BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE
A group of scientists have established for the first time that ‘orange’ maize, a new variety of maize, is a good source of vitamin A, which means that it is a variety bred to improve nutrition and could provide vitamin A through the diet to millions of poor people at risk of vitamin A deficiency.
Dr. Wendy White of Iowa State University, who headed the study, said “Traditionally, white maize porridge is a popular food among children and adults” and that “It’s even, usually, the first solid food given to infants.”
She disclosed that during the research the team of scientists prepared the orange maize porridge in using traditional African methods in order to best approximate a real world situation.
A statement announcing the find by the scientists said vitamin A deficiency blinds up to 500,000 children annually and increases the risk of disease and death, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, adding that many people in that region are too poor to afford expensive vitamin A-rich foods such as orange fruits, dark leafy vegetables, or meat.
It continued that because those children in sub-Saharan Africa with vitamin A deficiency eat large amounts of white maize - up to a pound daily, orange maize could provide a substantial portion of their vitamin A needs.
Commenting on the research finding, Dr. Erik Boy, Nutrition Head of HarvestPlus, a programme of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which supported the development of the maize, said “We are encouraged that this higher conversion ratio has been scientifically established.”
“In 2012, we plan to release orange maize in Zambia, in areas where almost half of children under five remain at risk of vitamin A deficiency,” he disclosed.
“This new finding means that we should be able to provide far more dietary vitamin A through orange maize than previously thought possible. We’re looking at up to 30% of the daily requirement for children from two to six years old and 40% of the daily requirement for women of child bearing age,” he said.
The maize was bred using conventional means (non-GMO) to have higher levels of beta-carotene, which gives it its orange colour. The human body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A. The study found that beta-carotene from orange maize was converted at a rate that was almost twice as high as previously assumed for maize which is the world’s third most important cereal crop, and even higher than from vegetables.
HarvestPlus is developing micronutrient-rich staple food crops that can reduce hidden hunger in poorer countries and is co-convened by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture and the International Food Policy Research Institute
Even though Ghana is currently doing very poorly in achieving its sanitation MDG target with an abysmal national coverage figure of just 12.4 % as at 2008 (GDHS), enforcing sanitation laws which exist in the country’s statute books is not one of the options that government is considering in order to overcome the enormous challenge.
Instead, it has put in place a strategy that will enable it appreciate the understanding communities, individuals and households have of sanitation issues and at what level they are in adhering to good sanitation practices.
This, strategy, it is envisaged will better inform government on the right approach to take in handling the country’s overwhelming sanitation challenge, and also enable it make meaningful gains in reaching the country’s MDG target of 53% in improved sanitation by 2015.
Making this known at a press conference organised by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation with support from WaterAid Ghana on Wednesday in Accra on the Government of Ghana’s renewed commitments on sanitation, water and hygiene, Mr. Othniel Habila, representing development partner UNICEF, said “The overall strategy we will be using, which has been tested in so many sectors, is that we do not want to start with enforcement at the beginning of our change in behaviour. We want as much as possible to spend a bit more time with people. We can work together with them, to make sure that they do understand what the issues are.”
He said the first point of call is to do an assessment of what they know and what their attitudes are, what their behaviour is, and their practice.
Mr. Habila continued that this will enable understanding of how people understand the issue of sanitation, adding that it is a much more challenging issue than dealing with water.
According to Othniel Habila, that informs their decision to start from that point, asserting that “this is what has been happening in the country overall.”
He informed that presently in Ghana, “there is a clear strategy for beginning in communities, individuals and households, to see exactly where they are and then to agree on how to move forward to change behaviour at the household level and at the community level.”
The UNICEF representative added that government and development partners are working together to make sure there is a much more conducive, supportive environment for households, communities and individuals to be able to respond to legislation and bye-laws, in relation to checking behaviour concerning sanitation and hygiene practices .
He said though it is not an easy thing to do, they are making some progress, divulging that a key strategy they are using in Ghana now is Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), to make sure they work towards getting communities to recognise the issue of open defecation and for good practice in respect to waste disposal and to ensure that they begin to see the need to change that behaviour.
