KINSHASA, Dem. Rep. of Congo (DRC) December 19, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ – Security forces in Democratic Republic of Congo must halt a series of politically motivated arrests, including arbitrary and unlawful arrests following disputed elections, Amnesty International said today.

Dozens of arrests have been carried out across the country since the 28 November elections, frequently targeting members and supporters of the political opposition.

“The Congolese security forces seem to be taking advantage of the tense climate of uncertainty following the recent elections to carry out this series of politically motivated arrests, including unlawful and arbitrary arrests that threaten to stifle freedoms of expression and assembly,” said Paule Rigaud, Amnesty International’s Deputy Africa Programme Director.

“These arrests must end. Those detained must be released unless they are promptly charged with legitimate criminal offence and brought before a judge to challenge the legality of their detention with full respect of their fair trial rights, including access to a lawyer.”

Reports suggest that the practice is used as a method of intimidation and the victims include civilians, journalists, lawyers and opposition politicians, as well as some security force officers themselves.

Four community radio journalists were arrested by agents of the national intelligence agency (Agence nationale de renseignements, ANR) on 14 December, early morning, in Kabambare, in the eastern province of Maniema after being accused of violating an official decision to close down their radio station. Three of them were released in the afternoon the same day, while the fourth one was released on 15 December in the afternoon.

On 13 December in Bukavu, South Kivu, agents of the Congolese National Police (Police Nationale Congolaise, PNC) reportedly beaten and arrested lawyer Eustache Nsimba and brought him to an unknown location. He had been taking part in a march organized by the opposition. Bukavu’s mayor had been previously informed about the march but allegedly banned it during a radio announcement. Eustache Nsimba was released later the same day.

Amnesty international has also learned that security agents were involved in the arbitrary arrests of at least two Union for Democracy and Social Progress (Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social, UDPS) members in Katanga province. Both members of the main opposition party are still being detained, with one of them held incommunicado at the ANR holding cell.

According to a local NGO, members of the national army (FARDC) have also reportedly abducted or arbitrarily arrested a dozen of other army officers and PNC agents as well as civilians since the beginning of December in Kinshasa. All those arrested were allegedly targeted because they come from Equateur province and the two Kasai provinces, two strongholds of the opposition.

The whereabouts of some of the detainees is unknown, while others are being detained incommunicado in military camps in Kinshasa such as Kokolo camp or in other facilities that fall outside the scrutiny of any judicial authority, such as the Tshatshi camp and the Groupe Litho Moboti (GLM) Building.

Amnesty International urges the Congolese authorities to clarify the fate of those being detained, and release them if they are not promptly charged with a legitimate criminal offence, allowed to challenge the lawfulness of their continuing detention and granted access to their families and lawyers.

The organization also calls on the Congolese authorities to ensure a thorough, impartial and independent investigation is carried out into reported human rights violations, including unlawful killings of demonstrators, carried out by the DRC security forces and others in the immediate run-up to the elections.

“Numerous reports of human rights violations marred the run-up to the Congolese elections, and continue, with restrictions placed on freedom of expression and assembly, and security forces intimidating opposition supporters and human rights defenders,” said Paule Rigaud.

“All those responsible for such violations must be investigated and swiftly brought to justice. Impunity would only fuel further violence and abuses.”

SOURCE

Amnesty International

TOKYO, Japan, December 13, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The presidential and legislative elections took place on November 28 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission announced the provisional results on December 9.

Japan is concerned about a number of violent incidents observed during the election process and appeals all the parties to exercise maximum restraint and to act responsibly without using violence. Japan has been supporting the democratization in the DRC and continues to follow closely the situation in the DRC.

SOURCE

Japan – Ministry of Foreign Affairs

BERLIN, Germany, November 22, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Corruption is getting worse in Southern Africa and most people pay bribes for public services (Transparency International).

New survey from Transparency International shows the police are seen as most corrupt.

More than half of all those who come in contact with public service providers – 56 per cent – were asked to pay a bribe in the past year, according to a new survey of six Southern African countries published by Transparency International (http://www.transparency.org), the anti-corruption organisation.

The survey also found that across the region 62 per cent of people believe corruption has become worse in the past three years.

Daily Lives and Corruption, Public Opinion in Southern Africa surveyed more than 6,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe between 2010 and 2011.

The good news is that 80 per cent of those interviewed said they were prepared to get involved in the fight against corruption and three-quarters said ordinary people can make a difference in the fight against corruption.

“Governments must wake up to the fact that people will not tolerate corruption any more and start reforming weak institutions, particular the police. People have a right to feel that they are protected by the police and not harassed,” said Chantal Uwimana, Regional Director for Africa and the Middle East at Transparency International.

The report found that people in all six countries named the police as the most corrupt service provider of the nine featured in the survey and that most bribes were paid to the police.

The results showed some regional differences. In four out of the six countries people reported paying bribes to speed up services but in South Africa and the DRC more bribes were paid to avoid problems with the authorities.

