African conference on agriculture, food security and climate change

6 to 8 September 2010. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. More than 100 researchers and policymakers met this month to try to articulate a common African position ahead of the United Nations climate change conference due to take place in Mexico in December.

In 2009 at the thirteenth African Union summit, heads of state tasked the African Union Commission (AUC) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to develop an agriculture-based climate change mitigation and adaptation framework, which is apparently still under progress.

The September meeting was meant "to make sure that Africa will benefit from the climate change discussions'' and to ensure that agriculture was not ignored in negotiations, according to a statement released by Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, the African Union's Uganda-born commissioner for rural economy and agriculture since 2008.

"Food security, agriculture and climate change… are all inextricably linked with significant consequences for us if they are not carefully managed," she said.

Tumusiime urged researchers to consider how Africa could benefit from carbon gas trade arrangements like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

She noted that only two percent of CDM's market-related projects come from Africa. The fifty-sixth meeting of the CDM executive board takes place from 13 to 17 September 2010 in New York, USA.

At the climate change meeting in Cancún, Mexico, at the end of 2010, African negotiators will focus at sustainable land management, which they argue has the potential to mitigate climate change and strengthen the economic resilience to the impacts of global warming.

The seventh African Development Forum will meet from 10 to 15 October 2010, on the theme of Acting on Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa, at the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The forum is a collaboration between by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in partnership with the AUC and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

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African Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change Holds in Addis Ababa
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
African Union
NEPAD