Ethiopia’s social safety net programme faces a funding gap
28/3/2024: Ethiopia’s flagship social protection programme has cut food and cash transfers to the country’s poorest households, due to rising prices and cutbacks from some international donors. The Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) was launched in 2005 as a resilience-building social safety net, now recognised as one of the most ambitious social protection programmes in Africa.
Source: The New Humanitarian
High risk, high reward: Gavi’s investment in Africa vaccine production
28/3/2024: Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, is a global consortium that provides affordable vaccines to lower-income countries through pooled procurement. The organisation is months away from launching a new $1 billion financial instrument to boost Africa’s nascent vaccine manufacturing sector.
Source: Devex
Expectations mount as loss and damage fund staggers to its feet
25/3/2024: Progress on getting a new UN loss and damage fund up and running is slow. Its board faces an unenviable task: figuring out how to fairly divide very little money among too many people in desperate need of it, as climate impacts accelerate. The fund isn’t expected to hand out any money until 2025 at the earliest.
Source: Climate Home News
UN Security Council passes Gaza cease-fire resolution
25/3/2024: The UN Security Council has passed a resolution calling for an "immediate" cease-fire during Ramadan in Gaza. It also calls for the immediate release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. The US abstained. Four similar resolutions had failed, three of them vetoed by the US and another last week by Russia and China.
Source: DW
Water for peace? First, stop it becoming a weapon of war
22/3/2024: As conflicts continue to rage in Ukraine and parts of the Middle East and Africa, water infrastructure has become fair game. The highest number of attacks on water supplies ever reported was in 2022. Paralysis of the international multilateral system has contributed to this trend.
Source: The New Humanitarian
Global water shortages are looming; what can be done?
22/3/2024: World Water Day will shine a spotlight on the global water crisis, which is being driven by a combination of factors, from climate change to leaky pipes. Here are seven things countries and individuals can do to stem water shortfalls.
Source: UN Environment Programme
States submit arguments to world’s highest court on climate obligations
22/3/2024: The deadline has closed for State written submissions to the International Court of Justice which will deliver an advisory opinion on the international legal obligations countries bear in safeguarding people from the impacts of climate change. All Pacific Island nations have made strong submissions to the Court in a strong show of unity.
Source: Greenpeace
Workload of UN climate body not matched by funding
21/3/2024: The chief of the UN climate agency has made an urgent plea to plug the body’s funding gap with government donations. The UNFCCC has estimated that it needs around $165 million in the 2024-2025 period, of which only half has been promised.
Source: Climate Home News
Vaccine shortage paves way for return of cholera
21/3/2024: With 23 countries reporting active outbreaks in 2024 and with vaccine stocks exhausted, cholera has returned with a vengeance. While more than 1 billion lives are at risk from cholera, pharmaceutical companies are not serving the cholera vaccine market due to its low profitability.
Source: The Guardian
African Development Bank food initiative will transform agriculture but for whom?
20/3/2024: The African Development Bank’s ambitious $61 billion Dakar II initiative aims to industrialise the continent’s food systems. The General Coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa is worried about consolidating land for industrial agriculture, potentially displacing millions of smallholder farmers.
Source: African Arguments