COP28 targets triple renewables by 2030 - NaijaAgroNet

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Communiqué from G7 Ministers’ Meeting on Energy, Climate and Environment calls on IRENA to track the group’s collective contribution to COP28’s global target to triple renewables by 2030

The G7 leaders tasked the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to track and monitor the group’s collective contribution toward the global renewable tripling target by 2030. The target was established by the UAE Consensus last November at COP28, aligning global climate ambitions with IRENA’s 1.5°C pathway, mapped out by the Agency’s World Energy Transitions Outlook.

W Initiative plans for Health Month, targets 2m women - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

The W Initiative, a flagship women empowerment programme from Access Bank Plc, has unveiled plans for its 2019 W Health Month aimed at improving community awareness on health issues that affect women and their families by bridging knowledge gap, providing access to health checks and encouraging healthy lifestyle habits, NaijaAgroNet.

Running all through the month of October, NaijaAgroNet gathered the W Health Month will focus on key areas such as infertility, endometriosis, vesicovaginal fistula (VVF), cancer, maternal and neo-natal mortality.

The Coordinator ‘W’ initiative, Access Bank Plc, Ayona Trimnell, said: “Globally, the month of October is dedicated to raising awareness for Breast Cancer, a major health issue affecting mainly women. However, as an institution with focus on women, we are expanding the scope to shine the spotlight on 5 salient health issues affecting women and their families. The 2017 African Research and Population Centers, estimated 40,000 maternal deaths in Nigeria, making the country the second largest contributor to maternal mortality worldwide. There is need for us to change the story one woman at a time and we at Access Bank have been moving the needle in our own way through our flagship product, the Maternal Health Service Support (MHSS).

Activities planned during the period include free health screening, health talk by specialists, fitness classes, fund raising to support these causes etc. The Health Month will wrap up with an advocacy walk tagged ‘Walk for Women’s Health’ on Saturday 26 October 2019,” he said.

Established in 2014, the W Initiative is home to everything Access Bank has to offer women. This includes both financial and lifestyle needs. Under the Initiative, participating women and their families have access to a wide range of privileges including access to credit facilities to meet business and healthcare needs, the ‘W’ community which provides insights on family matters, health, career, lifestyle and finance. This is in addition to special offerings for the home such as discounts and freebies on health, beauty and fitness.

Health screenings will hold every Tuesday at October designed partner locations across the country.

Isaac Oyimah/Editor

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Pix: L-R: Njideka Esomeju, Regional Sales Director, Lagos 1, Access bank Plc; Aituaje Iruobe (aka Waje ) Music Artist; Ayona Trimnell, Coordinator,  ‘W’ Initiative, Access Bank Plc; and Ada Udechukwu, Head, Women Banking, Access Bank plc at a meet-and-greet event to launch the Women's Health Month this October 2019 in Lagos recently.

General Motors targets autonomous future vehicles

NaijaAgroNet:

The General Motors (GM) is targeting to launch the autonomous future vehicles, come Monday, November 30, 2017, in San Francisco, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) General Motors, Mary Barra made this disclosure while reviewing the automaker’s third-quarter earnings.

Although she did not provide details, according to agency reports, quoted Barra as saying GM would launch a mix of at least 20 new all-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles globally by 2023, including two in the next 18 months.

“We are committed to an all-electric future,” Barra said during the third-quarter conference call, stressing that GM is “confident” it can make the vehicles profitable.

According to the reports, GM shares have surged about 30 per cent this year to record highs since the company began trading shares at $33 a share in November 2010.

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Dangote rice targets 1m tonnes in 2018, launches youth graduates farm project @Kogi

NaijaAgroNet:

A multi-million Naira Youth Farming Initiative that will engage teeming unemployed Nigerian graduates in rice farming has been launched by the Dangote Rice Limited in Kogi State, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This is coming as the company says its preparing to hit the market with One million metric tons of Dangote rice in 2018.

A press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet by Francis Awowole-Browne, informed that the Dangote Youth Rice Farm project, mainly an out-grower scheme for youths only was flagged off at the Lower Niger River Basin Authority, Kampe, Ejiba in Yagba West local government area of the state where youth have embarked on rice cultivation over 100 hectares of land.

He quoted Group Executive Director at Dangote, Mr. Devakumar Edwin, as saying that the rice farm project, was preceded by a special training for the youth farmers on the dynamics of the rice farming, will see the youths cultivating the rice paddy on a 100 hectares of land, which will then be bought over by the company for processing.

