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ECA’s work on sustainable development in line with Africa’s priority, says Dione
Addis Ababa, 01 October, 2009 ( ECA) - The Director of Food and Sustainable Development Division at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Dr. Josue Dione said today in Addis Ababa that the Commission’s work, especially in land policy, agriculture and climate change, were in line with the most serious development challenges faced by Africa.
Briefing the Bureau of the fifth session of the Africa Committee on Sustainable Development, Dr. Dione said many conflicts in Africa could be traced to land issues, and that those conflicts would be aggravated with climate change in the years to come.
The Bureau, which consists of Kenya (Chair), Namibia (First Vice Chair), DRC (Second Vice Chair), Sudan (Third Vice Chair) and Senegal as Rapporteur, noted that ECA had made impressive progress in its preparation for the forthcoming Sixth Session of the Committee on Food Security and Sustainable Development (CFSSD-6) scheduled for 27-30 October under which auspices the Africa Regional Implementation Meeting for the Eighteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable will be convened.
Dr. Dione said ECA had largely delivered on its work programme on food security and sustainable development for the 2008/2009 biennium and that FSSD had aligned its work in line with the recommendations of the Africa Committee on Sustainable Development. He said, for instance, that sea level rise in many parts of Africa would reduce the remaining vital space for human habitation, causing more agitation over land use, access and governance.
For this reason, he said, ECA, in partnership with the African Union and the African Development Bank undertook a project to develop land policy framework and guidelines, involving all five subregion and multi-stakeholder participation.
He said the objective of the exercise was to enable African countries to formulate a land policy which provides assurance for the economic efficiency of the use of land resource; social equity in accessing of land as well as sound environmental
management.
Dr. Dione said because the framework document had been endorsed by the AU Summit, ECA had begun to think about how to help African countries in translating the framework and guidelines into country-specific land policy by building internal capacity and setting up knowledge sharing tools.
To assist African countries in adapting to and mitigating the impact of climate change, Dr. Dione said the ECA, in collaboration with its partners, had established the African Climate Policy Centre within it Climate Information for Development in Africa (ClimDev) program.
The Director said ECA was also providing technical advise on the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) by focusing on its regional integration elements and developing agro processing markets along regional strategic commodities.
Issued by the ECA Information and Communication Service P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 5445098 Fax: +251 11 5510365 E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org Web: www.uneca.org
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