By Isaiah Esipisu
DAR ES SALAAM, Sep 15 2023 – Experts at the Africa Food Systems Forum (AGRF) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have called on African governments to make and review existing policies to protect the processing and agro-industrialisation of locally produced agricultural products.

During the launch of the Deal Room, Mohammed Dewji, President of MeTL Group of Companies in Tanzania, observed that agriculture will remain meaningless without agri-processing. https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/05/kenyas-dryland-farmers-embrace-regenerative-farming-to-brave-tough-climate/

“Tanzania produces cotton, and it is perhaps the third largest producer. How come it has only three textile firms? We are farming the cotton, ginning it, and exporting the same to China, where the final product is produced, died, and printed, and then it is sent back to us. Because of taxes involved at the local manufacturing level, we cannot compete,” he said.

“Unless we put in place correct policies that will favour local manufacturing, we will continue talking about cocoa from Ghana and chocolate from Switzerland,” he told delegates at the Deal Room.

The Deal Room is a matchmaking platform hosted at the AGRF, aiming to drive new business deals and commitments, where companies in the agriculture and agribusiness sectors can access finance, mentorship, and market entry solutions to support their growth objectives.

According to Wanjohi Ndagu, the Partner and Investment Director at Pearl Capital Partners Ltd based in Uganda, many African governments have policies that favour importation even when farmers in those countries have bumper harvests of the same product.

“We need policies that are able to protect farmers and local production,” he said.

Other than cocoa in Ghana and chocolate from Switzerland, countries like Ivory Coast and Nigeria are net exporters of natural rubber, which is processed and brought back to them as car tyres, footwear, and rubber-based industrial goods.

Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ivory Coast are net exporters of cashew nuts but importers of roasted and processed cashew nuts, cashew butter, and other value-added cashew products.

Kenya is currently delving into the exportation of raw avocado, but the country has always imported particularly avocado cosmetic products.

However, all is not lost.

Rwanda was showcased as one of the success stories in Africa where, through favourable policies, the country has created a conducive environment attracting investment into the agro-processing sector.

“Our country’s Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation has enabled us to move the sector from subsistence to a knowledge-based, value-creating sector,” said Nelly Mukazayire, the Deputy CEO of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB).

To make work more accessible and attractive to investors, the country has created a one-stop-centre where investors in any given sector, including agro-processing, are given services right from the search for a business name, business registration, generation of unique identification of the registered business, the opening of the business bank account and issuance of relevant permits and licenses, and the entire process takes a maximum of eight hours for the business to become a legal entity.

In many other African countries, such processes can take more than four months and, in some cases, a year for a business to get proper registration, and this, according to the delegates at the AGRF, slows down the rate of investment.

“Investors in the agriculture sector in Rwanda also have an opportunity to get up to seven years of tax holiday and reduced corporate income taxes on exports,” said Mukazayire.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the country launched what is today known as the Manufacture and Build to Recover Programme (MBRP), aiming to boost economic recovery efforts with specific incentives for the manufacturing, agro-processing, construction and real estate development sectors.

Through MBRP, manufacturers with a capital of USD1 million and above are given import duty exemption and Value Added Tax (VAT) exemption for imported construction materials unavailable in East Africa, VAT exemption for machinery and raw materials sourced domestically and VAT exemption for construction materials sourced domestically.

However, the capital for agro-processing was capped at USD 100,000 to support the sector’s growth.

During the AGRF Deal Room event, Brent Malahay, the Chief Strategy Officer at the Equity Group, called on investors to take advantage of the bank’s ‘Africa recovery and resilience plan,’ whose aim is to capacitate, finance and connect East African Community value chains to global supply chains.

“Through this plan, Equity Group will leverage off a region that gives access to critical raw materials, supports industrial capacity needs and an entrepreneurial and innovative local workforce, and the one that provides a sizeable market that is increasingly becoming more integrated,” said Malahay.

During the event, Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), announced an investment of USD4 million into VALUE4HER, AGRA’s Deal Room product, which is a continental initiative aimed at strengthening women’s agribusiness enterprises and enhancing voice and advocacy across Africa.

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By Gordon Brown
LONDON, Sep 15 2023 – With hope and courage, we must rise to the challenges before us. We must rise to the challenge of a world set afire by climate change, forced displacement, armed conflicts and human rights abuses. We must rise to the challenge of girls being denied their right to an education in Afghanistan. We must rise to the challenge of a global refugee crisis that is disrupting development gains the world over. We must rise to the challenge of brutal and unconscionable wars in places like Sudan and Ukraine that are putting millions of children at risk every day.

