A new guide developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) will support African countries with the monitoring and reporting of their progress on sustainable urban development.
The ‘Reference Guide on City Indicators and Measurement in Africa’ contains 107 city-level indicators for 17 categories, covering all aspects of sustainable urban development such as energy, environment and economy. Under each indicator, it meticulously defines how and when the specific data should be collected as well as its unit, source, provider, processing methods and disaggregation standards in line with good practice and regional context.
For local authorities, the guide will serve as a one-stop solution to measure, analyze and disseminate how well their cities perform against the indicators which are based on the city-specific commitments outlined in international agreements such as the New Urban Agenda, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

The Digital Global Biogas Cooperation (DiBiCoo) is set to introduce its Digital Matchmaking Platform. The Platform, an online networking tool for stakeholders in the biogas industry, is expected to bring biogas stakeholders from across the world and provide opportunities for matchmaking.
DiBiCoo was launched in October 2019 in Brussels, with a budget of 2.9 million Euros and has been working towards promotion of commercial biogas plants in Ethiopia. The project will hold its 2nd stakeholder workshop to introduce the Digital Biogas and Gasification Platform and present progress of partnerships to demonstrate commercial biogas plants by Ethiopian developers.
Part of DiBiCoo’s commitment to develop digital support tools for the biogas sector, the Platform offers a plethora of resources on the sector and will feature projects from the five main importing countries; Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, Argentina and Indonesia.
“The Platform makes it easy to find the right gasification technology and brings business opportunities for importing and exporting countries,” said Wondwossen Bogale (PhD), iceaddis project staff and a leading expert on renewable energy. “It is a great opportunity to access leading stakeholders in the biogas and gasification sector in Europe.”

The financial industry needs to step up “and now” with “unprecedented levels of cooperation” to tackle the climate change crisis, affirms the CEO and founder of one of the world’s largest independent financial services organisations.
The urgent call for industry-wide action from deVere Group’s Nigel Green comes as all eyes turn to Glasgow as world leaders travel to Scotland for the COP26 summit starting this weekend. The event is expected to bring between 20,000 and 25,000 attendees alongside world leaders and business chiefs.
The goal of COP26 is to address the climate crisis, following up on the last event of this kind since 2019. It comes just a few months after the UN’s IPCC Report that described global warming as a “code red for humanity.”

Staple crops in eight African countries could decrease by as much as 80 percent by 2050 in some areas if temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, according to a report released by the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). This could have a catastrophic impact on poverty and food availability unless there is an urgent injection of funding to help vulnerable farmers adapt how and what they farm.
The organisation warned that COP26 will fail to achieve a lasting impact if world leaders continue to prioritise mitigation and neglect investments in climate adaptation.
The report What Can Smallholder Farmers Grow in a Warmer World? Climate Change and Future Crop Suitability in East and Southern Africa shows that if no changes are made to agricultural practices or global policies, erratic weather patterns, drier conditions and an increase in temperatures by 2°C will have a devastating impact on yields of staple and cash crops grown by small-scale farmers in parts of Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. For example, in a worst-case scenario, the annual maize crop per household in the Namibe province in Angola could decrease by 77 percent by 2050.