices and standards.

Since 2012, QFFD has been providing aid to many countries in accordance with the international cooperation goals of Qatar National Vision 2030. Its primary goal is to achieve inclusive and sustainable development by addressing global priority issues in education, health, and economic development. In this context, priority is given to the following Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: "Ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all";

• SDG 4: "Ensuring fair and inclusive education for all and enhancing lifelong learning for all";

• SDG 8: "Promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and keeping full and productive employment and decent work for all."

To realize optimal development impact, QFFD projects are also designed to have cross-cutting co-benefits within SDG 2 "Zero hunger" and SDG 6 "Ensuring availability and sustainable management of clean water and sanitation for all," in addition to SDG 17 "Partnerships to achieve goals."

QFFD cooperates with many reputable actors through strategic partnerships both locally and internationally. These include Civil Society Organizations, government agencies, UN agencies, and the private sector.

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Mark Suzman, under the direction of Co-chairs Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates and the board of trustees.

Source: Qatar Fund for Development

PENTAGON — U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday that he would make "no apologies" after his recent comment that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power," stressing he was "expressing moral outrage" and not actually calling for regime change in Moscow.

"People like this shouldn't be ruling countries, but they do. The fact they do doesn't mean I can't express my outrage about it," Biden told reporters at the White House on Monday.

"I wasn't articulating a policy change," he said.

The president's unscripted remark about Putin, while speaking with Ukrainian refugees and international volunteers in Poland on Saturday, stirred controversy in the United States and caught some allies in Western Europe by surprise.

"The last thing I want to do is engage in a land war or a nuclear war with Russia," Biden said, while rejecting the idea that his comment could escalate tensions over the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russian troops have stopped ground advances toward the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as they appear refocused on regions in eastern Ukraine, according to senior official from the U.S. Department of Defense.

"They clearly are not moving on Kyiv anymore," said the official, who briefed reporters on background Monday. "What we are seeing is this continued reprioritization on the Donbas."

Moscow's latest military shift appears to be an effort to cut off Ukrainian forces in the eastern region, according to the official, adding that the move "could be an attempt by the Russians to gain negotiating leverage" in peace talks with Ukrainian representatives trying to end the war.

Mercenaries

Britain's Defense Ministry said Monday that a private Russian mercenary company, the Wagner Group, has been deployed to eastern Ukraine.

"They are expected to deploy more than 1,000 mercenaries, including senior leaders of the organization, to undertake combat operations," the ministry said. It added that the troops were being pulled from Syria and Africa.

The top commander of U.S. military forces in Africa, General Stephen Townsend, told VOA earlier this month that the Wagner Group was trying to recruit its mercenaries in Africa to fight in Ukraine.

Russia has been backing separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine since at least 2014, when Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Ukrainian forces have stopped Russian troops from taking most major cities.

Nearly 5,000 people, including more than 200 children, have been killed in the southern city of Mariupol, which Russia has heavily bombarded since the invasion started last month, according to the mayor's office.

Mariupol's mayor on Monday called for evacuation of the remaining 160,000 residents. Ukraine's deputy prime minister, however, said no humanitarian corridors would open, because of intelligence reports of potential Russian assaults on the routes.

"We've seen the Russians announce humanitarian corridors and then promptly shell them, or mortar them, or strike them," the senior U.S. Defense official said Monday in response to a question from VOA, without speaking to Ukraine's recent assertions.

Near Kyiv, the large suburb of Irpin has been liberated from Russian forces, according to Mayor Alexander Markushin.

"We understand that our city will be attacked more. We will protect it," he said.

Last week, the deputy chief of the Russian armed forces' general staff said Russia's "main tasks" of the invasion of Ukraine were complete.

"The combat capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces have been substantially reduced, which allows us to concentrate our main efforts on achieving the main goal — the liberation of Donbas," Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi said.

Last week, however, a senior U.S. Defense official said Ukrainians still have more than 90% of their combat power, in part because the U.S. and other allies have replenished them "in real time."

Peace talks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country's "sovereignty and territorial integrity" are a priority as Ukraine and Russia head into a new round of peace talks.

"We are looking for peace, really, without delay," Zelenskyy said in a video address late Sunday. "There is an opportunity and a need for a face-to-face meeting in Turkey. This is not bad. Let's see the outcome."

Earlier Sunday, in a call with Russian journalists, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was open to adopting neutral status as part of a peace deal if it came with third-party guarantees and was put to a referendum.

Turkey is set to host the latest talks. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that he would meet briefly with both the Russian and Ukrainian delegations ahead of the talks on Tuesday.

Speaking about the peace talks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on national television Monday that "the minimum program will be humanitarian questions, and the maximum program is reaching an agreement on a cease-fire."

"We are not trading people, land or sovereignty," he added.

The United Nations says the Russian invasion of Ukraine has pushed 10 million people out of their homes, and more than 3.8 million have fled the country.

