My first encounter with the concept of Climate Change was in 2015 as a student volunteer for an organisation that was drafting an African youth position paper on Climate Change in the build-up to COP 21 in Paris, France. Before this, the idea of global warming was something I had a limited understanding of. However, the issue of climate change presented a whole new lens on a global phenomenon that many are completely unaware of. The initial stages of drafting this paper found me eagerly catching up on climate change terminologies such as adaptation, carbon footprint and emissions to name a few. As the twenty-first session of theĀ ConferenceĀ of the Parties (COP) was drawing to a near one thing was evidently clear to me that my motherland Africa was yet again confounded with another momentous hurdle that if not adequately dwelt will further stagnant the development of her people.
Fast-forward to four years later and we find that African nations are finding themselves overwhelmed and ill-prepared to deal with the devastating loss of life caused by heavy rains, storms, and tornadoes. However, as I accompanied Mrs. GraƧa Machel, in her capacity as Chair of The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), to the Local and Regional Governments, Sentinels of Dreams in Durban, on the 14th of November, I realised that climate change can offer us Africans a new way of creating a shared future that will ensure the safety, well ā being and development of us all.
This new way sees the establishment of partnerships across gender, nations, age, and ideologies that will have us consider the best future strategies. No other organisation has been asĀ intentional about its mission likeĀ ACCORD, evidence being through its “Planting Trees and Not Bombs” campaign!
The action, under ACCORDS Global Peace program, is to embark on a campaign that intends to plant 75 million trees across the world by 2020. This campaign coincides with the 75 years of the commemoration of the founding of the United Nations next year. “Planting Trees and Not Bombs” is spearheaded by the military as the first tree was planted during the convention in Durban with soldiers from the South Africa National Defence Force (SANDF). Revolutionary efforts such as these are a step in the right direction to working towards undoing the damage that we have inflicted on our environment. The significance of this cannot be emphasised enough especially since current research estimates that the overall global military spending in 2018 reached US$1.82million.
While addressing the participants, Mrs. Machel discussed how the movement of āPlanting Trees Not Bombsā seeks to communicate a message that we do not need to spend large sums of money to secure our future through arms and weapons of human destruction. She remindedĀ those who were present in the room of the efforts made by Thomas Sankara to combat deforestation in his country, Burkina Faso and about the activism of Wangari Maathai in galvanizing women to plant trees. Wangari Maathai said that “the generation that destroys the environment is not the generation that pays the price”.
That right there is the problem! So as we enter another decade, let us reflect on the world that we wish to leave for those that will come behind us. Emerson, the 19th-century American essayist, and poet put it this way: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.ā In our current borrowing of the earth, we cannot afford to pass on the debt of a dying ecosystem to the next generation. Our environmental efforts need to move beyond being for simple tokenism instead all stakeholders need to be more intentional in the creation of ground-breaking partnerships that will see a future with climate change resilient nations. If we fail to do this now, we shall never see the day when Africa achieves the development that it has so desperately been seeking, but most importantly, the prosperity that its people deserve!
The Trust supports and mobilises civil society networks on issues of ending child marriage, ending violence against children, ending female genital mutilation and promoting childrenās rights, to carry out advocacy and action across Africa. Special focus is placed on Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia where child marriage continues to be a problem largely driven by poverty, gender inequality, harmful traditional practices, conflict, low levels of literacy, limited opportunities for girls and weak or non-existent protective and preventive legal frameworks.
Education is a fundamental right for all children, which is also a vehicle for social, economic and political transformation in communities, countries and the African continent at large. Recent studies indicate a lack of progress in some of the critical commitments aimed at improving education quality, access, retention and achievement, particularly for girls. In most African countries, girls may face barriers to learning, especially when they reach post-primary levels of education. By implementing multi-dimensional approaches to education which includes core education, personal development, life skills and economic competencies, the Trust partners with funding partners, governments, civil societies and the private sector to improve education access.
The Nutrition and Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition, (RMNCAH+N) of the Childrenās Rights and Development Programme aims at promoting the Global Strategy for women, children and adolescentsā health within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda. The strategy emphasises on the importance of effective country leadership as a common factor across countries making progress in improving the health of women, children and adolescents.
Through its Early Childhood Development (ECD) plan, The Trust will seek to put into action the new science and evidence Report that was presented by Lancet Series on Good and early development – the right of every child. This will be achieved by mobilising like-minded partners to contribute in the new science and evidence to reach all young children with ECD. The Trustās goal is to be a catalyst for doing things differently, in particular, to rid fragmentation and lack of coordination across ECD sectors. In response to evidence showing the importance of political will in turning the tide against the current poor access and quality of ECD. Even before conception, starting with a motherās health and social economic conditions, the early years of a childās life form a fundamental foundation that determines whether a child will survive and thrive optimally.