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CCDA-14 calls for African climate agency ahead of COP31 and COP32

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CCDA-14 calls for African climate agency ahead of COP31 and COP32

The Fourteenth Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-14) concluded today in Addis Ababa with a comprehensive set of key messages urging the continent to move from climate participation to climate agency, and from pledges to implementation, as it prepares for COP31 in Antalya and an African-hosted COP32 in Addis Ababa in 2027.

Convened under the Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) Programme — a joint initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), in partnership with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) — the three-day conference brought together policymakers, negotiators, financial institutions, researchers, civil society, youth, women and the private sector under the theme “From Pledges to Implementation: The Belém–Antalya–Addis Roadmap.”

Closing the conference, ECA Deputy Executive Secretary Hanan Morsy said CCDA-14 called for a coherent African climate agenda anchored in equity, sustainable development, accountability and African ownership. She urged Africa to strengthen its climate agency by shaping global governance, mobilizing transformative finance, and advancing science, technology and innovation. The conference called for Africa’s road to COP31 and COP32 to prioritize predictable, adequate, accessible and non-debt-creating climate finance; stronger institutions; enhanced data and innovation capacities; and scaled investment in adaptation and early warning that benefits cities, local governments and vulnerable communities. It emphasized that climate action must drive economic transformation through regional integration, industrialization, critical-minerals management, circular and bioeconomy approaches, food security, peace and resilient urban development — underpinned by just, inclusive and gender-responsive transition pathways.

Earlier in the week, ECA Executive Secretary Claver Gatete said Africa’s climate story “should not be defined by vulnerability alone,” urging the continent to “press for climate justice and greater international support, while harnessing Africa’s assets to help shape the rules, investments and solutions driving global climate action.” AUC Commissioner Moses Vilakati said the conference “asks us to move beyond the question of what Africa should seek from COP31… to what Africa should propose to the world.”

AfDB’s James Kinyangi said “Africa is not merely a victim of climate change. We are a source of solutions,” while Afreximbank’s Olubunmi Obasanjo-Williams told delegates “vulnerability is not the full African story.” For his part, Mithika Mwenda of PACJA urged delegates to move “from declaration to delivery.”

Delegates were told Africa contributes less than 4 per cent of global emissions yet needs about $277 billion a year to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) through 2030, with current flows covering only around 11 per cent of that need.

The conference adopted a wide-ranging agenda covering climate finance, governance, science and innovation, just transitions, circular economy, adaptation, agriculture, and climate, peace and security.

On climate finance, delegates called on developed countries to honour obligations under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement to provide predictable, adequate and accessible climate finance. Financing must be structurally transformational, move beyond project-centric approaches, and strengthen domestic fiscal institutions and African-owned financing mechanisms. Adaptation was framed as an investment, not a cost, with returns embedded in national planning, budgets and multilateral development bank decisions.

On global climate governance, CCDA-14 said Africa needs a coherent position grounded in equity, development priorities and the right to development, safeguarding its policy space and natural-resource use. While the UNFCCC remains indispensable, African climate diplomacy must also engage international financial institutions, trade and technology regimes, and standard-setting processes.

On carbon pricing and Article 6, the conference said carbon pricing can support climate and development goals when tailored to national circumstances and backed by rigorous cost-benefit analysis and strong monitoring, reporting and verification. Africa should shift from capacity-building toward functional, high-integrity carbon markets that mobilize private capital and deliver tangible community benefits.

On science, innovation and data, delegates said Africa must move from climate data generation to integrated, decision-ready climate-risk intelligence linked to bankable investment and stronger finance accountability. Indigenous and local knowledge, and gender-responsive science, must be embedded, with stronger science-policy linkages to inform decision-making.

On early warning, CCDA-14 called for an integrated early-warning value chain connecting observation, forecasting, communication, anticipatory action, financing and response. The Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF) should be expanded to all countries in need, with resources ring-fenced for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services.

On just transitions and critical minerals, the conference said African agency is essential to ensure critical minerals and the energy transition deliver industrialization, energy security and inclusive growth. A just energy transition must deliver a just minerals transition, with mineral-producing countries capturing a fair share of value, technology, revenues and jobs through local processing and beneficiation.

On circular economy, delegates said the approach should be pursued as a competitiveness, development and transformation agenda, advancing resilience, green industrialization and job creation. National development and climate frameworks, including NDCs and NAPs, should systematically integrate circular economy approaches.

On adaptation and urban leadership, cities must be recognized as primary receiving systems for climate-related mobility and displacement, with secure land, housing and services treated as adaptation infrastructure. Climate mobility, housing and urban resilience should be integrated into NDCs and NAPs, with direct, predictable finance for cities and local governments.

On agriculture and food systems, the conference said agriculture should be redefined as a climate-resilient agrifood system and a central pillar of climate negotiations, with food security a non-negotiable outcome of climate action.

