In significant strides towards addressing the alarming rate of biodiversity loss in Southern Africa, representatives from SADC Member States, government officials from the environment and agriculture sectors, development partners, the private sector as well as youth representatives validated the SADC Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (SBSAP). The two-and-a-half-day validation meeting coordinated by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) brought together more than 80 participants in Cape Town, plus more than 20 who connected virtually from 8 to 10 April 2024.

In Southern Africa the increasing threats to biodiversity jeopardizes the efforts to attain the sustainable development goals as outlined in the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) of 2020-2030, the African Union Agenda 2063, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The collaborative effort between FAO and SADC, through funding from the European Union (EU), is an effort towards the region’s renewed commitment to sustainable growth and resilience-building among SADC Member States and their citizens. The validated SADC RBSAP calls for investment in combating biodiversity and ecosystem losses, focusing on four key components, each critical in achieving the region’s biodiversity goals.

These components are the four biodiversity pillars, which are 1) reducing threats to biodiversity, 2) sustainable use and benefit sharing, 3) tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming (capacity building), and 4) resource mobilization. These pillars are elaborated into priority areas which include but not limited to sustainable land management, sustainable agriculture, climate change and alien invasive species.

The 10-year (2025-2035), Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan will serve as the foundation for more in-depth policies that will be operationalized to increase the effectiveness and efficiency in the implementation of the African Union’s Biodiversity strategy and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

In her welcome remarks, the FAO – ACP MEAs 3 Global Coordinator, KimAnh Tempelman, said that FAO, through the EU-funded ACP MEAs 3 programme, is grateful for having been given the opportunity to support the SADC BSAP revision process technically and financially. And that, “the SADC BSAP will provide guidance to SADC Member States in the revisions or drafting of their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and facilitate the implementation of the African regional and global biodiversity agendas.”

Patrice Talla, FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa, acknowledged the significance of the strategy, stating, “This strategy will promote environmental sustainability across agricultural sectors by creating an enabling policy environment and integrating biodiversity and sound pesticide management.”

Sibongile Mavimbela, the SADC Senior Programmes Officer – Environment and Climate Unit, underscored the consultative nature of the strategy, stating, “This strategy is a product of exhaustive consultations, extensive co-creation and collaboration that took more than two years.”

She recognized the partnership with FAO and the invaluable funding by the European Union and inputs of member states, partners, and youth at the core of these discussions. “We extend our appreciation to our partners and experts present, whose technical expertise and financial support were instrumental in the drafting of this strategy,” said Sibongile Mavimbela.

Following its validation, the SBSAP will now be submitted to SADC Ministers responsible for Environment, Natural Resources,&Tourism for consideration and adoption.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of FAO Regional Office for Africa.

Ten years after the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigerian authorities have failed to put in place and sustain crucial measures to provide a secure learning environment for every child, Human Rights Watch said today.

Since 2014, according to Save the Children, more than 1,600 children have been abducted or kidnapped across northern Nigeria. In the northeast, the armed conflict between Boko Haram and Nigerian armed forces continues to take its toll and, in the northwest, criminal groups commonly called bandits are terrorizing communities. During February and March 2024 alone, bandits kidnapped over 200 children from their schools in Kaduna and Sokoto states.

“For many children across northern Nigeria, the pursuit of an education means facing the constant threat of abduction or kidnapping,” said Anietie Ewang, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Children should never face the harrowing dilemma of sacrificing their safety for education, but this untenable choice, which echoes the profound insecurity plaguing the country, is thrust upon them daily.”

On April 14, 2014, Boko Haram, an Islamist armed group, abducted 276 girls from their school in Chibok, a town in northeastern Borno state, sparking global outrage. Although some of the girls escaped, or were released or rescued, 96 remain in captivity according to UNICEF, and civil society groups continue to pressure the government to ensure they are rescued. Boko Haram, known for its opposition to education, has carried out other such abductions, including one of 110 girls from a school in Dapchi, a town in Yobe state, in 2018.

In addition to kidnappings by Boko Haram in the northeast, the ongoing banditry crisis in the northwest has in recent years made that area a hub for criminal kidnapping for ransom. The crisis emerged after years of conflict between herders and farmers, giving rise to the criminal groups, which have carried out widespread killings, looting, extortion, and kidnapping for ransom in mostly rural communities.