In five of the six countries people trusted the government more than non-governmental organisations, the media, international organisations or the private sector to fight corruption. In Malawi, however, non-governmental organisations were trusted just as much as the government.

Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of Transparency International

Transparency International (http://www.transparency.org) is the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption.

Note to editors:

The survey asked questions concerning the following nine pubic services: police, judiciary, customs, registry and permit services, land services, medical services, tax revenues, utilities and education.

Table: Percentage of respondents who have paid a bribe to one of 9 service providers

SOURCE

Transparency International

The ACP EPA countries group themselves into seven regions: five in Africa, one in the Caribbean and one in the Pacific.

This helps the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) take full account of the particularities of individual countries.

EPAs also give special attention to:
individual ACP country’s geography and structure – emphasising vulnerable landlocked and island topographies.
the need for ACP countries to take ownership of their development and design their own strategies for achieving growth and prosperity.
the involvement of non-government bodies in EPA negotiations, including civil society and members of the business community.
development level – focusing on the least developed countries.

EU trade statistics

Download: ACP excluding South Africa
Download: ACP including South Africa

39 of the world’s 49 least-developed countries (LDCs) are ACP countries, most of them in Africa.
Together the EU and ACP account for:
1.35 billion people
20.1% of the world’s total landmass
€80bn in trade (2007), with the EU importing €40.2bn from the ACPs and exporting €39.7bn.

The seven ACP regions

Africa

South
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa.
Main exports to the EU: diamonds, oil, fish, beef, sugar, tobacco
Main imports from the EU: machinery, vehicles, chemicals
EPA negotiations with SADC
SADC website

East
Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA)
Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Main exports to the EU: copper, raw cane sugar, textiles, tobacco, processed tuna, coffee
Main imports from the EU: machinery, vehicles, chemicals
EPA negotiations with ESA
ESA website

East African Community (EAC)
Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.
Main exports to the EU: plants, cut flowers, coffee, vegetables, fish, tobacco
Main imports from the EU: machinery, chemicals, vehicles
EPA negotiations with EAC
EAC website

West
West Africa
All 15 members of ECOWAS and Mauritania
Main exports to the EU: oil, cocoa, bananas, pineapples, wood
Main imports from the EU: machinery, vehicles
Most important region for trade – 40% of all EU-ACP trade
EPA negotiations with West Africa

Central
Central Africa
All six members of the Economic Community of Central African States (CEMAC), plus the Democratic Republic of Congo and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Main exports to the EU: oil, wood products, diamonds, cocoa, bananas
Main imports from the EU: machinery, vehicles, chemicals, iron and steel, pharmaceuticals
EPA negotiations with Central Africa

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/regions/africa-caribbean-pacific/

The forests of the Congo Basin store a significant carbon stock and thus serve as an important buffer against global climate change. Photo Credit: Jay Hocking, the World Bank

WASHINGTON, September 6, 2011—The Congo Basin forest ecosystem is the world’s second largest moist tropical forest, second only to the Amazon, and represents about one quarter of the globe’s remaining closed canopy forest. It covers an area almost four times the size of France and spans six Central African countries: Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

The forests of the Congo Basin store a significant carbon stock (estimates range between 24 and39 GT of carbon) and thus serve as an important buffer against global climate change.

Although deforestation rates (0.17 percent) in the Congo Basin are still low compared to large forest blocks in the Amazon or South-East Asia, these rates are expected to amplify drastically in the coming decades driven by a variety of forces such as industrial logging activities, road development, agricultural expansion (both for subsistence purposes and for commercial agriculture), as well as oil and mineral extraction.

Curbing these accelerating deforestation rates means that less carbon will be released into the atmosphere, that habitat for endangered species is conserved, and that other important ecological forest functions (e.g. driving the cycle of rain, providing flood control) are maintained.

At the global scale, tropical deforestation is estimated to contribute between 15 and 20 percent of global greenhouse emissions, adding to global warming and furthering the impacts of climate change. The international community is therefore planning for a financial incentive mechanism to help conserve tropical forests by compensating countries for their accomplishments in reducing tropical deforestation and forest degradation.

The financial incentive system is known as the REDD+ mechanism (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and will form part of the future climate framework under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. But before they can take advantage of such a mechanism, Congo Basin countries must overcome significant institutional and technical capacity challenges.

A regional approach to conservation and sustainable use of forest resources

To support the Congo basin countries, the World Bank in August 2011 approved a five-year project financed with a $13 million grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to strengthen countries’ capacities to meet the institutional and technical prerequisites necessary to benefit from a future REDD+ incentive mechanism.

“This is clearly one of our most important and critical projects as we engage in supporting Africa on the climate change agenda and on helping Africans position themselves both to contribute to the global mitigation effort and to benefit from the expected enhanced flows of related financial resources,” said Yusupha B. Crookes, World Bank Director for Regional Integration in Africa.