On climate, peace and security, delegates said climate change is a risk multiplier for peace, security and social cohesion. The African Union and Member States should finalize, adopt and operationalize the Common African Position on Climate, Peace and Security.

To carry the agenda forward, CCDA-14 established six working committees — on climate finance and carbon markets, agriculture and food systems, just transition and critical minerals, circular economy, and adaptation and climate change and development — each composed of a Chair, Alternate Chair, Secretary and six to ten technical experts representing Africa’s diverse regions.

Coordinated by the ClimDev-Africa Secretariat, the committees will integrate outcomes from COP31, including the Belém–Antalya–Addis Roadmap, and prepare a consolidated report for CCDA-XV, assessing the state of climate finance delivery in Africa and recommending priority actions on the road to COP32, which Ethiopia will host in Addis Ababa in November 2027.

The Hydra effect in the production process

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The Hydra effect in the production process

In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a terrifying creature with multiple heads. The most disturbing feature of the beast was not simply its strength, but its ability to regenerate itself. When one head was cut off, two more grew in its place. The metaphor has become increasingly relevant to modern production processes. In manufacturing, supply chains and organisational operations, managers often discover that solving one operational problem can unexpectedly generate several new ones. This phenomenon may be described as the Hydra Effect which is an intervention intended to eliminate a bottleneck, or inefficiency produces unintended consequences that multiply complexity elsewhere in the system.

The Hydra Effect matters because modern production systems are rarely simple. A factory is not merely a collection of machines performing independent tasks. It is an interconnected system involving labour, technology, suppliers, inventory, quality control, transportation and customer demand. Improving one part of this system without understanding its relationship with the others can create new constraints. As Goldratt and Cox in their 2014 published book entitled “The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement“ famously argued in their Theory of Constraints, every system contains limiting factors that determine overall performance. Removing one constraint does not necessarily solve the wider problem; it may simply expose another.

Consider a manufacturer experiencing delays because its assembly department cannot process enough components. Management invests in faster machinery, automation and additional labour. Initially, productivity appears to improve. Output from the assembly line increases dramatically. However, the next department may now be unable to cope with the additional volume. Inventory begins accumulating between production stages, warehouse space becomes limited, quality inspectors face greater workloads and delivery schedules become increasingly difficult to manage. The original bottleneck has disappeared, but several new operational problems have emerged.

This is the Hydra Effect in action. The mistake lies in assuming that local efficiency automatically creates system-wide efficiency. The obsession with productivity metrics can make this problem worse. Managers are often rewarded for improving measurable performance indicators such as units produced per hour, machine utilisation or labour productivity. Yet an increase in one metric may conceal a deterioration elsewhere. A machine operating at maximum capacity, for example, may produce more inventory than downstream processes require. Excess inventory ties up capital, increases storage costs and creates a greater risk of waste or obsolescence.

Lean production emerged partly as a response to this type of inefficiency.  However, even well-intentioned efficiency programmes can themselves produce a Hydra Effect. Cost-cutting initiatives, for example, frequently appear attractive in the short term. A company may reduce its supplier base to obtain lower prices through larger contracts. The immediate result is lower procurement expenditure and a simplified purchasing process. Yet dependence on fewer suppliers may increase vulnerability to disruption. If a major supplier experiences a strike, financial failure or transportation delay, the entire production process may be affected.

The global supply-chain disruptions of recent years have demonstrated the dangers of excessive efficiency. For decades, many organisations adopted just-in-time production systems designed to minimise inventory and reduce waste. These systems can be highly effective when supply networks are stable. However, when unexpected disruptions occur, organisations with minimal inventory buffers may struggle to continue production. A solution to the problem of excessive stock can therefore create a new problem: reduced resilience.

This does not mean that efficiency is undesirable. Rather, it demonstrates that efficiency must be balanced against resilience. Christopher and Peck in 2004 published book entitled “Building the resilient supply chain” argue that supply chains must be designed with vulnerability and risk in mind. In other words, a production system should not be judged solely by how efficiently it operates under normal conditions, but also by how effectively it responds when conditions change.

Technology provides another important example. Digital automation, artificial intelligence and advanced production software are frequently presented as solutions to human error and operational inefficiency. Automation can undoubtedly improve consistency, speed and productivity. Nevertheless, introducing new technology can create additional layers of complexity. Employees require training, systems must be maintained, cybersecurity risks increase and organisations may become dependent on specialised software providers.

Furthermore, automation can shift rather than eliminate human involvement. A company may reduce the number of workers performing repetitive tasks, but it may simultaneously require more engineers, data analysts and technical specialists. The nature of the problem changes. Instead of managing routine labour, the organisation must manage technical expertise, software failures and digital infrastructure. Cutting off one head creates another.

