Day: July 12, 2022

ACCRA— Ghana and its neighbouring countries on the African continent have been urged to review their agriculture and food security strategies to reduce the dependency on other countries around the world.

The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES & Africa) said this had become necessary after the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict exposed some significant gaps in the continent’s agriculture and food security strategies.

Dr Tidiane Ouattara, the Coordinator of GMES said that: “The Ukraine crisis showed Africa that food security is an issue because we depend on Ukraine for several things and on Europe also for several things. It means that Africa now has to rethink its agriculture and food security strategy.”

He noted that data acquisition and processing had become more than critical because it was a pillar for decision makers to develop good policies, and had appropriate interventions, which was being provided by space science and technology.

Dr Ouattara said this at workshop in Accra on best practices in data acquisition and data processing as an enabler for addressing daily needs of scientists and citizens as well as national development issues.

“We have to talk together to share best practices and to look at how to complement each other. Together we are stronger and Africa should speak one language,” he said.

Dr Kwame Agyekum, Marine Remote Sensing Scientist, added that data was important for Africa in utilising its resources for the benefit of the citizenry, and national development.

He said that: “You realise that Africa is endowed with a lot of resources. We have vast oceans and very fertile lands. We have realised that we need to manage these resources, but we need to collect information about these resources first.”

That, Dr Agyekum said, was being done through partnership between the African Union (AU) and European Union, adding that the meeting was to enable stakeholders strategise and “take advantage of data to make good use of our resources.”

The maiden Continental Service Workshop on Coastal and Marine Services of GMES & Africa was convened by the African Union Commission and attended by leading implementers and partners.

They include University of Ghana (UG), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Regional Economic Communities and European Technical Institutions.

The GMES & Africa phase II is a continuity of phase I of the programme that is looking at building on the achievements of the first phase.

Representatives of the five Regional Economic Communities in Africa, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, GMES & Africa Project Management Unit and African Union Commission Departments were at the meeting.

Others were European Partners, including European Commission’s Directorate for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs?(DG-GROW), European Space Agency, European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, and the Joint Research Centre.

Source: Nam News Network

The International Committee of the Red Cross warns hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa are going hungry due to conflict, climate shocks, and rising food prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The ICRC warns Africa’s food crisis is set to worsen. It says conflict and armed violence, failing harvests due to years of drought, and increases in food and other commodity prices are driving more people into extreme poverty and hunger.

A recent U.N. assessment estimates 346 million people on the continent face severe food insecurity, meaning one-quarter of the population does not have enough to eat.

The ICRC regional director for Africa, Patrick Youssef, says the situation is urgent. He warns many lives will be lost without a concerted effort by different actors to meet the challenges ahead. He says aid agencies, international financial institutions, and governments must collaborate to prevent the humanitarian crisis from becoming irreversible.

“As we look at 2023, we know that this will repeat itself. These climate shocks will repeat themselves; food insecurity will remain as acute as it is," said Youssef. "It will not end with the calendar year. So, we all will better collectively be prepared for a long haul, for a situation, for a crisis that will certainly increase in size and volume.”

The ICRC reports the war in Ukraine has caused a sharp increase in fuel and fertilizer prices. That, it says, has added significant pressure on farmers, many of whom are weathering the combined impact of conflict and climate shocks.

Youssef says the Horn of Africa is most seriously affected. He notes, however, that other parts of Africa, from Mauritania to the Sahel to Lake Chad and, to a lesser extent, the Central African Republic, are suffering from the effects of the Ukraine crisis.

“Countries are equally, at least those who are, as you mentioned, so dependent on grains and wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Somalia is the worst—90 percent," said Youssef. "But Nigeria has also a large dependency on that. Sudan and South Sudan as well. And, indeed the situation is extremely difficult for people that are inaccessible for humanitarian organizations, such as Somalia.”

Youssef says lack of access to people in areas affected by conflict and armed violence, such as Somalia and Burkina Faso raise the challenges to a different level.

The ICRC reports more than 35 armed conflicts are taking place on the continent and around 30 million people are internally displaced and refugees. The Swiss-based humanitarian agency says people uprooted from their homes are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, fluctuation of food prices and hunger.

Source: Voice of America

HARARE— Zimbabwe will start selling gold coins this month as a way to tame inflation that has weakened the local currency, the country’s central bank said.

The governor of the central bank, John Mangudya, noted that the coins, known as Mosi-oa-Tunya, would be available for sale from July 25 in local currency and United States dollar at a price based on the prevailing price of gold, according to The Citizen.

Mangudya said the introduction of the gold coins would reduce pressure on the US dollar in the open market, which the government has said is responsible for the depreciation of the currency.

“As you are aware, the US dollar has largely been used for two things; for the importation of goods and store of value,” he said. “The gold coins will provide an alternative investment option to the US dollar as a store of value.”

He further stressed that investors “that purchase gold coins will be able to preserve value and make good profits when gold prices rise,” adding that the coins will contain one “troy ounce of gold and would be sold through normal banking channels.”

Even before the gold coins become available for sale, the country’s finance minister has said the move will not solve the country’s high inflation and structural challenges.

“Instead it is another gimmick of extraction and arbitrage. They never tire from ways of transferring wealth from the poor,” Tendai Biti said. He led the Treasury when Zimbabwe dollarised at the height of hyperinflation in 2009, according to The Citizen.

He continued: “The Zimbabwe dollar is in tatters due to, among other things, the lack of reserves and the absence of anything to back it up. There is, therefore, no sense in selling gold when it can’t be used to back up the tattered currency.”

Biti also noted that selling gold in local currency allows cartels with billions in Zimbabwe dollars to hedge the same with gold the same way they have been buying the US dollars on the black market.

“It also allows some foreign crooks to launder their money in Zimbabwe through gold coins,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s currency crisis has seen the annual inflation rate jump to 192 percent in June. There has also been a sharp depreciation in the Zimbabwean dollar, which analysts say lost over two-thirds of its value against the dollar this year.

Source: Nam News Network