Congo Basin countries are taking a regional approach to preparing themselves for participation.

“Regional integration gives countries a greater ability to influence international climate negotiations and helps them combine resources to adopt cutting-edge methodologies and technologies for forest and carbon monitoring,” said Carole Megevand, World Bank Task Team Leader for the project. “It also gives countries the ability to share the cost of capacity building, as well as analytical and field work, and prevents the problem of deforestation from simply moving from one country to another.”

The project is implemented by the Central Africa Forests Commission (COMIFAC), a regional institution mandated with coordinating forest management. “COMIFAC is responsible for project implementation, but participating countries have a dominant role in decision-making,” Megevand said.

The subsidiarity principle is a key feature of the project design. This means the regional approach will complement a number of globally-financed, country-level initiatives on forest management. It will provide a regional umbrella to help coordinate policy reform across the six countries towards the shared goal of reducing deforestation and forest degradation.

Measuring the carbon content of Congo Basin forests

International negotiations on REDD+ continue around the notion of “carbon credits”, a system to compensate countries for their performance in reducing the release of forest carbon into the atmosphere.

Compared to other globally significant forest ecosystems, the Congo Basin countries have a glaring gap of information on the carbon content of their forests. This massive uncertainty could eventually prevent carbon finance payments to individual countries.

“The key outcome of this project will be the availability of tools to accurately and reliably measure the carbon content of tropical forests in Central Africa,” said Idah Pswarayi-Riddihough, World Bank Sector Manager of Environment. “As knowledge of the carbon content will most likely be a prerequisite to accessing future performance-based REDD+ payments, the participating countries will be ahead of that curve.”

About the Congo Basin forest ecosystem
More than 24 million people live in the Congo Basin forest area. Timber and minerals found in the forests contribute significantly to export and fiscal revenues. But aside from its economic significance, the rainforests also play a critical role for global biodiversity conservation with plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. The forests are also the green lung of the African continent and provide vital regional and global ecological services: providing water services, regulating climate, and driving a cycle of rain. The forests metabolize carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store a huge amount of carbon in the abundant vegetation.

Source: WorldBank.org

Sunshine Stars of Nigeria shocked JS Kabylie of Algeria 2-1 in the African Confederation Cup last weekend to take a three-point Group B lead. Sunshinehave six points, Noghreb Fes of Morocco three and Kabylie and Daring Club Motema Pembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo none with the top two finishers after a six-round mini-league advancing to the semi-finals.

Africabussines.com contacted coach Rodolfo Zapata to know the secret of Sunshine’s success:“One of the secret ofSunshine’s unprecedented success in African football is our superstar factory. A production line that is the envy of the international football circuit. Dr. Mimiko, Mike and OSFA did a great job in Ondo State”.

Sunshine from south-westerntown Akure are playing in Africa Confederation Cup for the first time in their history. “If you want to build a winning team, you must first establish a culture of winning. To do that, set high standards for yourself, colleagues and players in every aspect of the operation…and then start to chase them. These goals should be specific, difficult and challenging…but realistic. Two common goal-setting problems are setting too many goals too quickly, and setting unrealistic goals based on current level of performance”.

The Argentinean coach told us that “Coaches are judged by many criteria. By their impact, influence, accomplishments, reputation and so forth. I coach because I love the challenge of building a winner teams. The question is… How we can build a successful team? How to win important games? How to establish a culture of winning? It is not an easy task. We all strive a to be successful in our careers… and in our lives”.

Rolo Zapata also has a persona for his professional life and an entirely different one for his private life, family and friends, allowing him to separate issues and concentrate on his priorities in his time off. “In coaching, no group or individual is the same as who you coached the day before, the year before, or the decade before. Every player is different, every team is different, and to merely apply a formula is not fair to those players or those teams. Some tactics and drills are a necessity for some teams and they may not be appropriate for other teams. This is the reason why I write different practice plans for every single practice for the many different teams I worked with”, Zapata said.

“Continuity, consistency and ambition are particularly important to create a successful program. Ambition must be coupled with hard work for success to be achieved. Everybody likes the idea of winning, or being successful, but lot of people don’t like the sacrifice and hard work that are usually required to get ahead”. Zapata said.

“A winning program is built on a foundation of people, those with whom you work and interact. For this reason, players, coaching staff and board members need to work together. Both a game and a championship are won through team effort, and the guidance and leadership of the coaching staff and board members”.

“In my life I have been on some successful countries (Argentina, USA and Nigeria), and some not so successful countries (Canada). When I worked in Canada, they were unsuccessful, and I have been able to see firsthand what makes the difference between the unsuccessful teams and the successful ones” coach Rolo Zapata said.

“In USA, I coached the Olympic Development Program promoted by the USA Soccer Federation. This program is a national process for identifying and developing the best youth football players, which represent the United States in international competitions, such as the World Cup and the Olympics”.