Mr. Othniel Habila reiterated that the joint government and development partners team have recorded a level of success in terms of behavioural change and the change of practices in communities, which makes them believe that is the way to go.
He divulged that the national working group on sanitation is taking forward an evaluation that was done recently in 2009 on the different sanitation practices and methods used to improve sanitation practices, in order to develop a strategy to reach more communities within Ghana.
To him, if Ghana goes purely the legislative and enforcement way, much cannot be achieved.
The UNICEF representative serving on the national working group on sanitation was responding to the question of what is being done to enforce sanitation practices in Ghana.
Earlier, he intimated that Ghana’s development partners are working with government to develop a Sector Strategic Development Plan (SSDP), adding “This is one of the chief pillars for implementing government policy and also for implementing commitments such as these;” as have been made in the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) Ghana Compact.
Othniel Habila further divulged that early 2011, it is expected that the draft of the SSDP will be ready for the water and sanitation sector. He reminded that already there is in existence the National Environmental Sanitation Strategic Action Plan, which was developed collaboratively between the Ghana Government and other development partners.
He was of the view that these two plans coming into being will really help in some of the matters relating to issues such as the absorption of funds in the sanitation and water sector.
Touching on education on sanitation, he stated that in Ghana, there are a lot of concerted efforts between government, development partners and NGOs in that direction.
Despite this positive assertion, the sanitation situation that existed just four years ago in the country has not experienced any significant improvement.
According to the Water and Sanitation Monitoring Platform (WSMP), Ghana Graphical Presentation 2008 publication, for a period of 15 years, which is between 1990 and 2006, use of improved sanitation facilities in Ghana improved from only six percent to 10%, which makes Ghana far off-track in terms of progress towards achieving MDGs for sanitation.
It states further that “With this growth rate Ghana will achieve only about 14% instead of the expected 53% by 2015.”
Also, the WSMP summary sheet 2009 report on the status of Ghana’s drinking water and sanitation sector, indicates that the country’s national coverage for improved sanitation increased from four percent to 12.4 percent between 1993 and 2008, an increase of just 2.4% from 2006 to 2008.
However, for urban populations, improved sanitation coverage increased by approximately eight percent, appreciating from 10% in 1993 to 17.8% in 2008, whereas for rural populations, it was from one percent to 8.2% for the same period.
The report notes that in view of this, improved sanitation in rural populations went up by 6%, compared to just 3% for urban in the same period. It states further that “The gap between the present national coverage on improved sanitation of 12.4% and the 53% target by 2015 indicates that there must be approximately five times increase in coverage to be able to achieve the set target.”
According to the report, projected coverage for 2015 for improved sanitation will be 15%, if progress made between 1990 and 2008 remains constant, while further analysis of available data indicates that for Ghana to reach its MDG target of 53% for use of improved sanitation by 2015, it will mean that as much as 1.2 million people need to use or have access to improved sanitary facilities every year till 2015, with retrospective effect from 2008.
In the wake of the launch of a compact outlining the government of Ghana’s renewed commitment to the country’s sanitation, water and hygiene sector, civil society is insisting that no resources meant for that sector must be diverted to others, no matter the pressures.
“We know it is very easy for governments to divert any of these promised allocations to areas with more pressure. We therefore suggest that no matter the pressure, government should not divert any of these promised allocations to other sectors,” a statement issued by the Coalition of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS) yesterday, said.
Reading the statement on behalf of CONIWAS and civil society at a press conference in Accra, Chairperson of the Coalition, Victoria Daaku, stressed that CONIWAS has committed itself to monitor the implementation of the Ghana Compact, which was launched by Vice President John Dramani Mahama on August 19, 2010, together with government’s renewed commitments imbedded in the compact.
She added that the coalition will also offer suggestions when necessary, to ensure its successful implementation and also point out shortfalls whenever necessary.
According to Victoria Daaku, CONIWAS called the press conference to highlight the major renewed commitments as contained in the compact, “so that the press can also support both government and civil society to popularise and monitor these particular commitments.”
Outlining five major commitments made by government in the compact, she stated that government has pledged to designate the sanitation and water sector as part of the essential services category and indicate this commitment in the 2011 budget, which she viewed as urgent, since the process of working on the budget has already started.
