Realizing Africa's Potential, Integrity Indicators, Climate Conference and the Latin America Network

Hello everyone and welcome to this roundup of Africa-themed progress initiatives, articles and reports. Among this week’s highlights, we found:

• This Call for Contributions: African Integrity Indicators by Global Integrity  which is embarking on a partnership with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to prepare the African Integrity Indicators (AII) 2013-2014. The project assesses key social, economic, political and anti-corruption mechanisms at the national level in all African countries. 

• Special Report on Africa: Realizing Africa’s Potential by This is Africa, The Skoll World Forum and the Rockefeller Foundation. This series aims to find what are going to be the game-changing innovations in the African agricultural sector and how the financing of this sector can be unlocked. Experts from governments, NGOs and the international organizations gives us some answers to these questions. Among the featured articles, there is Uniting Africa to Face Climate Change by Richard Wilcox of the African Union and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Finance Minister.

• The Africa Climate Conference 2013 organized under the auspices of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the African Climate Policy Center (ACPC), will bring together decision-makers and climate researchers, scientists and practitioners from Africa and around the world will happen at Arusha, Tanzania from the 15^th to the 18^th of October of this year. The expected outcome from the Conference is a set of concrete research proposals to address the critical gaps in our knowledge of the African climate system.

• Join Wikiprogress America Latina  which was spotlighted this week on Wikiprogress. In preparation for the 5^th OECD World forum, Wikiprogress America Latina will start a series of discussions around Well-being, Quality of Life, Progress and its relationship with the design and implementation of public policy. Watch this space for updates and further information about the dates and themes so that you can share your experiences and perspectives with us. Do not miss the latest developments on well-being and happiness in Latin America, which are due to be highlighted in this blog and here.

We hope you enjoyed this review. Stay tuned the same time next week for another roundup of the week that was.

Yours in progress,

The Wikiprogress Team

Climate Change Knowledge Portal de la Banque Mondiale

Développé par la  Banque Mondiale, le Climate Change Knowledge Portal de la Banque Mondiale constitue une plateforme de renforcement de capacités et de production de connaissances, basée sur le Web. Cette initiative de la Banque Mondiale procure aux spécialistes du développement un moyen d’explorer, d’évaluer, de synthétiser et d’approfondir leurs connaissances sur les vulnérabilités et risques reliés aux changements climatiques, et cela à  plusieurs niveaux.

La plateforme fournit des bases données sur l’environnement, les risques liés aux catastrophes et les facteurs socio-économiques, ainsi que des documents de synthèse comme le Climate Adaptation Country Profiles, facilement maniable et qui permettent d’obtenir les indices liés aux changements climatiques pour un État spécifique.

Le portail permettra de :

• Découvrir davantage sur les enjeux climatiques
• Augmenter la connaissance sur les actions liées aux changements climatiques
• Cartographier, télécharger et utiliser des données 

Pour explorer cette plateforme et télécharger des données, cliquez ici 

Ousmane Aly DIALLO

Coordonnateur Wikiprogress Africa

Putting Green Growth at the Heart of Development

Jan Corfee-Morlot, Senior Policy Analyst and Environment and Development Team Leader, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, shares her insights on the OECD's recent publication "Putting Green Growth at the Heart ofDevelopment. This post is part of Wikiprogress's focus on Environment.

The rapid pace of development in many developing countries raises the stakes for investments in development, but also begs reflection on the patterns or types of growth that are appropriate for a particular country context. Putting Green Growth at the Heart of Development is a new OECD publication. It explains why green growth is vital to secure a more sustainable future for developing countries and outlines how national and international action can help achieve this.

Green growth does not replace sustainable development, but is a key means to achieving it. Developing economies are highly dependent on natural resources and also highly vulnerable to resource scarcity and environmental risk. By integrating the value of natural assets into the growth model, green growth policies can deliver a range of developmental and environmental benefits. If policies are designed to respond to the needs of the poorest, green growth also can contribute to poverty reduction and social equity.

Based on in-depth consultations and engagement with a range of developing countries, this book brings to light 74 policies and measures from 37 countries as well as 5 regional initiatives that target green growth. Examples range from Cambodia to Ethiopia’s efforts to integrate green growth in national development plans, to China and Cameroon’s use of taxation policies to sustain the use of natural resources, or Indonesia and Ghana’s efforts to  boost government resources for priority issues and improve the incentives for clean energy investment through reform of fossil fuel subsidies. The large number of examples demonstrate growing interest and experience in developing countries with green growth policies. 