By ensuring every single child has access to quality education and embracing the vast potential of the human spirit – especially the 224 million girls and boys caught in emergencies and protracted crises that so urgently need our support – we can rise to this challenge. It’s a chance for girls with disabilities like Sammy in Colombia to find a nurturing place to learn and grow, it’s a chance for girls that have been forced into child marriage like Ajak in South Sudan to resume control of their lives, it’s a chance for refugees like Jannat in Bangladesh to find hope and dignity once more.

As Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies, has successfully completed its first strategic plan period and now enters its second strategic period, we are seeing time and again the power of education in propelling global efforts to deliver on the promises outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other crucial international frameworks. By ensuring quality holistic education for the world’s most marginalized and vulnerable children in crisis settings, we invest in human capital, transform economies, ensure human rights, and build a more peaceful and more sustainable future for all.

The achievements outlined in ECW’s 2022 Annual Results Report tell a story of a breakout global fund moving with strength, speed and agility, while achieving quality. Together with a growing range of strategic partners, ECW reached 4.2 million children in 2022 alone. It was also the first time girls represented more than half of the children reached by ECW’s investments, including 53% of girls at the secondary level, which is a significant milestone in achieving the aspirational target of 60% girls reached. Now in its sixth year of operation, ECW has reached a total of 8.8 million children and adolescents with the safety, power and opportunity of a quality, inclusive education. An additional 32.2 million children and adolescents were reached with targeted interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are also seeing a global advocacy movement reaching critical mass, together with stronger political commitment and increased financing for the sector. In 2022, funding for education in emergencies was higher than ever before. Total available funding has grown by more than 57% over just three years – from US$699 million in 2019 to more than US$1.1 billion in 2022.

However, the needs have also skyrocketed over this same period. Funding asks for education in emergencies within humanitarian appeals have nearly tripled from US$1.1 billion in 2019 to almost US$3 billion at the end of 2022. This means that while donors are stepping up, the funding gap has actually widened, and only 30% of education in emergencies requirements were funded in 2022.

With support from key donors – including Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, as the top-three contributors among 25 in total, such as visionary private sector partners like The LEGO Foundation – US$826 million was announced at the ECW High-Level Financing Conference in early 2023. Collective resource mobilization efforts from all partners and stakeholders at global, regional, and country levels also helped unlock an additional US$842 million of funding for education in-country, which was contributed in alignment with ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in 22 countries, and thus illustrates strong coordination by strategic donor partners who work in affected emergencies and protracted crises-contexts.

We must rise to this challenge by finding new and innovative ways to finance education. To date, some of ECW’s largest and prospective bilateral and multilateral donors have not yet committed funding for the full 2023–2026 period, and there remains a gap in funding from the private sector, foundations and philanthropic donors. In the first half of 2023, ECW faces a funding gap of approximately $670 million to fully finance results under the Strategic Plan, 2023–2026, to reach more than 20 million children over the next three years.

The investments will address the diverse impacts of crisis on education through child-centred approaches that are tailored to the needs of specific groups affected by crisis, such as children with disabilities, girls, refugees, and vulnerable children in host communities. These investments entail academic learning, social and emotional learning, sports, arts, combined with mental health and psycho-social services, school feeding, water and sanitation, as well as a protection component.

Since ECW became operational, we have withstood the cataclysmic forces of a global pandemic, a rise in armed conflicts that have disrupted social and economic security the world over, the unconscionable denial of education for girls in Afghanistan, floods and droughts made ever-more devastating by climate change, and other crises that are derailing efforts to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Now is the time to come together as one people, one planet to address the challenges before us. Now is the time to embrace the vast potential of the human spirit. With education for all, we can make sure girls like Sammy, Ajak and Jannat are able to reach their full potential, we can build a better world for generations to come.

Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown is United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education

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By Kenji Nakano
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2023 – The General Assembly and ECOSOC Affairs Division has around 40 staff members, with the combined role to facilitate the deliberations and decision-making of intergovernmental bodies such as the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and their subsidiary organs.

This entails several aspects to assist the presiding officer, Member States and the other participants. For example, we put together the agenda of the intergovernmental body and a programme of work (i.e., calendar) of meetings of that body. We also prepare the presiding officer’s scripts and the list of speakers for the meeting, taking into account rules concerning who can speak and when.