“Based on initial calculations, Government of Ghana commits to increase allocations in budget statements for sanitation and water, and work with development partners and the private sector to ensure that allocations reach US$200 million annually towards sanitation and water improvements, to meet MDG targets and sustain improvements beyond 2015,” she continued.
The CONIWAS Chair supplied further that the Ghana government has committed to make additional allocations of US$150 million annually towards hygienic treatment and disposal of septage and faecal sludge, sullage and storm water management, as well as make further allocations up to the minimum threshold of 0.5% of GDP to cover capacity building for hygiene education, including proper hand-washing methods, countrywide outreach of community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and general enhancement of enabling elements.
Victoria Daaku concluded that the government has also undertaken to strengthen and enhance the capacity of the Environmental Health and Sanitation and Water Directorates with increased budget allocations, beginning from the 2011 budget statement.
The CONIWAS Chairperson indicated that although they were happy with the commitments made, they expect government to fulfil all of the commitments and make them reflect in the ongoing work on the 2011 budget and subsequent years.
She also tasked government to look for finances for the commitments internally, for the sake of sustainability, national ownership and the avoidance of over reliance on external agencies for support, while development partners who supported the drafting of the compact through the Sanitation and Water for All partnership (SWA), also honour their part of the commitments.
CONIWAS further urged state agencies, NGOs and private consultants who will be part of the implementation of the commitments, to ensure that investments are directed at places of greatest need.
To ensure effective decision-making in the sanitation and water sector, the coalition enjoined the Ministries of Local Government and Rural Development and Water Resources, Works and Housing to align definitions and indicators and expedite action on developing a sector-wide Monitoring and Evaluation framework.
Specifically, CONIWAS tasked the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to as a matter of urgency, come out with the monitoring indicators for environmental sanitation, to provide data on other aspects of sanitation such as solid waste, storm water drainage, clinical waste and industrial waste among others.
In conclusion, the coalition advised that MDGs alone must not be a deciding factor for investments, but that all investment plans be made to look beyond the indicators of the MDGs and 2015.
Ghana’s forests, and the communities that live close to them, may be about to get a lucky break as the world scrambles to find reliable methods to fight the growing threat of climate change, says a new report by The Forests Dialogue (TFD) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
According to a press release announcing this, despite the fact that Ghana is on course to receive up to US$ 75 million from international donors to lay the ground work for new, forest friendly strategies designed to slow global warming, some long standing challenges in the forest sector need to be addressed urgently to avoid this exciting possibility becoming another missed opportunity.
The new report which was made public on 30 July, 2010, is titled "REDD Readiness Requires Radical Reform".
It announces that although last December’s Copenhagen meeting failed to reach a binding international agreement for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases, at least there was one silver lining, where negotiators managed to outline most of the conditions necessary to begin conserving and restoring tropical forests as a key contribution to combating climate change.
The report states that this paves the way for tropical countries to receive payments in return for safeguarding their forest resources, thereby preventing additional emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This mechanism is commonly known as REDD or Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation.
“ Ghana has been at the forefront of the REDD movement,” says Robert Bamfo, Head of Ghana ’s Forestry Commission’s Climate Change Unit, “and we are amongst the first tropical countries to be awarded significant financial support to help conserve, manage and restore our forests”.
However, despite good initial progress, if REDD in Ghana is going to fully deliver, then it will be necessary to work through some well understood challenges in Ghana’s forest sector that have proven resistant to change, it is widely believed.
According to Emelia Arthur, District Chief Executive of Shama District, “We now need to invest more in getting information out to local communities and district authorities on what REDD actually involves and find ways to address forest governance reforms that protect and advance community rights including clarifying land and tree tenure issues”.
The report stresses the urgency of putting in place an adequate framework that will allow REDD benefits to flow efficiently to communities and land‐owners.
“For REDD to work there must be contractual certainty between those whose actions safeguard trees, and the carbon they contain, and those who are willing to pay for avoided emissions”, says James Mayers, Head of the Natural Resources Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), adding; “this means that there is a pressing need to clarify and secure once and for all the rights that communities, farmers and land‐owners have with respect to naturally grown and planted trees in Ghana”.
