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Showing posts with label Executive Director. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Executive Director. Show all posts

Thursday, November 19, 2015

SOTU urges Malawi government to ratify RACCNNR




The Executive Director, State of the Union (SOTU), Edward Chileka Banda has called on government of Malawi to ratify the Revised African Union Convention on Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (RACCNNR), NaijaAgroNet reports.

He made this call at SOTU programme in Malawi in collaboration with community leaders, local government officials, and students over the weekend petitioned President Peter Mutharika and his government to address issues of Climate change.

SOTU’s petition which was on conservation of natural resources; climate change; disaster management and preparedness  was presented to Mutharika through the office of the Chikwawa District Commissioner, Bester Mandele, who promised to deliver the petition to central government.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that prior to the petition, the CSOs held Stakeholders Conference under the theme; "Fight Climate Change, avoid Natural Disasters, Safeguard the Future". Consequently it was observed that environmental degradation is worsened due to poor land management policies, over population and lack of alternative energy sources.

Banda said there is need also for government to create evacuation Centers in floods prone areas to avoid disrupting school classes during disasters. In the petition, NaijaAgroNet learnt they have also asked President Mutharika to depoliticize management and conservation of natural resources such as forest reserves. During the conference, Paramount Chief Lundu commended the youths for the initiative of engaging people directly affected by floods in the Lower Shire.

Lundu said the community participation and empowerment would be key in addressing environmental challenges. Eye for Development (EFD) organised the event under SOTU Platform which are championing the AU charter on nature and natural resources.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE
 
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Saturday, September 12, 2015

ANEEJ accuses NNPC, Swiss partners of shortchanging Nigeria on crude swap deal

NaijaAgroNet:

The Executive Director, Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Rev. David Ugolor, has revealed that the interim crude swap between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and two Swiss partners were carried out at prices lower than the market rates, NaijaAgroNet  reports.

ANEEJ, a Non-Governmental Organisation working on oil and gas sector criticized the interim crude swap contract entered into with four companies by NNPC expected to last from October to December 2015, saying the process of engaging the companies falls short of the Provisions of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act 2007.

Reports say two of the agreements are with NNPC Joint-Venture companies — one with Swiss trader Vitol called Calson and the other with commodities trader, Trafigura called Napoil. The other two are with non-incorporated Joint Ventures between oil major BP and Nigermed Limited and NNPC’s trading arm Duke Oil Company with Sahara Group, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

"We are further alarmed that  the  same Geneva companies Trafigura and Vitol  reported in the Bern Declaration Report of 2013 to have outclassed  their competitors in  opaque partnerships with the NNPC are the same companies that have been contracted by the NNPC for further oil swaps.

"We observe that the interim crude swap agreement is in sharp contrast with the agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari determination to rid the nation's Oil and Gas industry and indeed all sectors of corruption responsible for the hemorrhaging of the nation into frightening poverty," the ANEEJ helmsman said.

In the press release, NaijaAgroNet  gathered, the NNPC had stated that only 16 firms would be engaged to serve as off-takers‎ for the 2015/2016 crude oil term contract‎ from the current 43.

According to the NNPC, the decision to prune the number of off-takers was borne out of the need to instill transparency and probity in the award of the annual Crude Oil Term Contract, but ANEEJ said it "wants the NNPC to take steps to end oil swaps in the country. Pruning them to 16 is a welcome development, but we want an end to oil swaps in Nigeria because it is the hot bed for oil theft and bleeding of the economy.

"The best measures to optimize the marketing of Nigeria’s crude oil and secure new market potentials is not to embark on oil swap deals but to ensure local refining of the crude and market the refined products both locally and internationally. We are happy that our refineries are working again, but they, including the new licensees  need to work optimally to meet both domestic  and international market needs," Ugolor stated.

Cyriacus Nnaji with correspondent report/GEE

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Pix: David Ugolor,

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Liberia to analyze food, nutrition security using Cadre Harmonise ‘e’



The Executive Director, food security and nutrition unit, Ministry of Agriculture, Liberia, Deroe A. Weeks, said Cadre Harmonise ‘e’ is meant to analyze food and nutrition security, NaijaAgroNet reports.