The report responds to many of the concerns and questions we often hear about green growth, for instance:  How do we manage the costs of implementing green growth? How do we make green growth and trade work together?

I’m sure that choosing a greener pathway for economic growth will generate up-front costs for some developing economies in the short term, whether to build better infrastructure or to put in place a system to limit over-harvesting of forests or fisheries. Balancing difficult short-term trade-offs with longer-term benefits will be challenging as countries make choices to deliver a more stable and sustainable future. Despite these challenges, the many examples described in the report present a clear and hopeful message: green growth can generate both wealth and well-being for citizens of current and future generations.

Developing countries will need leadership to integrate environmental concerns into development plans and to take bold actions to reform policies. It will be important to secure and publicise some immediate gains, but also to educate and inform people about the risks of non-green development pathways and the need to manage these. Lasting institutional reforms will need to build engagement, be step-wise and emphasise the need to learn and adjust to achieve green growth over time.

Beyond the national policy agenda, international cooperation can provide essential support to developing countries in managing a transition to green growth. Financing green infrastructure, strengthening access to international markets, boosting trade in green products and services, and promoting technological transfer and cooperation are key.

Highlighting both the opportunities and challenges, the OECD Secretary General Gurría said: “Putting green growth at the heart of the development agenda requires real political leadership to instil change at international, national and local levels. Our report shows that green growth can offer new opportunities for developing countries. We are looking forward to working with governments and the development co-operation community to reap the benefits of a greener growth path for the well-being of the people in our partner countries.”

Green growth can help countries to benefit from greater efficiency and productivity in natural resource use, and from innovation and new markets. More importantly, if we do not green our act today, the development achieved so far could be significantly eroded and future growth potential seriously compromised. Green growth is not an option – it is a must-do for delivering sustainable development and global security for all.

For more information on OECD work on green growth and development, see here:

www.oecd.org/DAC/greengrowth 

For more information on Wikiprogress's work on environment, see here:http://wikiprogress.org/index.php/Category:Environment

Jan Corfee-Morlot, 
Senior Policy Analyst and Environment and Development Team Leader, 
OECD Development Co-operation Directorate

Environment Week in Review

Hello everyone and welcome to this Environment-themed Week in Review. Highlights include World Environment Day and UNEP’s report, Reducing Food Loss and Waste, that was released during the Event, the 2013 State of Food and Agricuture by the FAO, UN’s report on Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk and Wikichild’s upcoming online discussion on how to measure child well-being (from June 19th to July 2^nd).

• World Environment Day was celebrated on June 5th throughout the world. The theme for this year’s WED celebrations is Think.Eat.Save, an anti-food waste and food loss campaign that encourages you to reduce your footprint. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.

• UNEP’s working paper, Reducing Food Loss and Waste, was released during the event and echoes the same dire reports that the FAO. It states that more than half of the food lost and wasted in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia occurs close to the fork-at the consumption stage. By contrast, in developing countries, about two-thirds of the food lost and wasted occurs close to the farm-after harvest and storage.

• FAO released its flagship report, The State of Food and Agriculture 2013: Food Systems for Better Nutrition, which addresses the need to improve food systems in order to address malnutrition in the world. The report calls for policymakers to address malnutrition through changes in food systems, public health and education, as well as improvements in supply chains and agricultural productivity. It also provides an overview of the linkages between agriculture, quality food, health and the economy, emphasizing that agriculture and the entire food system can contribute much more to the eradication of malnutrition.

• The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) is a biennial global assessment of disaster risk reduction and comprehensive review and analysis of the natural hazards that are affecting humanity. The economic and social costs of these disasters were highlighted in the final report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons for the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

• This month (from June 19th to July 2nd), Wikichild will be hosting an online discussion on how child well-being should be measured in view of future development frameworks, in partnership with HBSC and the World Health Organization. We look forward to reading your comment on this interesting and primordial theme. Join the conversation on Twitter by following #childwellbeing for updates.

We hope to see you next week for more environment-related articles. Stay tuned this month for the Global Wind Day and World Ocean’s Day.

Follow us on Twitter (@wp_africa) and on Facebook (here).

Ousmane Aly DIALLO

Wikiprogress Africa Coordinator