USA Soccer Federation currently fields National Teams at the U14, U15, U17, U18, U20, U23 (Olympic) and World Cup levels for men and women. All the players for these National teams are identified and developed via the Olympic Development Program (ODP).

“USA soccer has distinguished itself and achieved victory on the international stage in recent years. This coaching position has presented challenges and personal satisfaction for a job well done after the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008” Zapata said.

Satellite image of Democratic Republic of the Congo, generated from raster graphics data supplied by The Map Library. Wikipedia.org

Reforestation Project Is DRC’s First Registered Under Kyoto Protocol

Washington/Kinshasa, March 8, 2011 – A small community in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that decided to replant its degraded forest is ensuring education for hundreds of children and providing basic health care services – in part thanks to carbon revenue that their reforestation project is expected to generate.

Ibi village, located on the Batéké Plateau approximately 150 kilometers from the capital Kinshasa, is now finding itself in the spotlight as it boasts the DRC’s first Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project approved and registered under the Kyoto Protocol. In addition to fighting climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide, the Ibi Batéké Carbon Sink Plantation Project is helping surrounding communities improve the livelihoods of its people through job creation and provision of health and education while promoting other environmental benefits such as the regeneration of patches of savannah and sheltering wildlife.

The project is seen as a successful model for the rest of the country and indeed the continent. Through the planting of different types of acacia, eucalyptus and pine trees, the project is directly absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Part of the reforestation will be used as a sustainable source of charcoal for urban areas, such as Kinshasa, which will reduce the pressure of deforestation on native forests. By dealing preemptively with the effects of climate change including a focus on employment and better health care, this project is aligned with the World Bank’s newly approved strategy for Africa.

NOVACEL, a private company founded and managed by local people from the Batéké Plateau, is reforesting over 4,200 hectares of degraded land, which will employ around 400 part- and full-time staff and absorb an estimated 2.4 million tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. This allows the project to generate carbon credits which are purchased by the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund and private sector firms such as the French company ORBEO. The carbon revenue will be invested in reforestation and local development activities – a primary school is providing over 200 children with an education and a clinic is providing basic health care to the local population. Local farmers are also receiving support from GI-Agro, an NGO linked to NOVACEL, to adopt more productive agriculture techniques, contributing to food security in the area.

According to Olivier Mushiete, head of NOVACEL, “What makes Ibi Batéké so unique is that it adopts an integrated vision of truly sustainable local development. The project has three sources of revenue: income from cassava intercropped with acacias; fuelwood, produced from the wood of these acacias and sold in Kinshasa; and finally, carbon credits, sold on the global carbon market.”

As a local firm, NOVACEL attaches primary importance to providing its community with development opportunities. In addition, it supports an important element of research, including the development of more productive acacia varieties, promoting a better understanding of the natural regeneration process of local flora, and testing new agricultural techniques, such as biochar.

The Ibi Batéké Project is the first of its kind to be registered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the DRC, and is only the third CDM forestry project to be registered in Africa. Reforestation and avoided deforestation are areas where African countries see an opportunity to take part in climate change mitigation and a chance to generate important revenues. The project developer has signed an emission reduction purchase agreement (ERPA) with the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund for the purchase of 500,000 certified emission reductions (CERs) to be generated by 2017.

“We believe that Ibi Batéké is a concrete example of the capacity of the private sector to help transform the national economy,” said Ms. Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, Country Director for the World Bank in DRC and the Republic of Congo. “Given the suitable conditions, such initiatives can be scaled up, creating thousands of jobs while reducing the pressure on native ecosystems. The World Bank is looking forward to working with NOVACEL and other private sector actors in the DRC in creating the conditions for replication – like access to affordable credit, security over land tenure and access to reliable technical assistance.”

The Ibi Batéké model has been identified by DRC’s Ministry of Environment as a building block for the national REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) strategy, under preparation with support from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and the UN-REDD program.

“REDD+ is about sustainable forest management. It is a tool for countries to support successful initiatives that reduce pressure on forests. The Ibi Batéké does exactly that. By providing a sustainable source of charcoal to a large urban market, the project reduces pressure on native forests and by promoting tree planting, the project results in carbon absorption from the atmosphere”, says Idah Pswarayi-Riddihough, Sector Manager for the Africa Environment Department of the World Bank.

Scaling up has already begun. NOVACEL is partnering with the government to implement an agroforestry project in the Sud-Kwamouth territory where there has been severe deforestation of primary forests. It has also recently signed a contract with Danone for the sale of carbon credits generated by the reforestation of an additional 2,500 hectares of land.

Ibi Batéké is the latest in a series of ground-breaking carbon finance forestry projects across Africa. With the support of the BioCarbon Fund, the continent’s first large scale reforestation project located on the Humbo mountain in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley is looking to be scaled up further. While, in nearby Kenya, the fund is supporting the continent’s first soil carbon project, where local small-holders are changing their farming practices and lowering greenhouse gas emissions that will generate carbon credits.