The Hydra Effect also raises important questions about managerial decision-making. Too often, organisations respond to visible symptoms rather than underlying causes. When delivery performance deteriorates, management may demand overtime. When quality declines, additional inspection may be introduced. When employees become overwhelmed, more reporting systems may be implemented. Each response may temporarily address the immediate problem, but it can also add new pressures to the organisation.

Systems thinking offers a more sustainable alternative. A decision made in procurement can influence production. A production decision can influence inventory. Inventory decisions can influence customer service. These relationships mean that isolated solutions are often inadequate.

The practical challenge, therefore, is not simply to solve problems faster. It is to understand what the solution itself will do to the wider production system. Before investing in additional machinery, managers should ask whether downstream capacity can absorb the increased output. Before reducing inventory, they should examine supply-chain risk. Before automating a process, they should consider the skills, maintenance and security requirements that will follow.

This requires a shift in managerial culture. Organisations must become less interested in celebrating quick fixes and more willing to examine second- and third-order consequences. Short-term solutions can be politically attractive because their benefits are visible immediately, while their costs may emerge months later in another department. Yet transferring a problem is not the same as solving it.

Ultimately, the Hydra Effect should serve as a warning against simplistic approaches to production management. Modern organisations operate in systems characterised by interdependence, uncertainty and feedback. Removing a bottleneck, reducing a cost or automating a task may create genuine benefits, but these benefits should always be evaluated against possible consequences elsewhere.

The lesson from the Hydra is therefore surprisingly relevant to the factory floor. The challenge is not merely to cut off the head of the problem in front of us. It is to understand the entire organism. Production managers who adopt a systems perspective are more likely to identify hidden constraints, anticipate unintended consequences and design processes that are both efficient and resilient.

In an increasingly complex industrial environment, the best solution is rarely the fastest or most obvious one. Real operational improvement requires organisations to look beyond individual problems and recognise the connections between them. Otherwise, managers may proudly eliminate one production difficulty, only to discover that two more have appeared in its place.

AviAssist launches specialized drone risk assessment course in Africa

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AviAssist launches specialized drone risk assessment course in Africa

The AviAssist Foundation has launched a specialized risk assessment course designed to help drone operators, regulators, and aviation professionals navigate complex unmanned flight operations across Africa.

Developed at the request of one of the continent’s largest drone operators, the program teaches the internationally recognized Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA 2.5) framework established by the Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems (JARUS). The course addresses the rising demand for standardized safety procedures in advanced operations, including Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) missions, urban air mobility, and critical infrastructure inspections.

Africa’s commercial drone sector continues to expand rapidly across logistics, agriculture, and infrastructure monitoring, with civil aviation authorities in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa adopting SORA as the benchmark for compliance and safety. However, aviation experts note that the region still faces a shortage of certified professionals capable of performing comprehensive risk evaluations for complex operations.

Lead instructor and drone safety expert Tom Rehwinkel emphasized that the four-day practical course equips participants to identify operational hazards, design mitigation strategies, and secure regulatory authorizations while maintaining high safety standards.

The curriculum targets Civil Aviation Authority personnel, drone training leaders, and flight operations and compliance managers. Through case studies, practical group exercises, and formal examination, attendees learn to assess ground and air risks, evaluate concepts of operations (ConOps), and compile formal risk assessments.

AviAssist Director Tom Kok highlighted that delivering international best practices tailored to regional realities is vital as the continent shapes its aviation future alongside industry forums like Aviation Africa and the African Drone Forum.

The inaugural edition of the training will take place in Rwanda from November 26 to 29, 2026. Registration details and promotional rates are available through

Should the Press ‘Run Toward’ AI?

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Should the Press ‘Run Toward’ AI?

A new book argues that news organizations should enthusiastically adopt AI to improve their journalism. Critics aren’t so sure.

Since it was first published, in 2001, The Elements of Journalism, by Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach, has schooled fledgling reporters in their craft by advocating that journalists adhere to a series of core principles—including that journalism’s first obligation is to the truth; that it is, in essence, a discipline of verification; and that journalists must serve as a monitor of power. In Rosenstiel’s new book, The Next Journalism: How the Press Must Change to Serve Democracy, released last week by Crown, he argues that his intention is to deepen these principles, not to replace them. But his new recommendations tilt in a different direction. Rosenstiel, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, argues that journalism is “failing democracy” and should “become more focused on helping people live their lives than on merely getting their attention.”

To achieve this aim, he suggests we reframe our traditional understanding of newsgathering, such that professional journalists, the public, and “machines” all have “distinct, essential, and complementary—not competing—roles.” Notably, he writes that “journalism must run toward Artificial Intelligence, not away from it, to make journalism stronger.” As he explained to me last week: “We should be using AI in journalism to make our journalism better, not primarily to make it cheaper.” And, he acknowledged, “it will be a point of friction in the book.” 