She said this recently at a week-long workshop in Monrovia, adding that the national workshop was intended to analyze food and nutrition security using the Cadre Harmonise ‘e’ as a regional tool even as Liberia has joined 14 other countries in the Sahel and West Africa to work towards the adoption of the tool to tackle food and nutrition insecurity.

According to Weeks, the tool will help Liberia in terms of data collection and the documentation of the country's food and nutrition security and insecurity situations.
She explained that Liberia does not have hands-on data in terms of reporting food and nutrition insecurity and that the application of the regional tool will only enable the country be on track and collect data that will not be unique to other regional countries that are already using the Cadre Harmonise ‘e’ tool.

ALL AFRICA.COM reports that the Cadre Harmonise implementation process in the Sahel and West Africa has been fully underway and creates the country's ownership and occupies a strategic position among the various regional tools and will be used in the CILSS-ECOWAS-UEMOA region as a trigger tool of regional food reserve.

Dr. Charles McClain who represented the Agriculture Minister,  ITRealms gathered, thanked the participants and said as lead institution, the MoA is interested in getting more analytical data as the process moves on.
Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE
 
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 Pix: Deroe A. Weeks,

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

G-Soko platform to connect farmers for grains


NaijaAgroNet:
G-Soko, a platform to connect farmers to grain buyers was launched recently in Nairobi, Kenya, NaijaAgroNetreports.

The platform, invented by a Kenyan-based Information Technology(IT) company, Virtual City in collaboration with the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) and the Food Trade Eastern and Southern Africa Organization, is an online trading platform which would enable Smallholder farmers in the East Africa to sell their produce at favourable prices.

The Secretary General, the East African Community, Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera, commended EAGC for partnering with the Secretariat to implement the EAC Food Security Action Plan, which is the community’s strategy to achieve food security in the region.

The Executive Director of EAGC, Mr. Gerald Masila, at the event said, G-Soko was part of a five-year trade promotion programme in the region, adding that linking rural food production zones in East Africa to urban consumption centres demands a well-functioning regional market and system whereby farmers in the region will be able to access credit while waiting for prices to increase through pledging the electronic warehouse receipt with the banks and agro-dealers.

The farmers will also benefit from reduced post-harvest losses through access to professional storage, cleaning, drying and will benefit from improved prices discovery since many of them rely on farm-gate prices that deliver cash at lower prices.As for Millers, G-Soko system guarantees availability of quality stocks; standardized and proven grading thus reducing need to carry out sampling to check quality.

The G-Soko, NaijaAgroNet learnt, is now operational in two of the EAC Partner States; Uganda and Kenya, and arrangements are underway to extend the system to Tanzania and Rwanda before the Grains Farmers Summit scheduled to take place in Rwanda in early October, 2015.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE with addition sourcefrom East African Community Secretariat (EAC)
 
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Pix: The Executive Director of EAGC, Mr. Gerald Masila,

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Cousin wants increase support for smallholder farmers



NaijaAgroNet

 
 The Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme,Mrs Ertharin Cousin, has decried the impact of climate change and called for increased incentive for smallholder farmers to scale up yields, reports NaijaAgroNet.


Cousin, a former supermarket executive and diplomat, in an interview monitored by NaijaAgroNet,said the damage caused by climate change, coupled with a lack of development both in agricultural and economics perpetually keep small-scale farmers on the edge.

She noted for instance that in woefully underdeveloped nations like four-year-old South Sudan, conflict feeds into that downward spiral.

"The global community is well aware that climate change is impacting sub-Saharan Africa. Erratic rains have become more of a reality for across the entire continent... The vulnerable people around the world need a strong global response to address the issues of climate change to ensure that we can minimize the impacts in the future. But today, what we must do is implement disaster risk mitigation strategies that will support vulnerable populations…” she said.

70 per cent of the people who are food insecure in the world today, she said, live in rural areas, noting that if this is not addressed the challenges of unproductive agriculture, then, the issue of food security or the issue of hunger cannot be overcome.

“So we must increase the ability of smallholder farmers to scale up their agricultural yields and provide markets for them to sell those yields to ensure that we can create sustainable and durable agricultural value chains that support the food security of families, as well as the economic viability of those families. That is the only way that we are going to make progress," Cousin said.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

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