People in African countries have long been identified as among those most likely to be adversely affected by catastrophic climate change.
African countries are, however, interested in more than just net-zero targets and strategies. They also want to see ambitious targets for other COP 26 objectives.
Africa is set to suffer the most from climate change. Here are five key messages from the continent.
Africa carries the heaviest burden of the associated climate change effects, despite contributing less than 5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. African countries cannot be ignored, or just listened to. Their needs should shape the agenda.
At present, SAMIM is operating in Cabo Delgado with the full consent of the Mozambican government. Despite initial resistance to SADC involvement, Mozambique has consented to the SADC deployment.
In the aftermath of the socio-political upheavals of the end of the last century, the Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) quickly took a stand and declared in unison the need to work for the development of peace, stability and non-violence.
In SADC, Parliaments are at the forefront of the #COVID19 response and can play a leading role in putting in place the legal and budgetary frameworks necessary to mitigate the spread and negative effects of the pandemic.
In 2020, the government of South Africa announced a new Border Management Act that introduces a single authority to oversee the border environment, and it has also amended the Refugee Act.
Children are under siege in South Africa, and we are exposing our glaring failures to them; in schools, and in the homes where they are supposed to find sanctuary and be the safest, adolescent girls of all ages are victims of unspeakable violence.
ISWAP, noticing the vacuum created by the death of Shekau, seized the opportunity to move in and present itself as the most prominent violent extremist group in the region, and has deepened its relationship with the Islamic State (IS), thus making itself a global threat and expanding the network and reach of such groups.
African youths have always been, formally or informally, part of the continent’s response to peace and security challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted yet other positive and inherent characteristics of African youth that challenge the negative stereotype that they are synonymous with social disruption and are harbingers of violence
The Lake Chad Basin Regional Strategy for Stabilization, Recovery and Resilience (RSS), adopted in August 2018, identified the eight governors as the primary mechanism for cross-border cooperation as well as domesticating the implementation of this Strategy.
Conflict and violence need to be understood in localised contexts and realities; this allows for an understanding of conflict that is unique to a country’s history and socio-political reality. Eswatini does not exhibit the signs of what the WPS agenda considers conflict.
From a general perspective it can be said that every actor in the Sahel is walking on a tight rope trying to achieve limited objectives, without remaining stuck in the many complexities of the local political milieu.
FAO economist Josef Schmidhuber has suggested that people in low-income countries tend to spend more than 60% of their earnings on food, leaving them particularly at risk. As hunger rises, so too does the potential for socio-economic disruption aimed at governments.
If politics is about who gets what, when, and how, then the political economy of managing diversity, especially in the era of competitive electoral politics, is also crucial to reflect upon.
The alarming rate of coups on the continent are an indicator that firmer measures are required from the AU and respective regional bodies as a deterrent.
Prior to the coups, the continent had already witnessed 7 popular uprisings within the last decade that brought about changes in government. The actions, and inactions, of the military were critical to the outcome of these uprisings.