Peru’s new president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (known as PPK), has revealed his government’s intention to prioritise mineral extraction and trade relations with China in a series of actions and public statements. Since his victory in an election run-off on June 5, Kuczynski has also declared the need for Peru to stimulate further economic activity by processing and refining minerals, in addition to simply exporting them.
While natural resource development can generate economic success, it can also increase the likelihood of conflict, particularly in Africa. Ongoing violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta is a good example of the so-called “resource curse” in action. In response, African governments continue to grapple with how best to use their resource endowments to foster both economic opportunity and peace. At a time of much soul-searching for the United Nations, there is a unique opportunity to put responsible and effective resource development at the heart of African peacebuilding. But how might local communities take greater ownership of these processes?
This briefing paper argues that in order to achieve the targets set out in the Malabo Declaration, which was adopted in 2014 with the aim to improve nutrition and food security across Africa, and to increase agricultural productivity by 2025 while building resilience to the effects of climate change, African governments must support programmes that will contribute to strengthening smallholder farmers’ resilience and improving their livelihoods.
Over the past decade, the number of undernourished people around the world has declined by around 167 million, to just under 800 million people. However, this positive trend glosses over a stark reality: Food insecurity is increasing in the world’s mountains. This pattern has been under-recognized by development experts and governments, a dangerous oversight with far-reaching social and environmental repercussions.
The Spanish version of the Exhibition Environment, Conflict and Cooperation (ECC) that includes a specific module on South America is currently shown in Chile in cooperation with the NGO Fundación Terram. During 9-20 May, the Exhibition was hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Chile. The launch event on 10 May was attended by over a hundred participants: foreign policy, defence and environmental decision makers from Chile, representatives of several Latin American countries, Germany and USA, as well as members of Chilean and international civil society.
26 May 2016 – At a meeting today in the United Nations Security Council on the situation in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa, senior UN officials stressed that climate change plays a direct role in the region’s security, development and stability by increasing drought and fuelling conflict.
On 12 May 2016, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) through its Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) launched its annual publication “The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID)”, identifying climate change and related natural hazards, such as droughts, sea-level rise and desertification as increasingly important factors causing internal displacement.
The exhibition “Environment, Conflict and Cooperation” (ECC), co-organised by Fundación Terram and adelphi, supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, is shown in Chile in several prominent locations (in Spanish).
At its 585th meeting on March 30 2016, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union held an open session on Climate Change: State fragility, peace and security in Africa. The debate reflected the collective acknowledgement that climate change, peace and security in Africa are inextricably linked, stressing the need for all AU Member States to further build national resilience capacities.
To ensure that Paris will be a sustainable success, active engagement is required to fully implement the INDCs and to ratchet up ambition in the coming years. Catalyzing the climate economy will be the key to accelerate the path towards a much-needed climate-friendly trajectory.