The activists and artists at the event. courtesy: Oxfam |
'Yinka Awosanya
The activists and artists at the event. courtesy: Oxfam |
A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the African Youth & Women Empowerment Network (AYWEN) has advanced plans to host series of YouthPrenuer 2011 conference.
The conference slated to hold Abuja this December target supports for youths towards building skills and unlock their entrepreneurial talents.
A public statement to this effect made available to NaijaAgroNet also invited registration from the nation’s teeming youth who which to be empowered.
The programme, the organizers said, is a platform to educate, mentor and help youth realize their potentials in addition to discovering their natural entrepreneurial talents as well as making use of it to create jobs and succeed in business.
Registration, the organizers further hinted is free, and would close on December 15, this year, even as the two-phased conference have been scheduled to hold on December 20 and 21, 2011 at the Lagos room, Transcorp Hilton, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
They equally promised inspiring keynote speeches form recognized entrepreneurs and policy leaders.
Interested youths have been therefore advised to register at www.aywen.org. Requirement for participants also includes a 100-word abstract and biography of applicants.
The International Institute for Environmental and Development (IIED) has alleged risk for the signing away water rights for decades by African governments without considering the effects to the continent and common people.
They also alleged that though there are endless opportunities in the deal, it could cause great harm if local people are being excluded from decisions about the allocation of land and if there is no protection for the land right.
Researchers at IIED in a public statement made available to NaijaAgroNet, cautioned that the signing away water rights was done in a way that would harm the future prospects of Africans, with fishermen and pastoralists are the main professions to share greater part of the damage as they have much reliance on water.
Few African countries, they further said, are trying to curb the harm as investors in Mali and Sudan have unrestricted access to as much water as they need.
Lorenzo Cotula, who co-authored a study report of land acquisition said companies that acquire land for irrigating farming will want secured water rights but long-term contractual commitments can jeopardize water access for local farmers.
“This affects not only the people who have customarily used the land that is being leased, but also distant downstream users who can be hundreds of kilometers away and even across an international border,” Cotula said.
Recalling that the Ethiopian government already allocated a large portion of land for irrigation in the Gibe III dam, but the study revealed that it would lower the level of Kenya's Lake Turkana which half a million Kenyans depends on.
A principal researcher at IIED Jamie Skinner who also led the study said the global water crisis is a crisis of water management and not of water quality.
“Good water management in the face of climate change is only possible if it is clear who the water belongs to, who holds rights to its use and when allocations to all users are made in a transparent way,” he said.
Findings from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) revealed that many dam programmes in West Africa that have been resettled and or compensated people have been problematic.
The published research report made available to NaijaAgroNet, highlighted how future dam in the region could share benefit with local people including river users and communities who have been displaced as major dams had been criticized by NGOs over disasters it spell on communities which usually lead to people's displacement.
The report noted that benefits of dam should be shared over decades and not just a few years. The challenge according to the report is to ensure that displaced people are beneficiaries through the lifetime of the dam, as much as 50 to 80 years and not just less than 10 years when the project's main financial backers are still engaged.
Jamie Skinner stated in the report, that large dams have a bad name as a result of the too many serious environmental and social impacts the dams do bring along.
Skinner acknowledged that the main beneficiaries of dams are urban citizens and industries gain from the improved infrastructure over decades.
The impact of large dams as noted by Skinner would not stop large dams.
"... Large dams are here to stay and more are being planned..." He said countries are beginning to choose them as an adaptive measure for food security, rising energy prices and climate change.
For these reasons, Skimmer reaffirmed that building good dams is an essentiality where benefits are widely shared and there are minimum harmful impacts.
"Countries will need dams to manage these unpredictable flows, and to provide irrigation and hydro-electric power to address food and fuel insecurity," Skinner said.