Ensure environmental sustainability

 

By 2020, the urban population of Africa is expected to be 646 million, in 2000 it was 302 million (FAO 2003). While insufficient data exists to accurately ascertain the magnitude of urbanization, available statistics indicate a current rate of urbanization in Africa of around 3.5 percent per year (UNCHS 2001). By 2030, the proportion of Africa’s urbanized population is expected to reach 53.5 percent, compared to 39 percent in 2005. This fast rate of urbanization places strain on infrastructure and other services.

This calls for integrated approaches to environmental planning and management. In the absence of alternative livelihood opportunities and strategic management of the environment, the rapid population growth and urbanization has resulted in environmental degradation and resource depletion. Between 1990 and 2000, Africa lost 52 million hectares of forests: amounting to a decrease of 0.8 percent per year and 56 percent of the global total (FAO 2003). It is estimated that 60 percent of the tropical forest areas cleared in Africa as a whole between 1990 and 2000 were converted to permanent agricultural smallholdings.

Although Africa has some of the lowest per capita emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, it carries the greatest burden of climate sensitive diseases. Environmental degradation can affect access to education as children will spend more time collecting firewood and fetching water instead of attending school. In Malawi, where more than 90 percent of households use firewood as their main source of energy, children in fuel wood-scarce districts are 10 to 15 percent less likely to attend secondary school.

Almost 50 percent of the developing world’s population – 2.5 billion people – lack improved sanitation facilities, and over 884 million people still use unsafe drinking water sources. Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation services, coupled with poor hygiene practices, kills and sickens thousands of children every day, and leads to impoverishment and diminished opportunities for thousands more.Sanitation coverage is lowest in South Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of people do not have access to improved sanitation. For water, coverage remains below 60 percent of the population in both sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania.

In countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, 4 out of 5 children either use surface water or have to walk more than 15 minutes to find a protected water source. Unclean water spreads diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhoea, which kill 5 million people per year, mainly children. More than half of Africans suffer from such water-related diseases. 400 million school-aged children a year are infected by intestinal worms that sap their cognitive abilities. Sick, pregnant and post-partum women are most likely to suffer from lack of sanitation and to pass disease on to their children.(CSD)
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(Sources: “Africa environment outlook”, 2005, UNDP; “Ensure environmental sustainability”, UNICEF).

Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most heavily affected by HIV, with southern Africa remaining the area most heavily affected by it. In 2008, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 67 percent of HIV infections worldwide, 68 percent of new HIV infections among adults and 91 percent of new HIV infections among children. The region also accounted for 72 percent of the world’s AIDS-related deaths in 2008. 75 percent of all HIV infections are young women aged 15 to 24. As of 2007, an estimated 47.5 million children in sub-Saharan Africa had lost one or both parents to AIDS or other causes.

According to WHO, nearly a million people died of malaria in 2006, 95 percent of them lived in sub-Saharan Africa, and the vast majority was children under five. Between 190 million and 330 million episodes of malaria occurred that year, with 88 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. The risk of dying from malaria is considerably higher in sub-Saharan Africa than other parts of the world for several reasons: transmission of the disease is more intense, the more lethal form of the malaria parasite — Plasmodium falciparum — is more abundant, and the region tends to have weak health systems.

(Sources: “ChildInfo. Monitoring the Situation of Children and Women”, UNICEF based on UNAIDS and WHO, AIDS Epidemic Update, 2009; “The Global Gender Gap Report”, 2009, World Economic Forum; “The Millennium Development Goals Report”, 2009, UN) (CSD)

Who are Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists?

Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram - which has caused havoc in Africa's most populous country through a wave of bombings - is fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state. 

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau says his group will not be defeated

Its followers are said to be influenced by the Koranic phrase which says: "Anyone who is not governed by what Allah has revealed is among the transgressors".
Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society.
This includes voting in elections, wearing shirts and trousers or receiving a secular education.
Boko Haram regards the Nigerian state as being run by non-believers, even when the country had a Muslim president.

This isn't supposed to be a 'blog' credit - its just something I found interesting

Despite its vast resources, Nigeria ranks among the most unequal countries in the world, according to the UN. The poverty in the north is in stark contrast to the more developed southern states. While in the oil-rich south-east, the residents of Delta and Akwa Ibom complain that all the wealth they generate flows up the pipeline to Abuja and Lagos.

Christian life in northern Nigeria

Nigeria's militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, and the security forces have been accused by Amnesty International of committing widespread atrocities in the mainly Muslim north. 

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden", is fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.
On Sunday, a church was bombed, leaving eight people dead in Kaduna, one of the cities affected by the conflict. Although Boko Haram has not said it carried out the attacks, it has claimed responsibility for similar bombings across northern and central Nigeria.
Obadiah Diji, youth leader of the Christian Association of Kaduna, gave the BBC an account of how life has changed in the city.

Boko Haram crisis: Nigeria raids 'kill 17 militants'

Nigeria's military said it has killed 17 insurgents in an attack on two training camps belonging to the Boko Haram Islamist group.

Nigeria under attack
One soldier was also killed in the firefight that broke out after they moved in on the camps, backed by helicopter gunships, the military said.
Spokesman Lt Col Sagir Musa said the "fortified" camps were in a forest and a game reserve in Borno State.
Boko Haram is seeking to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria.
The group has been blamed for the deaths of some 1,400 people in central and northern Nigeria since 2010.
The military "conducted two special operations supported by Nigerian Airforce helicopter gunship[s] to dislodge Boko Haram training camps" in the Ruwa forest and the Sambisa Game Reserve, Lt Col Musa said in a statement.
"The camp was properly... fortified and had training facilities, an armoury, accommodation, a drug store, kitchen, vehicle holding area, latrine and water points," he said.
Boko Haram has not yet commented on the incident.
The group was formed in Maiduguri, capital of the north-eastern Borno State, in 2002.

David Cameron in Liberia to focus on 'eradicating extreme poverty'

PM also calls for focus on education during visit to school with Liberian president ahead of role co-chairing UN poverty meeting

David Cameron has called for the next wave of international development targets to focus on extreme rather than relative poverty. The dispute about poverty targets is one of a set of differences due to be thrashed out at a UN high-level meeting on the next millennium development goals after 2015.
Cameron is co-chair of the panel that is meeting in Monrovia, Liberia.
Before the start of the panel on Friday, Cameron went to a local school with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the charismatic 74-year-old Liberian president. The children told them they needed books and computers. Cameron then asked what they wanted to be when they became adults and many replied doctors or lawyers. Cameron joked: "That is very impressive. In my country, they all want to be footballers or pop stars," before adding that was not fair.
The children had written a welcome sign for their two special guests in chalk on the blackboard in their dark and crowded classroom. Cameron told the children he would like world poverty goals to include higher quality education.