Commenting on the same issue, Stewart Maginnis, Director of Environment and Development at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said although “Ultimately the success of REDD will hinge on whether sufficient funds flow to those who rely on forests to sustain their livelihoods, many REDD candidate countries have not even started to contemplate what constitutes a fair and efficient distributional mechanism,” adding, “Ghana now has a unique opportunity to take a lead on this matter, learning from its previous successes, and short-comings, of forest‐based revenue distribution.”
For Kwabena Nketiah, Team Leader of Tropenbos International - Ghana, however, “Partnerships between government, communities, private sector and the NGOs will be critical in addressing these long standing challenges in the forest sector” while “the good news is that Ghana already has an established track record in this respect and can easily build on the successful experience of promoting collaborative arrangements to address illegal logging.”
Raphael Yeboah, Executive Director of the Forest Services Division at Ghana’s Forestry Commission, also believes that “Armed with these recommendations, Ghana is positioning itself as an international leader by creating the conditions that will ensure REDD makes a tangible contribution to combating climate change while working for both Ghana’s people and its forests.”
More than 50 Ghanaian and international stakeholders from government, NGOs, forest communities and the private sector have been involved in preparation of the report, facilitated by TFD.
The report attempts to reflect the main points of broad agreement among the stakeholders on additional measures required to help Ghana get ready for REDD. Similar processes led by TFD and IUCN have also taken place in Brazil ,Guatemala and Ecuador, with strong Ghanaian participation in each case.
Climate change will reverse years of work reducing poverty in the developing world without strong, urgent action, according to a report released Tuesday.
The Future Climate for Development calls on governments and NGOs to build climate change into their economic development programmes to help low-income countries manage its impacts and seize new opportunities as the world shifts to a low-carbon economy.
The report, produced by independent sustainability experts Forum for the Future with support from the Department for International Development (DFID), explores how climate change will transform low-income countries over the next 20 years, causing profound social, economic and political transformations as well as major environmental impacts.
Stephen O’Brien, International Development Minister, said: “Without urgent action, climate change threatens to undo years of work tackling poverty in the developing world.
“That is why the UK is now working across the globe to help the world’s poorest people prepare for the potentially devastating effects of climate change and shift to the clean technologies that are so vital to a stable, successful future for us all.
“This report will act as an important tool to help poor countries plan for an uncertain future, and underlines our need to build climate change into everything we do,” he added.
For his part, Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, said: “Climate change and development should be seen as complementary, not competing, issues. By putting climate change at the forefront of development thinking we will not only help the world's poorest to avoid serious risks, but we can also help them seize new opportunities to create better lives for themselves. Development aid should be much more climate resilient."
The Future Climate for Development calls for low-income countries and all those who work in development to look for “win-win” opportunities which address climate change and tackle development goals like reducing poverty and improving health and education. For example:
• investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency can enhance energy security;
• promoting low-carbon transport means less congestion and pollution and improves health;
• low-input agriculture, which does not rely on fertilisers to maintain soil quality, boosts food security and helps countries adapt to a changing climate.
It argues that aid must not be blind to climate change, ignoring measures to help countries adapt to its impacts and promoting high-carbon development. Climate change will transform countries and reshape the global economic and political landscape, it says, and this must be factored into development decisions to ensure they continue to yield benefits in the long-term.
The report is designed to be a practical tool to help governments, NGOs, businesses and policy makers in developed and developing countries “future-proof” their strategies and plan for a range of possible outcomes. It examines key issues which will affect low-income countries over the next 20 years and explores how these may play out in four plausible scenarios for the world of 2030.
The scenarios highlight the need to be prepared for radical changes, and they throw up some challenging possibilities, for example:
• shortages of food and natural resources and climate change impacts may lead many low-income countries to question the Western model of democracy;
• once unthinkable population control measures may be introduced as a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• conflicts over water and scarce resources may escalate and come to dominate international relations.
And it notes that development agencies may need to reappraise their strategies, for example:
• promoting subsistence farming may build more climate resilience than intensive agriculture;
• disaster response may need to become part of long-term development planning;
• GDP may no longer be used as the primary measure of success in all countries.
