The world marks social justice day every February 20. The day provides an opportunity to foster dialogue among communities to strengthen the social contract that has been fractured by rising inequalities, conflicts, and weakened institutions.
This year, the UN chose ‘Our Common Agenda’ as its theme but for the majority of the poor, communities in Africa, nothing can be so far from reality.
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“As things stand, the global agenda appears to be leaving African communities behind,” Dr Rosalid Nkirote, the Executive Director of the African Coalition of Communities Responsive to Climate Change (ACCRCC) said.
The number of people within our communities who sleep and wake up on empty stomachs is on the rise. The number of people that have lost their jobs, hence, sources of income because of COVID, conflicts, climate crisis, and non-performing national economies has risen.
Families are struggling to educate their children let alone meet bills related to healthcare, shelter, and transport. Poverty and inequalities within and on the continent of Africa are on the rise.
As the UN notes, the multilateral system has failed to adapt to a changing environment and no longer has concrete and coordinated responses to many of the most pressing challenges our communities grapple with.
The growing gap between international commitments and concrete achievements has fragilized multilateral action and its credibility, resulting in open criticism and disengagement.
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The twin tragedies of COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have shrunk windows of opportunities by reversing gains from the rebound of the global economy from 2021 and thus pushed Africa deeper into problems.
Coupled with the devastating drought, the result of the climate crisis, the apparent neglect of programmes that could benefit the grassroot communities are telling.
Climate change alone is raking havoc on the African Union’s Agenda 2063, which among others aims at improving real per-capita incomes, reducing the incidence of hunger, especially amongst Women and Youth, and creating job opportunities.
Governments are struggling to grapple with the negative impacts of climate change. In the words of Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, the brutal injustice of climate change is on full display with every flood, drought, famine, and heatwave endured on this continent
In the East and horn of Africa, millions have lost their livelihoods.
The prolonged drought has hit the climate-dependent economies of countries in this region owing to deficit rainfall continuing through early 2023 with indications showing this to persist the entire year.
According to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa (IGAD), 22.5 to 23.4 million people have been facing acute food insecurity primarily due to drought in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia as of January 2023.
In Kenya, the government is reporting that about six million people in 32 counties are affected by the prolonged drought and acute malnutrition following a fifth consecutive poor rainfall season.
The situation is particularly grim in the counties classified as arid and semi-arid, according to a report by Kenya’s National Drought and Management Authority, released this week.
Climate change is literally leaving governments with little room to maneuver on the social fronts.
Currently malnutrition, maternal, child, and neonatal deaths are on the rise, access to safe drinking water and sanitation is only in people’s dreams and over 600 million Africans have no access to energy.
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Access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa was set to decrease in 2021. Some 597 million people did not have electricity connections in the region that year, while in 2020 electrical energy was inaccessible to 581 million Africans. This means that around five out of every 10 individuals in sub-Saharan lived in the dark.
In rural areas, the situation is even worse: over 70 percent of the population lack access to electricity. Among Africa’s regions, Central and West Africa registered the most dramatic scenario, with electrification covering less than half of the population.
According to the International Energy Agency in 2021, developing and emerging economies received a mere 8% of all clean-energy investment — most of the remainder went to industrialized countries and China.
There are implications for economic development. Without clean electricity in abundance, many low- and middle-income nations will find it harder to catch up and industrialize.
More money needs to be made available to them. So far, national pledges to the Green Climate Fund have come up short.
What is needed are more initiatives such as the Global Climate Alliance, proposed at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt in November 2022. These commit rich countries to contribute to a climate financing pool-using funds generated through carbon tax programmes and other methods.
The economic crisis triggered by COVID-19 worsened the poverty level in Africa, leaving households in vulnerability and unable to afford electrical energy.
More than ever, it is urgent for the multilateral system to deliver and contribute to bringing solutions to people’s daily problems, and to do so in a more efficient and coherent manner.
With these, barriers that appeared to be waning against the continent, as the world seemed to warm up on trading with Africa have been reinforced.
Inwardly, the continent is yet to show commitment to rediscovering the inner strength to find its own footing.
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In the 12 months that African leaders vowed to improve food security on the continent, over 20 million more people have been pushed into severe hunger – equivalent to the entire population of Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe combined.
“The hunger African people are facing today is a direct result of inadequate political choices,” said Dr Nkirote.
Opinion piece by Sally Mbula, Communication officer, African Coalition of Communities Responsive to Climate Change (ACCRCC)
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