The 19th African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) is a major gathering of African ministers responsible for environmental affairs. The conference serves as a platform for discussing and addressing key environmental issues on the African continent. It provides an opportunity for African countries to collaborate, share experiences, and develop strategies to tackle environmental challenges collectively.
The primary objective of the conference is to enhance environmental governance in Africa and promote sustainable development across the continent. It aims to strengthen policy frameworks, improve institutional capacity, and mobilize resources to address pressing environmental issues in Africa. And also, AMCEN focuses on issues relevant to Africa’s environmental concerns. Such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, land degradation, pollution control, sustainable energy, and water resource management.
AMCEN also provides a platform for African countries to engage with international partners, including development organizations, donor agencies, and civil society groups. This collaboration fosters partnerships and facilitates the transfer of knowledge, technology, and financial resources to support Africa’s environmental sustainability efforts.
The 19th AMCEN plays a crucial role in promoting environmental governance, sustainable development, and regional cooperation in Africa. It serves as a platform for African countries to collectively address environmental challenges and work towards a more sustainable and prosperous future for the continent.
Director General of the Ethiopia Environmental Protection Authority, Getahun Gardew (Phd), said that the 19th session of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment under the theme Tap the Seize Opportunities and Cooperate on Environment will help solve African environmental problems. This session is to get the resolutions that will help the African group of negotiators in different multilateral environmental agreements. And he also mentioned enhancing a common stand as a region on plastic negotiation, climate negotiation, desertification, biodiversity, and a declaration on cooperation on environmental multilateral agreements.
Getahun remarked that one of the key outcomes of the 19th AMCEN was the adoption of resolutions and declarations that guide environmental policies and actions in Africa. These outcomes will serve as a roadmap for countries to strengthen their policy frameworks, enhance institutional capacities, and mobilize resources to implement sustainable environmental practices.
State Minister of Plan and Development, Sandukan Debebe, spoke at the forum, saying the urgency of our mission is underscored by the range of critical issues we aim to address. These issues include the unwise and unequal utilization of resources, the disproportionately severe impact of climate change experienced by Africa manifested through recurring droughts, hurricanes, and rising sea levels.
Additionally, he said that the swift loss of biodiversity, leading to wildlife migration, and the rapid expansion of desertification are pressing matters. Moreover, the unregulated disposal of waste and chemicals threatens Africa’s environment. To realise the goal of AMCEN, the active participation of African experts is paramount. And he also mentioned Africa’s interests in the global negotiation, ensuring that our continent benefits from the necessary resources and technical expertise while maintaining our position in the global arena.
He said that this platform serves as a critical fusion of experts, where our collective wisdom covers all aspects of environmental protection and prosperity, avoiding external imposition and taking partners. For instance, to achieve these missions, the Ethiopian government started the Green Legacy Initiatives, which surpassed this ambitious target by planting 25 billion across parts of a country and fostering a green culture to combat climate change and environmental degradation.
Executive Director of the National Environment Management Authority at Republic of Uganda, Barirega Akankwasah (Phd), has saluted Ethiopia for taking this bold step to minimizing the climate impacts through The Green Legacy project of planting a billion trees. “And as Africa, we are actually following suit. In Uganda, we have a program of 40 million trees per year. And our target is for every citizen to at least plant and raise one tree per year”, he indicated.
“In Africa who is not so much industrialized, we are not producing as much carbon, but we are the net sufferers of the consequences of climate damage. On the Paris climate discussion, there was a plan to compensate, to pay applicants in other developing countries for the damage that has happened due to climate change” And he also said that according to the research, more than 1.6 trillion dollars need to be paid for the damage that has happened due to the climate change in Africa, in other developing countries in the world.
He mentioned that the heat of famine and drought has been hitting Africa, especially the Horn region. Recently, more than 40 million Africans have been in need of humanitarian assistance due to the climate change. Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and other parts of East Africa are highly affected by these climate change related problems. And besides expecting compensation from other developing countries, we must also try to solve this problem by improving our green legacy. We must be able to green our transportation sector.
Sanduka said that throughout the conference, valuable discussions took place, covering a wide range of themes relevant to Africa’s environmental challenges. These discussions fostered knowledge sharing, the exchange of best practices, and the identification of innovative approaches to address issues such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, land degradation, pollution control, sustainable energy, and water resource management.
He underlined that Africa’s unity must persist in advocating for consistent and predictable financial, technical, technological, and capacity-building supports, as outlined in the multilateral environmental agreement we have adopted. Akankwasah said that we must be able to restore our damaged ecosystems through a climate smart development agenda.
African expertise and policymakers from almost all African countries are discussing environmental health, and from this session we expect to have at least some common African voices on climate summit issues. And collective agreement on how Africa is going to participate in the technology transition process, energy transition process. We’ve moved away from oil and gas, or we are trying to move away from oil and gas, fossil fuels.
We also need a common approach in Africa to address the issue of chemicals and related pollution management, to address issues of biodiversity loss, and generally also come to agreement on how we can strengthen collaboration and cooperation within African countries to advance the sustainable development agenda in line with the 2063 Africa Development Agenda, he added.
Besides, African countries recognized the need to work together, share experiences, and pool resources to achieve SDGs and served as a catalyst for fostering collaborative efforts among African nations, paving the way for stronger regional environmental governance.
During the conference, ministers and high-level officials engage in discussions, share best practices, and adopt resolutions and declarations that guide environmental policies and actions at both the national and regional levels. The outcomes of AMCEN are instrumental in shaping Africa’s environmental agenda and influencing international negotiations on environmental issues.
And it has also provided a platform for dialogue, knowledge sharing, and the development of practical strategies to tackle pressing environmental issues. With the outcomes and commitments made during the forum, African countries are poised to make tangible progress in achieving a sustainable and prosperous future for the continent.
BY FIKADU BELAY
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 16 AUGUST 2023