For more information on the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Unit, please see:

www.carbonfinance.org

For more information on the BioCarbon Fund visit:

http://wbcarbonfinance.org/Router.cfm?Page=BioCF&ItemID=9708&FID=9708

For more information on the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility please see

http://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/fcp

On the World Bank’s activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, please see:

http://go.worldbank.org/ZNBNXQVJB0

With 194 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

Source: WORLDBANK.ORG

credit: flickr.com

Investigations into a consignment of gold stolen from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have unearthed suspected smuggling syndicates in the middle-East and South Africa, signalling wider and sustained threats to economic and social stability in mineral rich nations in the region.

A joint investigative team pursuing leads on the alleged smuggling of some 2.5 tonnes of gold into Kenya with an estimated value of Sh9 billion ($113 million) has established that cartels in Dubai and South Africa could have aided the heist, raising concerns that illegal trade in the commodity remained widespread.

“Investigations have gone very far and there are several people we have investigated and interrogated already. More people are marked for investigation by our joint teams from Kenya and the DRC,” Internal Security minister George Saitoti told a media briefing in Nairobi on Friday.

Both South Africa and Dubai have elaborate gold exchange markets that make it easy for dealers to make a kill from shipments of the precious metal.

Statistics showed that South Africa was the number two world producer of gold and accounts for almost half of the global reserves of the precious metal.

Please read more: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/

South Africa will find out on Friday whether it will host the 2015 African Cup of Nations soccer tournament.

South Africa last hosted the tournament in 1996 when Bafana Bafana were crowned African champions for the first time.

The South African Football Association (Safa) will be banking on the success of the 2010 FIFA World Cup to clinch the latest bid.

South Africa is competing with Morocco to stage the tournament. The last time these two countries went head-to-head was seven years ago when South Africa won the rights to host the first World Cup on African soil.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) will meet in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday to announce the hosts for the 2015 and 2017 tournaments.

South Africa could have the upper hand because of the infrastructure after the 2010 soccer showpiece.

(Edited by Dennis Georgiannis)

Source: http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/

Paolo Roggeri, Alan Belward, Philippe Mayaux, Hugh Eva,Andreas Brink, Grégoire Dubois, Stephen Peedell, Olivier Leo

European Commission, JRC

Abstract.

Freshwater, aquaculture, fisheries, biodiversity, forests, and agricultural land have high economic and social value throughout the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region; but they can also be over-exploited, with damaging consequences for local economies, long term stability and for the Earth system as a whole – especially the climate system. The ACP’s fast growing population puts growing pressure on the environment to provide food, water and fibre, on the regions’ urban centres and transport networks, and on energy sources. Information on the location, condition and evolution of resources is an important step towards sustainability, but unfortunately such information can be hard to get. Earth observing satellite technology combined with geographical information management can help fill the information gap. In this objective, and because of its unique position to support the implementation of advanced interoperable geospatial technologies, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) is setting-up of an “Observatory for sustainable development” as single portal to support decision-making for development in the fields of natural resource and food security. The African Union and European Union recognise the importance of this service and are beginning to develop this capacity as part of the AU EU joint strategic partnership. This paper describes the needs, and presents the first steps taken by the JRC and by the joint partnership in harnessing space technologies to help meet Millennium Development Goals, in particular eradication of poverty, and environmental sustainability.

1. Introduction

Water, forests, agricultural/grazing land, resources such as fish stocks and the biological diversity encompassed by such domains have high economic and social value, yet they are being over-exploited in many parts of the ACP, thus increasing poverty and vulnerability of a large proportion of the population. The declining productivity of the natural resource base further exacerbates poverty and vulnerability as it leads to greater and more widespread food insecurity. And of course resource availability – and lack of – is a persistent and growing driver of conflict and of population migrations. Also, Climate Change is inextricably linked with the sustainable development process (EC 2003). The peoples of developing countries are among the most vulnerable and they have limited adaptive capacity.

The 2005 European Consensus on Development (OJEU 2006) recognises the role of good environmental management in poverty reduction. However many of the current development aid initiatives concentrate on ‘environment and resources’ in terms of production, trade and economic growth. Beyond this, objective and comparable information on the status and the evolution of the “natural resources capital” of given countries is not available. Furthermore, quantification is difficult to be provided and agreed standardized methodologies are not yet in place. As a consequence, the policies tend to neglect the less-obvious functional services provided by environment and natural resources, such as the fundamental role land cover type has in determining local water cycles, and even the climate system.

Environmental considerations must be integrated at an early stage of decision making, i.e. upstream at the policy making, programming and project formulation stage. The increase of monitoring efforts, as well as the development of appropriate data bases and thematic cartography to support the improvement of analytical capacities, will allow better planning, better design of policies, programmes and, projects and, more generally, will result in better quality development aid.

