Every week, RuralReporters.com collate reports on development issues in rural Africa and its environs.
This report includes some of our top picks from recent must-read research, interviews, blogs, and in-depth articles, carefully selected to help you keep up with global issues.
Here are some of the updates you may have missed from the previous week:
Togo seeks to appoint a consultant for a rural electrification project
The government of Togo has received a loan from the International Development Association (IDA) to finance the Reform and Investment Project in the electricity sector.
It is intended to use part of the amount of this appropriation to make payments under the consultant services contract for the completion of the preliminary design studies of the regional electricity access project. Under the project, it is planned to electrify 960 rural communities with a first phase of 300. The delegated project management is ensured by the Togolese Rural Electrification and Renewable Energies Agency.
As young Portuguese leave rural areas, Eritrean migrants step in to revive economy
A pilot scheme meant to promote agriculture in Idanha-a-Nova, a small town in central Portugal, is including refugees who arrived in the country as part of a European Union (EU) relocation scheme.
Said and Bashir have been working at the centre for 9 months. They fled Eritrea, making the perilous journey across Africa in search of a better life. Under the scheme, the pair are learning to grow crops like watermelon.
About 5,000 refugees flee Eritrea each month to escape poverty, political persecution and the prospect of potentially indefinite military conscription.
Supporting the “Next Generation” in rural development, – IFAD
Ahead of his address to the Group of Twenty (G20) Ministers of Agriculture Meeting this week, Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), offered the institution’s full support for efforts to increase the sustainable production of nutritious foods.
“Sustainably feeding a growing population will take collective action and IFAD stands ready to partner with the G20 to achieve this,” Houngbo said prior to his departure for Buenos Aires. “With small family farms supplying up to 80 per cent of the food produced in developing countries, it has never been more critical to invest in these farmers, providing the tools for them to better manage their land and ensure the health and productivity of their soil in the face of a changing climate.”
EU support to increase farmers’ voices: the Farmers’ Africa Programme
Farmers’ organisations are fundamental in giving a voice to farmers and in supporting their integration in markets. Their influence on policy making, however, is still weak. Capacity building from the bottom-up is essential for these organisations in order to better contribute to agricultural development. Through the Farmers’ Africa Programme, the EU aims to increase the livelihoods and food security of rural producers in Africa by helping farmers’ organizations (FOs) improve their capacity and skills. This reinforces their role in better shaping policies for agriculture and sustainable development, at national, regional and continental levels.
In Zimbabwe, improved political atmosphere for voters in Zanu-Pf rural strongholds, but fears remain
Opposition party Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC) has concentrations of voters in urban hubs, while Wedza, a rural town in Mashonaland East province, is considered a Zanu-Pf stronghold, as are most rural areas in Zimbabwe. Near Wedza’s bus depot, Elson Chibaya, wearing a Zanu-Pf shirt under his black blazer, says that his connection to the ruling party goes back a long way.
“I’m a freedom fighter. Yes, I’m voting for him [Emmerson Mnangagwa], because I know people of Zanu-Pf, some who died in Chimoio fighting against the white people,” he says, referring to the Rhodesian Security Forces who attacked the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) Mozambique headquarters in 1977, killing 3,000 people.
Can Africa Afford Youth Giving Up on Farming Because of Hurdles They Face?
In my recent conversations with my brother – a young farmer in rural Kenya – he told me that he had decided he was not going to plant any more crops unless they were on drip irrigation. This was based on his firsthand experience of losing crops to the increasingly unpredictable weather patterns brought about by the changing climate. As much as he wants to fill our family’s farm of almost 10 acres with maize, beans, cow peas, cassava and Africa’s green leafy vegetables including amaranth greens, he also knows that if the rains stop halfway through the growth cycle and the scorching sun kicks in, all his work will go to waste as crops wither and die. He concluded by letting me know that if he had access to financing, he would invest in a sustainable water source and put all our family land under solar powered drip irrigation.
After our conversations, I could not help but wonder – Can Africa afford to let its youthful population give up on farming because of the hurdles they face? No, Africa does not have that luxury. Youth under age 35 currently make up 60 percent of Africa’s 1.2 billion people. According to a recent report by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, this number is further expected to double by 2050. Clearly, if it doesn’t empower its growing ranks of young people, it will be hard for the continent to feed its growing population.