Under the scheme, he explained that the Dangote Rice Company would provide the seedling, anti-pest-chemicals, and fertilizers while the Basing Authority provided the land for the young farmers.

Mr. Edwin explained that the project is a new dimension to the efforts by the pan-African conglomerate, the Dangote Group, at ensuring food security and creating job opportunities in Nigeria especially for the youths saying this Initiative is in line with the vision and commitment of Dangote Industries Limited to create a new generation of agri-preneur that will revolutionize the Nigerian agricultural sector.

“We believe skill, knowledge, enabling environment, collaboration and linkages along the value chain are driving forces for economic empowerment and social development in line with the Federal Government policies. This project will address the skills gap in local rice production among unemployed youths by providing technical, organisational and financial requirements.”

He said it would also enhance domestic rice production to cover the large gap between demand and domestic production and to increase self-sufficiency of Nigeria and substitute imported rice by quality Nigerian rice brands.

Mr. Edwin disclosed that most modern rice mills in Nigeria presently operate at not more than 20% capacity utilization due mainly to lack of good quality paddy and that Dangote Rice aimed to change this situation developing and adapting out-grower schemes. According to him, the Dangote Rice Company plans to set up a 150,000 metric tons integrated rice mill and sale one million mt of parboiled rice by 2018.

The Dangote Group boss stated that the decision of the management to start the project was driven by two factors, one of which is the need for youth employment through empowerment to go into agriculture. “The youths are more vulnerable to crimes and other social vices when they have nothing to engage them and this in turn affect the nation negatively.

“The second factor is the need to strengthen the on-going efforts at producing rice for self-sufficiency so that we can save foreign exchange. By the time we will be doing one million metric tons of rice next year, no less than three million jobs would been created along the value chain.”

Mr. Edwin said the Kogi pilot project will cover four season of two years and will be launched in four other states soon.

In his own remark, the Managing Director of Dangote Rice, Mr. Robert Coleman urged the youth farmers to concentrate on the project and pay attention to details so that they would come out with good paddy yield.

He congratulated the farmers for the decision to partner with Dangote Rice noting that they have a solid source of livelihood for themselves and members of their families if they give their all for the success of the scheme.

The Coordinator of the youth farmers, Umar Etudaye thanked the management of Dangote Rice for believing in them and engaging them for the project. He promised that they would deliver on the mandate given to them on the project.

He stated that the scheme is a practical step towards nation building because it’s the youths, who constitute 40 per cent of the population, would build the nation and only the youths that are empowered and gainfully employed could do that.

Ogo Nebenanya/GEE

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Feed Africa focuses on 4 goals, targets 2025

NaijaAgroNet:

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has disclosed that the Feed Africa initiative will drive transformation of African Agriculture into a globally competitive, focuses on four goals to be delivered by 2025, reports NaijaAgroNet.

These four goals, NaijaAgroNet gathered include to end extreme poverty, eliminate hunger and malnutrition, make Africa a net exporter of agricultural commodities and attempt to move to the top of key agricultural value chains.

AfDB also revealed that these four goals have appendage of aspirations comprising that for the continent to end extreme poverty, there must be corresponding contribution towards alleviating poverty though job creation and providing sustainable livelihoods, while targeting to lift some 130 million out f extreme poverty by 2025.

The second goal of Feed Africa, NaijaAgroNet reports, centres on eliminating hunger and malnutrition tend to bring forth food security for all Africans that are ‘undernourished’ even as the goal targets zero hunger and malnutrition before the end of next nine years.

On the third goal, AfDB informed that making Africa a net exporter of agricultural commodities will be ambitiously matched by eliminating large scale imports of commodities that could be produced in Africa, and selectively begin to export, such that Africa’s target will be to net trade balance in the billions of dollars.

Whereas the fourth goal, NaijaAgroNet reports is to move the continent to the top of key agricultural value chains, by becoming Number 1 in either processing or the overall value chain, by market share and by value addition, thereby positioning Africa’s share of the market value for processed commodities to about 40 per cent, for instance with cocoa grinding.

In addition, NaijaAgroNet learnt that Feed Africa is to further turn agriculture into inclusive and business-oriented sector that creates wealth, generates gainful employment, and improves quality of life.

Thus, Feed Africa echoes the commitments made under the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) as articulated in the Maputo (2003) and the Malabo (2014) Declarations.

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