We advise all those involved about applicable rules of procedure, as well as the practices and precedents of these bodies and how these rules are applied. The General Assembly, for example, has the president as well as 21 vice-presidents. Each of the six Main Committees has a chair, three vice-chairs and a rapporteur. We advise them on the proceedings, including how to address unexpected questions or procedural motions from the floor.

We deal with meeting room arrangements and documentation. The latter includes draft resolutions and decisions: we receive those from Member States and have them processed for issuance as an official document in six languages.

This can include draft amendments from other countries that did not agree with the content of the original draft resolutions. We conduct recorded votes if required as well as secret balloting for elections. We also put together a final report of the body.

How the preparations take place

The preparations for a regular session of the General Assembly which starts in September, begin months and months in advance. The document concerning the agenda of the session (normally containing around 170-180 items) is formed in February with what is called a “preliminary list of items to be included in the provisional agenda”.

The list of items for the agenda will continue to grow as new ones are mandated by the adoption of resolutions, so we will keep updating the list and send out what is called the “provisional agenda” in July. The preparation for the list of speakers for the general debate will begin in June, which is where Heads of State and Government and other high-level representatives will speak in the General Assembly Hall in September.

In the meantime, in June, the President of the new session is elected mostly by what is called “acclamation” or without a secret ballot. When there are competing candidates, the election is held by secret ballot cast by Member States. The elected candidate takes office when the new session begins in September, but there is a period between June and September where both the sitting President and President-elect collaborate on handover for the new session.

We put together an information note concerning the High-Level Week in September, as well as a publication called the “Delegates’ Handbook” with practical information on meeting rooms, facilities and services available to delegates. The High-Level Week in September includes, besides the general debate, other meetings on specific topics as mandated by the General Assembly resolutions.

In September 2023, there will be (1) the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development under the auspices of the General Assembly, (2) the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, (3) the Preparatory Ministerial Meeting for the Summit of the Future and high-level meetings on (4) universal health coverage, (5) pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and (6) fight against tuberculosis, and also (7) the High-Level Plenary Meeting to Commemorate and Promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

The Secretary-General will also convene the Climate Ambition Summit. Many of them will have an outcome document, on which Member States negotiate many months before the adoption in September.

A tale of two halves

Once the High-Level Week is over, we have the rest of the “main part” of the session from September through December. Besides the General Assembly Plenary, the six Main Committees, from the First Committee to the Six Committee, hold meetings during this period, each based on its own “programme of work”.

These Main Committees will have agenda items allocated to them, under which they adopt draft resolutions to recommend to the General Assembly Plenary. In December, the plenary will consider these recommendations from the Main Committees, while it continues to consider its own agenda items.

The subsequent period, from January to September, is called the “resumed part” of the session. That part has no fixed calendar, but consists rather of meetings that the President of the General Assembly holds on his/her own initiative or in response to a mandate given by a General Assembly resolution. Also seen during the resumed part of the session are informal consultations on topics mandated by resolutions adopted during the main part to, for example, negotiate the organizational arrangements and/or on an outcome document of a
future high-level meeting. These consultations are normally led by Permanent Representatives from different regions appointed by the President of the General Assembly as facilitators.

The list of speakers for the general debate

First and foremost, Member States are requested to inform the Secretariat of their three preferred timings. For the morning meeting and the afternoon meeting of each day, there are only a certain number of speaking slots so we can only accommodate speakers up to that number. Speakers for each meeting are listed based on the established protocol, beginning with the Heads of State, Vice-Presidents and Crown Princes or Princesses and Heads of Government.

Media and seating arrangements

Media accreditation is done by the Department of Global Communications, and there is a media booth where the journalists and camera crews can observe what is going on in the General Assembly Hall. There is a similar space established outside of the General Assembly Hall for journalists to hear from leaders entering/exiting the Hall. The Department of Global Communications also puts together a press kit for the session.

Every year in June, the Secretary-General draws a lot from a box containing all names of Member States. The selected country will occupy the first seat in the Hall once the new session begins in September, and from there, the seating arrangement will follow the English alphabetical order. The same seating applies to the Main Committees.

How we ensure inclusivity

This has been a very important issue for the General Assembly, the ECOSOC Affairs Division and Member States. Four years ago, the General Assembly adopted a resolution to introduce an accessible seating arrangement, whereby a wheelchair-accessible seating is made available upon request by a delegation. The General Assembly Hall has a certain number of such seats, so the requesting delegation is moved to such a seat, and other delegations’ seats are moved by one seat.

We currently have two Member States who request accessible seating on an ongoing basis. This summer, further improvement will be made in the General Assembly Hall by installing a lift for the rostrum so that a speaker on a wheelchair can speak from the rostrum.