2. Decision-making: context, constraints and needs

Links between development and environment encompass a wide range of issues. This paper concentrates on illustrating ways in which Earth Observing satellites plus computer processing and statistical analysis can support decision-making on sustainable management of natural resources and on agriculture and food security.

These aspects are relevant worldwide. The characteristics of Earth Observing satellite technologies too have global applicability. Furthermore, they provide multi-thematic information feeding different research areas. Better Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) (EC 2007) can best be provided if various thematic issues are addressed in a combined fashion. In this objective and given the strategic importance of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region for Community development co-operation, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) has set-up an ACP Observatory for Sustainable Development, aiming at supporting development policies of the EC and of the beneficiary countries and regions, through the provision of sound scientific information tailored on partner needs and formatted to allow further exploitation by users (databases, sector indicators, visualization tools, assessments, prioritization tools, detection of anomalies, alerts, etc.). Within the ACP the initial focus is on Africa, as a result of the consolidated experience of the JRC in that continent and of the recently launched European Union and African Union Joint Strategic Partnership (AU-EU 2007), identifying 8 thematic partnerships, including one ( n° 8 ) on “Science, Information Society and Space”.

The current deployment of the Observatory focuses on collection, access to and visualization of the information at different scales with a focus on the national level, i.e. national main figures and trends in different thematic areas. This essential information is simply not available yet in structured and comparable formats and compiling archives allows identifying gaps for complementary monitoring. This compilation will provide the necessary base for implementing integrated assessments. Trend simulation and design of management models/scenari for sustainable management of natural resources are not among the objectives of this first phase of deployment of the Observatory. This is planned to be addressed in a subsequent step.

Decision-makers – EC services, the donor community & the beneficiary countries and regions – need scientific information and they need technological (IT) support to access and use such information. This information flow aims to underpin decision-making, to improve the relevance and the quality of development aid to support the political dialogue with the beneficiaries and to facilitate interaction among different EC services and external partners. Donors/ EC staff involved in development cooperation in general lacks specialized IT knowledge. This results in difficulties in accessing information and/or in identifying the right sources, as well as in increased externalization of the analysis, with little control over input or quality of results. Accessing and analyzing available information is indeed a challenge. Available data are often scattered, not always reliable and can be difficult to compare at different scales. In most cases, the outputs of scientific/research studies remain too theoretical and cannot even be used as starting points for the needs and the purposes of development cooperation. Further tailoring is necessary to respond to donors/EC needs.

Despite the fact that the role of natural resources and of ecosystems services is increasingly recognised as critical in addressing poverty alleviation and sustainable development, the mobilization of financial resources remains insufficient and natural resource management is still rarely considered as a priority in developing countries. The lack of baseline reference data, of environmental indicators duly recognized and of particular relevance for meaningful country assessments and the insufficient capacity to systematically monitor changes of situations (permanent observation systems) is a major shortcut in addressing natural resources management and climate change challenges in the frame of development cooperation. From the operational point of view, the main needs of the donor community and of their partner countries, in terms of environmental assessment and management include:

• To objectively assess and possibly quantify status and trends of Natural Resources in given countries and regions, assess – the actual deterioration of the situation, identify critical situations and highlight concrete risks;
• To rely on scientific information and on updated and comparable figures in a format that can be further exploited, respondent to the needs and in the different scales of work, in view of supporting – the different phases of the cycle of the operations, from programming to monitoring;
• To contribute with factual and reliable information to the sensitive debate on the importance and priority of investing funds in natural resources or in another sector. The current insufficiency of reliable figures undermines advocacy capacity for ensuring appropriate consideration to natural resources issues in National and Regional financial allocation of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).

Evidences on how decision-makers use information produced by the ACP Observatory to realize their needs and on how the Observatory contributes to improved quality of policy formulation and of development aid are provided in section 4.

3. The JRC response: the information portal ACP Observatory

The EU is the world’s largest donor of official development assistance, with the European Commission playing an important role in both development policy formulation and the practical aspects of development and aid programme implementation. The Joint Africa-EU Strategy provides an overarching long-term framework for Africa-EU relations, while its first action plan specifies concrete proposals for 2008–2010, structured along eight Africa-EU strategic partnerships. Research at JRC addresses many areas where the EC is actively delivering. In this context the JRC has established the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Observatory.

The ACP Observatory brings together JRC’s work on Information and Communication Technologies and geospatial sciences to optimise its input to the Africa-EU Action Plan and advance sustainable development in ACP countries. Thematic domains covered by JRC in ACP countries are diverse and comprise among others: soil, land-cover, biodiversity, forests, food security and rural development, rangelands, marine and coastal ecosystems, water management, land degradation and desertification, natural hazards (floods, fires), civil security and spatial data infrastructure. The broad spectrum of activities includes the  production of reference scientific material, the delivery of warning systems and added-value information to decision-makers, technical advice to development projects, capacity-building and networking in Europe and in Africa (Willemen, Roggeri and Mayaux 2010).