In response to the invasion, the NATO alliance has increased defenses on its eastern flank, announcing four new battlegroups to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia last week. Individual NATO members have also unilaterally sent troops and equipment to allied countries including Poland and the Baltic states, which neighbor Russia and have hosted NATO battlegroups since 2017.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced that six U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler aircraft and about 250 air crew would arrive in Germany on Monday to bolster NATO's defenses.

"These Growlers … specialize in conducting electronic warfare missions, using a suite of jamming sensors to confuse enemy radars," Kirby told reporters.

"They are there to reinforce deterrence capabilities of the alliance on the eastern flank. They're not there to engage Russian assets. That is not the goal," the senior U.S. Defense official added.

Source: Voice of America

In November 2021, scientists at the Famine Early Warning System Network sent out a warning that an unprecedented drought in the Horn of Africa was imminent if poor seasonal rainfall continued into 2022. Tragically, their prediction is turning out to be prescient.

East Africa, and in particular, parts of Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya, are experiencing the driest conditions and hottest temperatures since satellite record-keeping began. As a result, as many as 13 million people are currently experiencing acute food and water shortages and a projected 25 million will face a similar fate by mid-2022.

Scientists are blaming climate change for the current crisis in a part of the world that is least able to cope. Africa as a whole contributes to about two to three per cent of global emissions that cause global warming and climate change.

However, the continent suffers the heaviest impacts of the climate crisis, including increased heatwaves, severe droughts and catastrophic cyclones, like the ones that hit Mozambique and Madagascar in recent years.

Furthermore, scientists project things will only get worse for Africa if current trends continue. According to the 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, “key development sectors have already experienced widespread loss and damage attributable to anthropogenic climate change, including biodiversity loss, water shortages, reduced food production, loss of lives and reduced economic growth.”

The current drought hitting East Africa has been particularly devastating to small-scale farmers and herders across the Horn who are already vulnerable to climate related shocks.

This is why the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is currently supporting 22 African countries to use Ecosystem-based Adaptation solutions that are already present in their environment to buttress communities against the deadly effects of climate change.

In the small East Africa nation of Djibouti, for instance, UNEP has undertaken three ecosystem-based adaptation projects, including a drought mitigation project specifically aimed at assisting subsistence farmers and herders whose crops are failing and livestock are dying.

“Ecosystem-based adaptation approaches, such as planting indigenous, rapidly growing species of plants that can have immediate impact on the ground, combined with long-term solutions is incredibly effective at protecting communities from the impacts of climate change,” said Eva Comba, a Task Manager at UNEP’s Climate Adaptation Unit.

She said that restoring already existing ecosystems, by planting more Acacia and mangrove trees, for example, is vital in countries like Djibouti that are vulnerable to droughts, storms, flash-floods and coastal erosion.

Some of the ecosystem restoration Comba and her colleagues at UNEP are working on include planting trees in 15 hectares of land. The greenery includes Acacia trees, which are ideal plants for providing a cooling shade and prevent soil erosion on farmlands—a must in a hot and dry climate like Djibouti’s.

Another key component of the project is building boreholes and underground water tanks that enable subsistence farmers to water their crops in ways that are sustainable over time.

Replanting and protecting already existing mangrove forests is also an important part of UNEP’s ecosystem-based adaptation approach, especially in coastal regions of Djibouti. Mangroves are effective for protecting local communities from storms and supporting alternative livelihoods, such as fisheries and tourism.

Despite the dire impacts of climate change in Africa, there is cause for optimism. UNEP is working with many countries across the continent to ensure that climate change adaptation is embedded in national policy and planning. UNEP is also working with the European Union and The Africa LEDS project to support Low Emissions Development (LEDS) across the continent in order to unlock socio-economic opportunities whilst fulfilling the climate objectives of the Paris Agreement

UNEP also worked with ministers of the environment from 54 African countries to create The African Green Stimulus Programme. It supports a comprehensive green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic , which has already cost the continent tens of billions of dollars in lost gross domestic product.

However, a lot more work needs to be done to mitigate the worst effects of climate change that is yet to come, say experts. According to UNEP’s 2021 Adaptation Gap Report, the “estimated adaptation costs in developing countries are five to ten times greater than current public adaptation finance flows.” The report also found that the costs of adaptation are likely to hit as high as USD 280-500 billion per year by 2050 for developing countries.

The current drought in East Africa has sent humanitarian agencies scrambling to prevent another famine like the one that hit the same region in 2011 in which an estimated 260,000 people died.

If the April rainy season turns out to be as disappointing as the last three, it will mark the longest drought to hit the region since the 1980s, potentially leading to a famine of tragic proportions.

“At the moment in the Horn of Africa we are witnessing vulnerable communities being disproportionately affected by climate change who are least able to buffer against its impact,” said Susan Gardner, the Director of UNEP’s Ecosystems Division. “To prevent a major humanitarian crisis in East Africa, we must provide urgent humanitarian assistance to those in need, while also thinking long term by investing in ecosystem-based adaptation solutions that will save lives, build green economies and protect the environment.”

Source: UN Environment Programme