Between December 2020 and February 2021, a series of high-profile incidents, including the abduction of over 600 schoolchildren across Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger states, thrust the kidnapping issue into the spotlight.

In the aftermath of Chibok, the Nigerian government endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, an international political commitment to protect education from attack and schools from military use which turns them into targets. The government also adopted a Safe School Initiative for Nigeria with the support of the global community and Nigerian business leaders. The initiative aimed to raise funds with an initial US$10 million pledge to help make schools safer, including by moving them to safer areas and creating a safe school model for schools across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, the three states worst hit by the Boko Haram insurgency.

However, the multi-stakeholder initiative faced problems, and there has been a decline in momentum over the years with little or no progress made in fortifying schools, Human Rights Watch said. In 2021, Nigeria’s then-Senate president Ahmad Lawan, following an investigation into the utilization of the funds for the initiative, declared that it was designed to fail without a National Policy and Strategy for the Safe School Initiative and the leadership of the Federal Education Ministry. In the meantime, communities continue to suffer the brunt of bandit attacks and schoolchildren remain vulnerable prey.

A Chibok girl who was in Boko Haram captivity for over two years, and was released with 20 others, told Human Rights Watch that news of school kidnappings brings back memories of her ordeal. “Whenever I hear that more children have been kidnapped, I feel terrible, helpless,” she said. “We are still not safe … It brings back memories of what happened to me. I can never forget being snatched from my parents, my family for so long. I pray this is not the case for those that are kidnapped.” She is now a 28-year-old university student studying natural and environmental sciences.

Kemi Okenyodo, an expert in security and governance and the executive director of the Rule of Law and Empowerment Initiative in Abuja, told Human Rights Watch that the ongoing school kidnappings, resembling those in Chibok a decade ago, highlight a failure to learn from past experiences, as they are taking place without adequate security infrastructure or intervention from authorities to prevent dozens or hundreds of children being snatched away at once.

Amid the heightened threat of attacks on schools, many have been forced to shut down completely, with more than 20 million children out of school in Nigeria, according to UNESCO, among the highest number in any country in the world. According to UNICEF, 66 percent of out-of-school children in Nigeria are from the northeast and northwest, which are among the poorest regions in the country.

For girls especially, the challenges are double edged. They risk rape and other forms of sexual violence if kidnapped, and if kept out of school, they risk child marriage, which is a common practice in these regions.

In 2021, the government adopted the National Policy on Safety, Security and Violence Free Schools aimed at improving school security, strengthening the capabilities of security agents to respond to threats, and ensuring that education continues for children displaced by conflict and crisis, among other reasons.

The authorities committed to investing 144.8 billion naira (about $314.5 million at the time) over a certain period to finance this initiative. In 2023, they announced that 15 billion naira (about $24 million at the time) had been earmarked to pilot the initiative in 18 high-risk states and 48 schools. However, details of the implementation are sparse, and it remains unclear the extent to which this has been done.

Okenyodo told Human Rights Watch that the government needs to involve communities in designing and implementing initiatives to make schools safer to create a sense of ownership and reduce inefficiency and corruption.

“Now more than ever, the Nigerian authorities should step up efforts to make learning safe for children,” Ewang said. “They should work with communities to adopt rights-respecting measures and put in place adequate financing, systems, and structures to ensure quick, effective, and transparent implementation to ensure that children can learn without being exposed to grave harm.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Squatting on the sandy ground, a young girl is weaving grass stems into a roof. The tiny hut she is making is surrounded by tens of thousands of others like it, made hastily of sticks and leaves covered with tarps or plastic sacks.

This spontaneous settlement in Adré, a Chadian border town of 12,000 inhabitants, has become a makeshift home to over 100,000 Sudanese refugees. Almost 90% are women and children who crossed the border on foot, fleeing brutal violence that submerged their native Darfur soon after the conflict broke out in Sudan on April 15.

Kaltuma, a small woman with deep wrinkles and cloudy cataract eyes, had to summon all her strength to build her hut. She shares it with her two granddaughters, aged three and five. Kaltuma’s daughter took her two other children and left in search of daily work in the agricultural fields out of town. Every morning, Kaltuma tours Adré’s neighborhoods, knocking on doors and asking people for food. Whatever she collects on a given day, she uses it to prepare a meal for herself and her granddaughters.

