Resources and Development Journal

RESILIENCE-A CORE CONCEPT IN WATER GOVERNANCE
Resilience is becoming a core concept in water governance. It refers to the ability of communities, cities or regions to withstand the challenges posed by an increased intensity and frequency of floods and droughts. Resilience often involves adopting diverse, flexible, adaptive and redundant or supplemental systems. This pertains to both physical infrastructures and governance arrangements. Resilience in the urban water sector also focuses on restoring and maintaining water ecosystems, such as wetlands, rivers or streams. The Stockholm-based Resilience Alliance and other Euro-American institutions have largely driven the frameworks for resilience. However, they are now increasingly being applied in African cities. For example, Accra, Cape Town, Dakar, Durban, Enugu and Kigali are all participating in the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative. Each city appoints a chief resilience officer to lead action on addressing its specific resilience challenges. For Cape Town these include civil unrest, rainfall flooding, infrastructure failure and disease outbreaks.

URBAN SANITATION IN AFRICA STILL POOR
Over the last 15 years, only 68 million people gained access to improved sanitation in urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa. This is a big achievement however urban population grew by an estimated 167 million. That leaves an additional 99 million urban dwellers without access to improved sanitation. Since the beginning of this century there has been an increase in the number of people without access to improved sanitation in 42 out of 51 African countries. With the rapid rate of urbanisation on the continent, this number is going to increase. This means there are 99 million – and rising – urban dwellers who are at increased risk of diarrhoea and other diseases spread by contact with faeces.
The lack of sanitation in these areas is causes roughly 50 000 deaths per year. The health risks associated with poor sanitation include stunting in children as well as malnutrition, illness from poor sanitation prevents children from going to school and adults from going to work. The economic impact of the lack of sanitation has been estimated at up to $80 billion annually for Africa. Unfortunately, what should have been 15 years of investment in sanitation under the MDGs hasn’t materialised in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sanitation did not initially get the attention it deserved. As result there was lower investment and slower progress globally.
COMMENT!

RE-GREENING CHEAPER THAN AGROFORESTRY
Re-greening is a process in which farmers protect and manage trees that naturally regenerate on their land, rather than cut them down. Regenerated trees and shrubs help restore degraded lands and provide many benefits – from increased crop yields, recharging groundwater, providing fodder and firewood, and storing carbon. Through the African Re-Greening Initiatives and other endeavors, there is also need to work with local partners to develop a strategy for scaling up re-greening successes that have already taken place across Africa. COMMENT

WORLD LEFT WITH LESS THAN HALF OF THE CARBON BUDGET
Carbon budget refers to an internationally agreed upon target of the amount of carbon dioxide the world can emit while still having a likely chance of limiting average global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The world has already burned over 52 percent of the carbon budget. Experts revealed that if emissions continue unabated, we’ll exceed it entirely in about 30 years. Blowing this budget would expose the world to more severe forest fires, extreme weather, sea level rise, and other climate impacts. COMMENT!!!

EXPLOIT NATURAL RESOURCES SUSTAINABLY
Humans are responsible for exploitation of natural resources like on timber, oil, animal pelts, and ivory. Today the demand out-paces the supply, and this has led to a new challenge: Finding an economic value for slowing down our consumption of nature’s bounty and treading more gently on the earth. To balance the needs of people and wildlife, there is need to work with industries involved in natural resource extraction, to help them manage their concessions more sustainably. The local communities whose livelihoods depend on hunting, fishing, and the extraction of other natural resources also need to be assisted to find new economic opportunities that promote both human well-being and animal conservation as well as wipe out harmful wildlife trade. COMMENT!!!!!!

WHY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES NEED TO EMBRACE SECURE TENURE
Secure land tenure affects investment, credit availability, poverty rates, land values, and agricultural productivity. All these are related to economic performance. With secure land tenure, individuals & groups of people can make investments, secure credit, sell land, and make longer term decisions about agricultural practices. Contrary, developing countries with large informal sector land insecure tenure lack opportunities to invest in or profit from land since they always have a risk of transacting. In order to increase GDP, developing countries should formalize property rights to encourage more of these transactions as this will result into improved economic status. COMMENT!!!

WHY SUSTAINABLE WATER MANAGEMENT?
Water is life. There is a growing pressure on water resources ranging from population and economic growth, climate change and pollution. Half of the world’s wetlands have already been lost to development. The world’s water is increasingly becoming degraded in quality, threatening the health of people and ecosystems and increasing the cost of treatment. Some 780 million people around the globe still lack access to clean water and thousands perish daily for lack of it. The world’s water problems stem from our failure to meet basic human needs, ineffective or inappropriate institutions and management, and our inability to balance human needs with the needs of the natural world. What about the future???
COMMENT!

AFRICA'S ENERGY GOVERNANCE NEEDS TO BE REFOCUSED
Most developing countries in Africa need to break the monopoly on the way to develop power/energy infrastructure. This can be: off-grid to mini-grids to on-grid, from small-scale to large-scale, from government-owned, to private-sector, and to community-owned. Shifting to more sustainable and efficient energy systems globally is important for tackling climate change – one of the most serious threat to future poverty eradication. To increase energy access, models for energy service delivery need to serve the poor and must integrate ‘bottom-up’ and context sensitive approaches. COMMENT!!!

40,000 Ha ACHOLI LAND STILL QUESTIONABLE
Acholi leaders are determined to block the planned survey of the over land in Amuru District that the Government intends to give to Madvhani Group for sugarcane growing. This move follows a series of correspondences between the Attorney General and Lands Minister be Surveyed. Residents were advised to that their properties be recorded and valued to pave way for the project. Leaders in Acholi sub region are blaming government for failure to listen to their grievances in regard to this land in question.
COMMENT!!!!!!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY BLESSED 2015
It’s that time of year again when friends and family think about the Christmases of the past and plan for the coming holiday with their loved ones in mind. As we reflect on this wonderful holiday, we must keep in mind that Christmas is not just any holiday but may be the most important one of the year for some people. It is a time for remembering, a time to share the goodness of your heart with others, and for expressing with words and gifts what someone means to you. It is a chance to make wishes come true and to give something from your heart. It is a chance to give a message that will express love and caring to the ones we care about the most. Merry Christmas and happy 2015. Thanks for the continued support and love.