Benefits of live broadcasting

The General Assembly involves universal participation of all Member States on all matters humanity faces, so it is very important to share information on the deliberation with the people that it will affect. Civil society, businesses, academics and media are getting more and more involved, so it is a natural progression to offer this feature and strengthen the global platform of the General Assembly.

Kenji Nakano is Chief of the General Assembly Affairs Branch

Source: UN TODAY, the official magazine of international civil servants, Geneva

The link to the website: https://untoday.org/

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By Bibbi Abruzzini and Marie L’Hostis
NEW YORK, Sep 15 2023 – At the UN SDG Summit in New York, the Forus global civil society network is calling for decisive action on SDG implementation. Clearly, as we hit the midpoint towards the “finish line” of the Agenda 2030, progress is stagnating.

The 2023 Special Edition of the SDG Progress Report emphasized that we’re falling short in implementing the SDGs. In April this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres deplored that “Progress on more than 50 per cent of targets of the SDGs is weak and insufficient; on 30 per cent, it has stalled or gone into reverse,” disproportionately impacting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

As we approach the halfway mark of the 2030 Agenda, we urge world leaders at the UN General Assembly to address the precarious state of SDG implementation. Here’s our 5 asks.

Walk the talk with clear implementation plans and benchmarks for the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

“In Guatemala, there are two worlds, one for a small group that benefits from this macroeconomic stability, this weakness of democracy, this co-optation of state institutions, and a large majority of the population that faces poverty and inequality,” says Alejandro Aguirre Batres, Executive Director of CONGCOOP, the national platform of NGOs in Guatemala that recently published an alternative report on the implementation of the SDGs in the country.

Human rights activists in Cartagena, Colombia from the Coalition of Human Rights in Development at the Finance in Common Summit. Credit: Sebastian Barros/Forus

Governments must make specific national implementation plans to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, with clear benchmarks on when to achieve the targets set in 2015. Following the SDG Summit, we call on the United Nations and its partners to ensure that the “National Commitments to SDG Transformation” called for by the Secretary-General are adequately compiled and tracked, including by providing a transparent and inclusive platform for showcasing these commitments, helping to ensure adequate implementation, follow-up and accountability. All efforts and commitments must focus on breaching the increassing gap in inequalities, healing polarisation and restoring socio-environmental rights at the core of Agenda 2030 implementation as no form of development should come at the cost of environmental degradation and injustice.

Presenting a viewpoint from Asia, Jyotsna Mohan Singh, representing the Asia Development Alliance, emphasizes that while the SDGs look good on paper, their real-world implementation remains far from satisfactory. She explains, “Governments should develop a policy coherence for sustainable development roadmap with timebound targets,” adding that it’s all about creating spaces grounded in equity where civil society and other stakeholders can join discussions and connect with local communities.

In regions like the Sahel, stretching 5,000 kilometers below the Sahara Desert from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, challenges like conflict, political instability, extreme poverty, and food insecurity affect nearly 26 million people. Yet, this region is teeming with opportunities, boasting abundant resources and a young population, including 50% young women and girls. As civil society leader Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, puts it, “What unfolds in the Sahel and in so many other forgotten communities ripples across the globe, impacting us all even if we choose to look away. Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals is vital to unlock a different future. But for global change to truly happen, we need countries to come together, we need solidarity, horizontal spaces, and for world leaders to start listening and acting accordingly.”

Commit to the protection of civic space and human rights.

“Although the state of Pakistan has ratified many global instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the SDGs, the irony is that none of them have been transformed into local policies and regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, civil rights advocates and organizations have either transformed themselves into humanitarian organizations or practiced self-censorship to avoid state atrocities. Pakistan is failing to achieve SDGs due to disengagement with civil society and other stakeholders. Ironically, the government is unable to provide reliable data on any of their own priority indicators to measure progress towards the implementation of SDGs, particularly on rights-based indicators,” says Zia ur Rehman, National Convener of the Pakistan Development Alliance. Their newly published Pakistan Civic Space Monitor reveals a generally restricted civic space, including restraints on freedom of speech, assembly, information, rule of law, governance, and public participation, with further deterioration. This rings true for 92% of Forus members – comprising national and regional civil society networks in over 124 countries – who consider the protection of civic space and human rights a top priority.