But what exactly would it look like to “run toward” AI? One of his suggestions in The Next Journalism is that news organizations, with the help of AI systems, serve their audiences by assembling “the vast array of public data about community life into a new and easily usable Civic Internet.” In other words, instead of using datasets for one-off enterprise stories, journalists should work to combine multiple streams of information into a single, constantly updating hub—taking on the role of data wranglers, one might say—and then enable audiences to navigate that resource themselves, for instance with an AI chatbot. This, he argues, could help put newsrooms back at the center of their communities. The idea is about “extending the reach of human journalism using technology as a tool,” he told me. “I’m not advocating having AI write stories.”

Rosenstiel gives other use cases for AI systems: auditing reporting to ensure under-covered communities are well-represented; identifying false claims from politicians that could then be fact-checked; collecting and analyzing data about audience needs and preferences. “AI is going to happen. It’s the next digital revolution,” Rosenstiel told me. He acknowledges problems around hallucinations, bias, environmental concerns, and so on. Even so, he argued, models are getting better all the time. And: “If we say, ‘AI is bad, I don’t want to use it,’ it will happen to us.” Without serious journalists getting involved, he said, bad practitioners will move into the space, promising news without the professional ethics or standards of serious journalistic organizations. “That’s why we have to run at it, and run at it with the concept of: How do you make it better?”

Some news organizations are headed in that direction. The Washington Post (Ask the Post AI) and Financial Times (Ask FT) have made chatbots from their journalism, and Jim VandeHei, the cofounder and CEO of Axios, talked to Issie Lapowsky for a recent CJR story aboutAxios’s partnership with OpenAI and what he views as its potential to “save local news.” Many big publishers are cutting licensing deals with tech firms. 

But the idea of embracing AI is harder to swallow for others. In March, Emily Bell wrote for CJR about how a group of news organizations—some from opposite ends of the political spectrum, like The Guardian and Telegraph—have formed the Standards for Publisher Usage Rights, or SPUR, to advocate for guardrails around responsible AI use, among other things. It was encouraging to see an American company, the Associated Press, join SPUR in July, particularly in the absence of political will in the United States for a conversation about meaningful regulation (as in the European Union’s landmark AI Act). Meanwhile, where journalists feel their companies are not taking the troubling aspects of AI seriously enough, as Riddhi Setty reported for CJR in April, unionized employees are fighting for contracts that set terms for its use.

Newsroom opposition to hasty AI adoption comes amid high-profile inaccuracies and citation problems from large language models (LLMs)—which surely break Rosenstiel and Kovach’s rule about journalism’s first obligation being to the truth—as well as a litany of disputes with tech companies over copyright infringement. (These are helpfully collated in the Tow Center’s AI Deals and Disputes Tracker.) “I do not understand this idea that journalism should rush toward AI, particularly in the editorial process,” Courtney C. Radsch, the director of the Center for Media and Digital Governance at the Open Markets Institute, told me. She pointed out that “now you have information operations targeting LLMs” from state actors such as Russia, as Wired has reported, as well as “ideological biases embedded in the LLM,” the impacts of which are difficult to identify. “I mean, sure, do it in your admin functions,” Radsch said. “But the idea that we can use it in the creation and production of journalism, I think, is very problematic—because then what differentiates journalism from anyone else who uses an LLM to create content?”

Felix M. Simon, a research fellow in AI and digital news at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, found, in a report for Aspen Digital in March of last year, that there is now a premium on distinctive, human-made reporting that cannot easily be made or replicated by AI systems, such as original investigative reporting, nuanced analysis, and stories that come from long-term relationships with communities. Simon told me that some publishers are now thinking, “We have to provide something that is unique, that people cannot easily get elsewhere, and that people are willing to pay for.”  

Simon also looked at how European news organizations are approaching the implementation of AI systems, concluding that there is “incremental” adoption rather than “revolutionary transformation.” (The report grew out of a gathering of about eighty UK and European media leaders who discussed their companies’ approaches to AI.) Most news organizations have focused on efficiency, the report found, and “on automating routine tasks like transcription, translation, and headline creation.” Simon characterizes their attitude toward AI as “a mixture of caution and excitement, with the latter seemingly more pronounced at the senior leadership level.” 

Overall, Rosenstiel’s book contains interesting ideas about equipping journalists for the twenty-first century. He calls on news organizations to better understand the role their reporting plays in the daily lives of the communities they cover, as well as to collaborate much more intentionally with audiences. That is all very welcome. But the most sensible approach to AI tools for news organizations may be the one they’re already taking—not running toward shiny objects but walking around them, cautiously, and verifying whether they’re worth it.

This piece was produced with support from the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security.

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