Four scenarios for low-income countries in 2030
The scenarios, summarised below, are the result of a year-long project studying how climate change may influence the way low-income countries develop over the next 20 years. They present a vivid, detailed picture of four possible futures and draw on the opinions of more than 100 development experts from around the world, including development professionals, government officials, business leaders, entrepreneurs and independent thinkers.
Reversal of Fortunes is a world where many of the low-income countries of the 2010s have rapidly developed – mostly on carbon-intensive pathways – and are now middle-income. But a stronger voice on the world stage is not enough to grant immunity from the impacts of a world urgently decarbonising its economy: these new emerging economies are the least resilient and are suffering the most.
Age of Opportunity is a world in which cultural confidence within low-income countries is high. They play a growing role in the world economy and are spearheading a low-carbon energy revolution, leapfrogging the old high-carbon technologies in pursuit of a prosperous and clean future.
Coping Alone is a world in which low-income countries feel increasingly abandoned by a global community preoccupied with high oil prices, economic stagnation and simmering conflict. Regional blocs now focus on their own concerns, such as food security, resource shortages and adapting to climate change.
The Greater Good is a world where people understand that economies rely fundamentally on access to natural resources – and climate change is seen as the ultimate resource crunch. States manage natural resources pragmatically to give the greatest good for the greatest number. Those low-income countries with natural resources prosper; those without have little bargaining power.
Many Africans blame themselves for the impacts of global climate change they are witnessing despite being least responsible for the causes, finds a groundbreaking pan-African research report from the BBC World Service Trust and the British Council.
Just as a lack of practical information and resources hindered attempts to combat the HIV and AIDS pandemic, now millions of people whose lives are directly impacted by climate change do not have access to relevant, appropriate information that helps them respond to challenges they face, says the report.
Africa Talks Climate, the most extensive research ever conducted on the public understanding of climate change in Africa, which involved over 1,000 citizens in discussions across ten countries, from Sudan to South Africa , Kenya to Ghana, found that people tend to cite local issues such as tree cutting and bush burning, rather than global emissions, as the greater cause of their changing climate.
Some people, notably women and those from rural areas, also attribute changes in climate to the will of God, with many feeling powerless in their struggle with changing weather patterns, and in an echo of a common early response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic, some attribute extreme weather as a form of divine punishment, notes the research report:
To a young Senegalese woman who was interviewed, “[God] punishes people because we do bad things... He shows his strength with the hurricanes and storms.”.
Among nearly 200 opinion leaders interviewed – from media and government representatives to religious and community leaders – many highlighted the information gap and compared the challenges of communicating climate change to those of HIV and AIDS.
“When it [the pandemic] started nobody wanted to believe it... but before we knew it, it hit us left, right, and centre... And the same thing is going to happen with climate change”, said Joyce Mhaville, Managing Director ITV Tanzania.
According to BBC World Service Trust Executive Director, Caroline Nursey, the role of the media in strengthening information provision is crucial:
“The initial global response to communicate effectively about the HIV and AIDS pandemic was slow and often inappropriate to local needs: the media have had a critical role in helping combat HIV and AIDS in Africa and must be supported do so again in the case of climate change,” she opined.
The key communication challenges highlighted by Africa Talks Climate are as follows:
Immediate – Many Africans, particularly those in rural areas, are struggling in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather. They need greater information and resources.
Perceptions – People know their weather is changing, but do not connect it to global climate change.
Responsibility – Most Africans blame themselves for the impacts they are witnessing and some attribute them to the will of God.
Language – Climate change terminology is not easy to translate or understand. It provides little insight into the changes that most Africans are experiencing.
Information – African citizens need spaces to exchange ideas and information, foster understanding and plan for action.
Leadership – Local leaders are well placed to communicate climate change and help their communities to respond, but are among the least informed about it.
Media – Many in the sector assert they lack knowledge of climate change and consider it too scientific and not an audience priority. Build capacity of the news and non-news media to communicate climate change in locally relevant ways.
Africa Talks Climate is the first step in developing long-term strategies for sharing information about climate change. It aims to support all those charged with communicating on climate change, whether they be international organisations, governments, the media, NGOs or community leaders.