The residents of Adré have welcomed refugees, but Chad is one of the poorest countries in the world, and resources are scarce. “The number of people who arrived here with nothing is more than tenfold the size of the local population. Imagine something like this happening in a European town,” says Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who visited Eastern Chad to raise awareness around the stark shortage of humanitarian funding for this crisis.

Following the sharp increase in the population, food prices skyrocketed, and essential services like water and healthcare, which were in short supply even before the influx of refugees, came under enormous stress.

Someya was pregnant when she fled her village in Western Darfur with her children. “They killed my father in the mosque after the evening prayer,” she says, rocking her baby in the shadow of a tarp stretched overhead. “When I heard what happened, I ran to the mosque. He died in my arms. My husband always away for work, he was like a father to my children.”

When Someya and the children arrived in Adré, having walked for hours, she collapsed on the ground and was sick for several days from fear and exhaustion. A month later, she gave birth to a baby girl under the tarps and shortly after had to look for work to feed her four children.

“I tried working at a construction site, but it was physically hard, and they wouldn’t let me breastfeed the baby,” Someya says. “Now, I do laundry in people’s houses. They don’t mind me coming with the baby.” She goes to work early in the morning and buys food for the day with her wages.

A henna artist, Someya says the family had a good life and enough food back in Darfur. The reality of the camp is different, and at one point, the new mother lost milk because she wasn’t eating enough.

While Someya is at work, her kids fetch water – a long, tedious task in a place that had known water scarcity long before its population exploded. A long line of jerrycans and plastic buckets stretches out at five in the morning. “I leave my jerrycan in line, then check on it every couple of hours so as not to miss my turn,” says Zuhal, Someya’s 17-year-old neighbor in the camp.

The routine of everyday survival offers an escape from memories about the horrors of the past and questions about the future. Back home in the Sudanese town of Al Geneina, Zuhal shared her time between school and helping her mother at their farm. Until she was forced to flee in search of safety. “We came here in the middle of the night without shoes. On the way, I saw people killed,” Zuhal says.

The teenager hopes to move with her uncle, who lives in Gedaref, in Eastern Sudan, and has been using Red Cross phone service to reach him, but her calls have not gone through.

Most women in the camp shrug their shoulders when asked what they hope for. As if hope was the most acute among all the deprivations they are suffering.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Someya says. “Life in the camp is tough, but I have nothing to return to. My house burnt down. I lost everything I owned. Even if I could return, I would have to start life from scratch. It is not easy.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

According to the most recent RMB/BER Business Confidence Index (BCI), business confidence in the Western Cape is higher than any other province and higher than South Africa’s business confidence level.

The BCI reported a 3-point uptick in confidence levels in Western Cape’s from 2023Q4 to 2024Q1, improving from 37 points to 40, out of a possible 100.

Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, Mireille Wenger announced that “When we combine the BCI with the fact that 4 out of 5 (78.9%) of all net jobs created over the 5 years were in this province, we get a good indication that our economic action plan, ‘Growth for Jobs’, which seeks to enable private-sector led growth to achieve a R1 trillion, jobs-rich, diverse, resilient and thriving economy, growing at between 4% and 6% by 2035 – is having an impact.”

“This is the third consecutive increase in business confidence in the province and the longest sustained increase in Western Cape business confidence since quarter two of 2018. It is also notable that the Western Cape business confidence far exceeds its provincial counterparts, Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal, who are at 23 and 18 points, respectively, for the same period,” Minister Wenger added.

“Make no mistake, we have a lot more work to do. But this tells us that the policies, plans and actions taken by the Western Cape Government to enable the private sector to do what it does best – grow and create jobs – are having a positive impact on businesses in the province,” she continued.

The Western Cape is showing resilience to national challenges, as seen in the divergence from the national trend and may be due to the strong tourism sector recovery, and spending in related sectors.

“The Western Cape Government is more determined than ever to attract and welcome business and investment to our province. We know that it’s only with the right policies, the right plans and decisive action toward a clear goal of economic growth, that leads to prosperity. We will continue working to create more jobs that improve the lives of the people of the Western Cape as a priority,” she concluded.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic Of South Africa: Western Cape Provincial Government.