Fridays for Future activists during a Climate March in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: Both Nomads/Forus

Indeed, over the past decade, thousands of civil society organizations have faced increasing challenges due to restrictions on their formation and activities. Nine out of 10 people now live in countries where civil liberties are severely restricted, including freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, according to the CIVICUS Monitor. Forus reports confirm that civil society deals with increasing restrictions, involving extra-legal actions, misinformation and disinformation about their work both online and offline. Research also highlights the insufficiency of current institutional mechanisms to ensure an enabling environment for civil society, including addressing impunity for attacks on civil society and human right defenders, implementing supportive laws and regulations, and facilitating effective and inclusive policy dialogue. A recent ARTICLE 19 report highlights the inadequate integration of crucial elements like freedom of expression and access to information into SDGs, hampering progress. Journalist killings increased in 2022. Additionally, monitoring access to information mainly focuses on having a legal framework, ignoring its quality and adoption. Strengthening these rights is vital for advancing all SDGs. The growing number of human rights defenders being killed every year – at least 401 in 26 countries were murdered for their peaceful work in 2022 – is another worrying trend that needs to be reversed as the protection and promotion of human rights is the cornerstone of achieving sustainable development. Without human rights we will just move backwards.

Strengthen and Catalyze Robust Financing for the SDGs.

From the recent Summit for a new global financing pact to the Finance in Common initiative, it’s clear that the focus this year has been on increasing investment. But we need quality not just quantity, as expressed in a join civil society declaration aimed at public development banks signed by over 100 civil society organisations from 50+ countries. While we welcome UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a SDG Stimulus, we remind Governments, International Financial Institutions, public development banks and donors that more efforts must be done to scale up investments for the realization of the SDGs at all levels, including through additional support for civil society and by involving communities in all “development talks”. The role of the private sector and financial institutions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda must be talked about openly. It is important to include in all development projects being carried out specific budgets for actions linked to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Discussions about financial reforms that are being repeatedly undertaken by several countries cannot happen behind close doors and in non-inclusive forums such as the G7 and G20. Instead, they should be open, inclusive, and transparent, involving a broader spectrum of protagonists, including civil society, to ensure fairness and sustainability in shaping global financial policies.

“The SDGs are severely off track as we reach the critical half-way point of Agenda 2030. We need a renewed global ambition on financial commitments to make progress on the SDGs. Reforms of global financial architecture are a crucial part of this to ensure we have a fairer, more effective, inclusive and transparent system supporting lower-income countries that are at the forefront of the global climate, debt, poverty, food, and humanitarian crises. It’s not about a lack of finance, it is about political will and getting our priorities right,” says Sandra Martinsone, Policy Manager – Sustainable Economic Development at Bond UK.

Mobilize Transformative Commitments for SDG16+.

Recognizing the vital role of SDG16+ as a critical enabler for the entire 2030 Agenda, governments should come to the SDG Summit with targeted, integrated, focused and transformative commitments to accelerate action on SDG16+. As developed in the #SDG16Now collective campaign, this includes domestic policies and resources, legal reforms and initiatives to advance SDG16+ at the international, national and local levels, as well as ambitious global commitments to strengthen multilateralism and international resolve to promote peace, justice, the rule of law, inclusion and institution-building. Additionally, governments must use key moments – such as the 2024 High-Level Political Forum and the Summit of the Future – to advance implementation and delivery of the SDGs through similar commitments to action, and ensure adequate follow-up to these commitments going forward.

Ensure civil society participation and listen to communities, reinvigorate commitments to SDG17.

The 2030 Agenda overall cannot be achieved without building on the role of civil society and fostering a true global partnership. Every year at the fringes of the UN General Assembly, initiatives such as the Global People’s Assembly bring to the ears of world leaders the voices of communities historically marginalised. Governments need to reinvigorate engagement towards SDG17 to trengthen the means of implementing sustainable development goals and revitalising global partnerships for sustainable development. It’s high time we move away from conducting discussions about the future of development in closed-door settings. Tokenistic participation of civil society, where their involvement is merely symbolic or superficial, undermines the core principles of nclusivity, hurting genuine progress and meaningful collaboration. A more inclusive approach must be embraced that actively involves civil society and communities. Let’s #UNmute their voices and perspectives by bringing about reforms to current participation mechanisms, and giving them a real platform to be heard.

In 2015 every government in the world agreed as a global community on what we want for our comon future for people and planet. So many efforts and work went on to reach such an agreement. Now is the time for governments and world leaders to walk the walk and prioritize people and the planet, delivering the 2030 Agenda, essential to secure our shared future. It is time for world leaders to act decisively and uphold their commitments to the SDGs.

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