Day: June 15, 2023

Harnessing the water and land resource productive potential of the country is imperative to realize Ten Year Development Plan , (TYDP) which is an ambitious goal of eradicating poverty and transforming the economy, State Minister of Water and Energy, Asfaw Dingamo said.

A high level national conference is held in Addis Ababa under the theme "Research, Act, Impact: Harnessing the research-policy-practice-complementariness in water, land, climate and livelihoods.

At the conference, the Water and Land Resources Center, Addis Ababa University, presented the activities it has carried out on transformative research and innovative development actions for sustainable development in the country.

On the occasion, State minister of Water and Energy, Asfaw Dingamo stated that the government of Ethiopia has developed aTen Year Development Plan (TYDP) with a view to eradicating poverty and transforming the economy.

"For this to be realized, harnessing the water and land resource productive potential is imperative," he noted.

Moreover, he stated that the ministry is striving to contribute to this national endeavor by ensuring integrated water resource management and full access to clean drinking water, sanitation, and energy supply to citizens by 2030.

Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer at Addis Ababa University, Professor Mitike Molla said the Water and Land Resources Center is one of the core research institutes of the university operating in different parts of the country for several years.

If we take an example, one of its projects around Tana Bales undertakes an intervention study which controls land degradation by covering the land mass by plantation, controlling the silt level at the tributaries of Abbay River, she elaborated.

Professor Mitike reiterated that the project empowers the community with knowledge, economy, and livelihood which can contribute to land protection.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency

Ethiopian coffee occupies a special place globally as the country is the birth place of coffee with incredible diversity which every company wants to purchase, World Coffee Research Asian and Africa Director Kraig Kraft said.

In an exclusive interview with ENA, Kraft noted that “Ethiopian coffee occupies a very special place globally. As the birth place of coffee, there is incredible diversity and quality of Ethiopian coffee that every company wants to purchase and every coffee drinker around the globe wants to drink.”

Stressing the need to continue to promote the brand of Ethiopian coffee across the globe, he said “I think everyone across the globe purchases Ethiopian coffee.”

Highlighting that there is a demand to produce more coffee, he said it needs to taking care and respect the natural environment.

“The solution we are putting forward is to figure out how you can increase the productivity of the existing coffee farms and the existing coffee farmers.”

More than 5 million households relay on coffee production in Ethiopia.

Citing that there is lot of varieties of coffee in Ethiopia, Kraig stressed that the future of Ethiopia’s coffee is bright but there is a need for a lot of innovation on how Ethiopian farmers access the global market.

For the director, working on increasing research and development, innovation, and new varieties that can meet the increasing demand is crucial.

Director of Crop Research at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Taye Tadesse said Ethiopia is a country with huge genetic resources for a number of crops and coffee is one of the crops to use the genetic resource.

In order to meet the challenges posed especially by climate change and shifting of the global market, accelerating innovation on breeding of improved coffee varieties is a must to ensure coffee’s continued success in Ethiopia, it was indicated.

Relating to the volatility of the weather condition, there are uncertainties in term of the weather and the amount of rainfall, he said, adding the temperature which is increasing will have significant effect on the coffee sector.

He stressed the need to have a vibrant sector that can address the challenges today. Despite the huge change in terms of the weather, there is a possibility to overcome it because of the fact that Ethiopia has very huge genetic resource, he stated.

Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority (ECTA) this week told ENA that Ethiopia has obtained over 1.1 billion USD from coffee exports in the 11 months of this concluding Ethiopian fiscal year.

The authority attributed the success to the emphasis given to exporting high-quality coffee, as the share of the specialty coffee in Ethiopia has reached 70 percent.

Coffee is critical to Ethiopia’s economy, generating 24 percent of the nation’s export income. USA, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and Germany are the major coffee export destinations of Ethiopia.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency

An African initiative to end the war in Ukraine, led by South Africa started on Thursday, June 15.

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa landed in the Polish capital, Warsaw where he met with the country’s President, Andrzej Duda.

Ramaphosa along with Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema; Senegalese president Macky Sall and Comoran president Azali Assoumani are expected to meet Zelensky on Friday and then travel to St Petersburg to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and Republic of Congo president Denis Sassou-Nguesso have all pulled out according to official sources. Sassou-Nguesso tried to persuade the other participants to postpone the peace mission on the grounds that the launch of Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russia had made a visit to Kyiv too dangerous.

