With the new year, the World Health Organization has released a list of its top priorities for 2020. They include a number of concerns with special resonance on the African continent, including the need to understand that the climate crisis is a health crisis, and the need to address the…
There was a time when the withered Lake Chad region was the focal point of what climate change on the African continent looked like, and what it could or would mean for migration. Some 2.6 million people are displaced there, according to the most recent numbers from the United Nations…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
The African Development Bank is among the entities and climate advocacy groups on the continent to express disappointment at the essential failure of the COP25 talks in Madrid, which – despite lasting an extra two days – ended with no meaningful commitments from wealthy nations to act on carbon emissions…
Aid workers in Angola are appealing for help in the country’s south, where they say climate change is causing a crisis for up to 2.3 million people. Paolo Balladelli of the United Nations said that’s how many people were affected at the height of this year’s drought. “Temperatures in 2019…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
A “Fridays for the Future” press conference, led by climate activists Greta Thunberg of Sweden and Luisa Neubauer of Germany on Monday, intentionally focused not on their highly visible voices but rather those activists who hail from the Global South. Among them was Hilda Nakabuye, a climate activist from Uganda…
Leading climate activists with the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance presented the continent’s concerns during a COP25 panel discussion in Madrid on Tuesday, underscoring the priority that Africa must be during climate negotiations. Eugene Nforngwa, the Cameroonian environmental journalist and development specialist, led the panel of five African leaders calling on…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
They leave because they lack an adequate income. They leave because they’re looking for better educational opportunities, because of the security situation at home, because there’s no food, and because of environmental and climate shocks. That’s according to a survey of 4,195 migrants in Libya released by IOM, the United…
East African nations took another step forward on regional integration this week, with an emphasis on measures to curb climate change impacts while developing economic opportunities. Fourteen nations were present at a three-day meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Senior Officials and Experts (ICSOE), co-hosted by the Economic Commission for…
The EAT-Lancet “planetary health” diet recommendations were well-received when they were released in January, pointing a way forward to improve both human health and reduce the land use, carbon emissions and related damage done by agriculture. “Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts. Global consumption of…
Morocco has increased its climate change commitments linked to the 2015 Paris Agreement. Eritrea and Benin have decreased theirs, and they represent half of just six nations globally that have reviewed these commitments since – commitments that aren’t delivering fast enough on climate action. That’s according to a report released…
China hosted a meeting of key BASIC environmental ministers at the weekend, a group that also includes South Africa, India and Brazil – all of them pressing the case to act on climate change. The South African agency was represented in Beijing by its chief climate negotiator, Maesela Kekana, and…
The Central African Republic has, for the second year in a row, topped the list of nations whose people suffer from hunger – and did so with a Global Hunger Index (GHI) score that makes it the only country in the world where hunger is rated as extremely alarming. The…
Africa’s vision for the “Blue Economy” got a boost from African Development Bank Group (AfDB) this week, with the announcement of US $13.2 million in financing for fisheries and aquaculture in Malawi. The country’s government will add another $1.38 million for the Sustainable Fisheries, Aquaculture Development, and Watershed Management project…
Djibouti is already feeling the impacts of climate crisis, and after a three-day tour of the Horn of Africa nation, the assistant secretary general for the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA is calling for action. “Climate change is real, and I could see it here,” said UNOCHA’s Ursula Mueller. “I…
Three African students are among 15 across the globe who have joined with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in filing a legal complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Raslene Joubali, 17, of Tunisia; Deborah Adegbile, 12, of Nigeria; and Ayakha Melithafa, also 17, from…