The overarching objective of the work is the establishment of a Reference Centre for scientific and technical information. This library of information will benefit European Commission services and ACP stakeholders in their decision-making processes related to development policies and programmes, in the areas of sustainable management of natural resources, food security, crisis prevention and management and renewable energies. Three major activities contribute to this overall objective:

1. A forward looking analysis of emerging complex development issues and inter-related scientific topics, based on the identification of integrated multi- thematic solutions to be developed together with EC services in charge of policies and key ACP stakeholders. Emerging issues, such as the link between climate change and international security, the future of tropical forests after the economic crisis and the demand for biofuels are examples of such complex matters which need to be tackled. These, together with the necessity of coherence between different EC policies, all require a multi-thematic and multi-technique approach combining different skills. Current work is focusing on the development of a first concept of integrated assessment models to address the sensitive topic of “Competition for Land” in the Congo Basin: the interaction between thedrivers of the competition for land (agriculture, charcoal, biofuels, mining, logging, land grabbing, pastures,…) and the different ecosystem services (livelihood, food, fibre, carbon, biodiversity, grazing,…) are evaluated taking into account biophysical limitations (soil suitability, climate change) and socio-economic constraints (land tenure, population growth).
2. Information portal for EC services and ACP countries (ACP Observatory 2010) to provide access to the information (data, products and models) collected, produced and validated by the JRC and thus provide a reference centre for environmental and humansecurity datasets for ACP countries, with a special focus on geospatial information.
3. Permanent exchange between JRC and ACP stakeholders as a basis for long-term and stable cooperation: (i) joint production of added-value information on natural resources, agriculture, hazards and conflicts; (ii) improvement of geo-spatial information by building on existing human capacities within the ACP countries; (iii) reinforcement of the scientific networks and (iv) building capacities of ACP stakeholders through exchange of experts, ‘on-the-job’ learning and ad hoc trainings.

4.Examples on how the system can improve decision-making

One single interactive portal: the ACP Observatory web-site

In order to respond to the needs of the staff of the EC, of National and Regional services of beneficiary countries and more generally of the Development community, the JRC is developing a single portal giving access to the available relevant scientific information supporting decision-making in different areas of active EC delivering. The information is tailored according to the needs of the users and the portal intends to offer the possibility to visualize and produce customized thematic maps at different scales. Composite information for each country is centralised in the portal but will not substitute portals dedicated to specific applications. For each theme (soil, forest, drylands, agriculture, biodiversity, rangelands, disasters…), the information includes reference maps, indicators, and specific analyses, where relevant. Particular attention is be paid to the presentation of the indicators adapted to the needs of the partner-DGs. The system is developed in order to comply with the recently adopted INSPIRE Directive (EC2007) which aims to create a European Spatial Data Infrastructure and which may become legally binding for EU Institutions. On the other hand, an image portal gives access to the satellite imagery of the African continent  archived at JRC. Links with more specialized studies or thematic web-sites developed by the JRC or by other Organizations are also provided. An advanced version of the web-site is accessible at the following address: <http://acpobservatory.jrc.ec.europa.eu/>. A more complete version of the web-site is expected to be launched by early 2011.

Prioritization, policy design and program formulation: the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA)

Africa is home to some of the most valuable natural ecosystems and species on the planet. These ecosystems cover large areas, making field monitoring methods very difficult for a large scale assessment. Environmental organisations and international donors such as the EC consider the remote monitoring of Protected Areas (PAs) in Africa as a priority. To provide decision makers with indicators allowing prioritizing these PAs according to biodiversity values and threats, information needs to be regularly collected on a large scale, processed and often validated with ground truth data. It is the purpose of the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) to automatically monitor and assess the state and pressure of PAs and to prioritize them accordingly, in order to support decision making and fund allocation processes (Hartley et al. 2007; Dubois et al. 2009, 2010). The DOPA is thus a biodiversity information system currently developed as an interoperable web service at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in collaboration with other international  organizations, including GBIF, UNEP-WCMC, Birdlife International and RSPB. The African component of the DOPA (Available from Internet: <http://bioval.jrc.ec.europa.eu/PA/>) has been used to characterize 741 PAs (see Fig. 1) according to their biodiversity value and the anthropogenic

Fig. 1. Map of the Protected Areas analysed and comparison of the value and pressure on these areas against the biodiversity hotspots regions (in grey) defined by Conservation International

pressure that they are exposed to (Nelson, Hartley, Mayaux et al. 2009; Buchanan, Fishpool et al. 2009). The information produced has been recently used by the EU Delegation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to identify priority areas of intervention in the formulation of a project on Conservation of Biodiversity (30 M EUR).