A document aimed at finding a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict is expected to be formulated by the countries involved in the mission.

Foreign ministers from the seven African nations will draft the peace plan after the presidents have met Zelensky and Putin.

Over the weekend, Ramaphosa spoke with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping who endorsed the talks.

The Presidency of South Africa stated that “President Ramaphosa noted the peace plan that has been proposed by China and affirmed South Africa’s and the African leaders’ support of initiatives that are aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict. President Xi Jinping commended the initiative by the African continent and acknowledged the impact the conflict has had on human lives and on food security in Africa”.

South Africa has in the past few months faced a backlash over its non-aligned stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This led to South Africa abstaining from the United Nations vote on Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories, while 143 countries voted in favor of the resolution.

In a further escalation of tensions, US ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety rocked US relations with South Africa by publicly announcing that the US was “confident” that the South African government had loaded weapons and ammunition onto the Russian cargo ship Lady R in Simon’s Town in December 2022.

The planned talks led by Ramaphosa’s government will also be a useful opportunity for South Africa to redeem her image before the watchful eyes of the Western world which have even sought to punish the country for what they deem as covert support for Russia.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

On June 14, 2023, health staff of the blood bank unit of the Bamenda regional hospital could barely sit as persons trooped in to perform a philanthropic gesture.

Men and women within the 20-40 age range after performing tests, all queued to complete the blood extraction process. Some are coming in for the first time like Lum and Cyril “We are coming in for the first time. It is true that there’s some fear but we are doing it for our brothers.”

The blood bank of the Bamenda regional hospital is running below capacity with less than a hundred sacks for a 600-unit store “The situation of our blood bank is really not good and we are unable to satisfy the needs of the population… We have a capacity of 600 units but due to the crisis, we have not been able to do outdoor extractions and now we have less than 100 sacks in stock. Some months we could have a demand for blood of about 250 sacks. How do we handle this?” Dr. Denis Nsame director of the Bamenda regional hospital told reporters.

The health structure has a blood list of some 250 voluntary donors who have been giving blood for about 3-20 years. Leonard Fonyuy is one of them “I have been giving blood in the Bamenda regional hospital for 9 years. I do that every 3 months and I must confess I am elated to know that thanks to my freewill, many are saved”

Another donor Fru Ngang Tangie, draws from his misfortune to become a philanthropist” I had accident years back on a football field in Douala. I was lucky to receive 2 blood sacks from 2 different hospitals… Since then, I made it a duty to donate blood”

Since the start of the socio-political unrest in the North West region of Cameroon, medics say, accessing blood has been very challenging “It is very unsafe to visit some communities now thus we have reduced our outdoor blood donation campaigns. Now we wait for donors in the hospital or do outreach to safe communities with the ambulance, “ Dr. Denis Nsame director of the Bamenda regional hospital lamented.

On world blood donor day 2023, voluntary donors of the Bamenda regional hospital were awarded attestation for their participation in saving lives in the crisis-hit region.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

Insecurity in the city of Douala has become of great concern as theft, urban disorder are on the rise. The National Command Center for video surveillance, an annex of Douala has been inaugurated by President Paul Biya’s representative, the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

The presence at the inauguration of the Delegate General for national security Martin Mbarga Nguele and other top officials of the region including partners who executed the project, defense and security forces, and administrative and traditional authorities shows the relevance of the center to peace and security.

The control center will assist, reinforce and help security forces to detect all forms of crime, accidents, traffic disruption, and other forms of urban disorder in Douala and its environs.

The video surveillance cameras are visible in most roundabouts in the city of Douala.

According to Minister Delegate Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, “This project is in line with the implementation of the “Cameroon smart city project” by President Paul Biya, created in 2014. It seeks to reinforce the operational capacities of defense and security forces in the country with state of the art technology,”.

He called on partners, security, and defense forces to ensure proper maintenance of the equipment to guarantee stability and reduce criminality in the country.

A project which aims to install 5000 video surveillance cameras in all ten regions of the country already has about 3000 cameras, installed.

Source: Cameroon News Agency