Assessments & prospective analysis: Land availability

Earth observing satellites have been employed for monitoring land cover and its changes since the mid 1970s (MacDonald and Hall 1980). A recent study presented by Brink and Eva (2009) uses high resolution Landsat images from the mid 1970s and the year 2000 to assess land cover changes over sub-Saharan Africa. Results show that over the 25 year time period around 5 million hectares of Africa’s natural vegetation were converted to agriculture each year whilst less than 2% of the existing agricultural land reverted – i.e., was abandoned, see Figure 2. But, despite this expansion, the agricultural domain is more densely populated than 25 years ago. This is due to the fact that the percentage increase in sub-Saharan Africa’s population is greater than that of the expansion of agricultural lands. Agricultural lands have increased by 57% over the last 25 years, which gives an annual rate of 2.3%. On the other hand, the annual average rural population increase has been 2.7% over the period. This indicates that the rural domain is 20% more crowded than it was 25 years ago. Furthermore, by

converting natural vegetation into agriculture also the natural pastures have been reduced in extent while, together with the population increase also livestock levels have risen (FAOSTAT 2006). From a socio-economic point of view the reduction of natural vegetation combined with the increases in human and livestock populations means more competition for less and for poorer quality lands. This raises the risk of potential conflict, especially in periods of environmental stress, such as drought (Jacobson 1988). There is a growing body of literature on environmental scarcity and conflict (Raleigh and Urdal 2005; Urdal 2005) which reflects not only current concerns but that of future scenarios based on climate change prediction and its subsequent impact on water resources, land degradation and food production. Studying the dynamics of land availability and its implications provides decision-makers critical information, frequently hidden or neglected, to understand situations and identify/design appropriate responses. The results of the study allowed to ensure increased focus  on land availability and related aspects in the formulation of Country Strategy Papers, the “joint EC/ partner country” reference document for programming aid allocation.

Fig. 2. Rates at which natural land is converted to agriculture at various sample sites across Africa.Rates calculated by measuring land cover conversions between 1975 and 2000 from Landsat imagery.

Observatory service for political bodies: the Observatory of the Forests of Central Africa (OFAC)

The same technology is also being used to measure deforestation and forest degradation in the Congo Basin. As part of a joint operation between the Ministerial Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (COMIFAC) and the EC, a regional monitoring centre, the Observatory of the Forests of Central Africa (OFAC, see Figure 3), has been established in Kinshasa in 2007 to further develop monitoring systems in support to decision-making in several thematic domains: forest cover change, forest carbon stock and flux, forest management and biodiversity conservation. OFAC is run and coordinated by the beneficiary countries. Monitoring systems include a combination of indicators collected in and models derived from the field and by remote sensing at two scales: national level and in selected territorial units (logging concessions, protected areas, hunting zones, community forests, landscapes…). Results recently published (“The forests of the Congo Basin, State of the Forests of the Congo Basin 2006 and 2008”), show that the net deforestation rates being measured are lower than previously estimated. At just 0.16% per year they are around half the rate of deforestation in South America, and less than a quarter the rate in Asia (Duveiller et al. 2008). This information collected by OFAC was used by Central African countries during the recent negotiations in the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen in the frame of the REDD + (Reduction Emissions due to Deforestation and forest Degradation) mechanisms of the Framework Convention on Climate. But the demand for Africa’s timber is relentless and a monitoring programme must be maintained if accelerated, even illegal, deforestation is not to go undetected. The OFAC regional center is now using satellite imagery at very high spatial resolutions (2.5 m and finer) to monitor logging of individual trees. These patterns can then be cross-referenced with the terms of various timber concessions and form both an inventory and a method of control in the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) signed between the Congo Basin countries and EU in the frame of the FLEGT process (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade).

It is interesting to note the strong local involvement of national services in the regional Observatory: (i) the basic information is collected by the national services according to standard protocols agreed during regional workshops, (ii) information are synthetised and harmonized by OFAC, (iii) national services use the analysed data (long-term series, derived maps, control systems) in their national decisions or ask for specific studies to OFAC. For example, the COMIFAC council of Ministers recently asked to OFAC to produce a regional synthesis on the impact of the financial crisis on the forest logging companies.

Fig. 3. Organisation of the information flow in the Observatory of the Forests of Central Africa (OFAC)

Monitoring and Early Warning systems: Food Security

The Observatory’s crop monitoring and forecasting system uses Low resolution satellite derived indicators, Meteorological information from circulation models (ECMWF) and satellite estimates (Rainfall), agro-meteorological models to monitor agricultural and pasture land conditions in around 10 countries vulnerable to crises and food shortages. The system, based on 20 years research for crop yield monitoring in Europe by the Monitoring Agriculture with Remote Sensing (MARS) project, provides, during the campaign, monthly reports describing current crop condition, yield prospects and, identifying hot spots and the likelihood of food shortages (MARS 2009). Priority attention was paid to the Horn of Africa due to the recurrence of food Fig. 3. Organisation of the information flow in the Observatory of the Forests of Central Africa (OFAC)…

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