Key Development and Finance Updates
Governments need to do more in tackling diabetes
The President of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), Professor Nam Cho, has called for more actions from government around the world in tackling diabetes. He made the call at the third United Nations high-level meeting on September 27.
“Governments must do more and now is the time for them to take responsibility and be accountable,” said Prof. Cho. “In 2014, 193 countries committed to achieving a zero percent increase in diabetes by 2025. Four years on, reports show that the chances of this target being achieved are less than one percent.”
The World Diabetes Day 2018 Report by the IDF says only 17 percent of people believe their government is doing enough to tackle diabetes.
The UN meeting focused on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
NCDs are responsible for about 40 million deaths each year, or 70 percent of all deaths. This is ten times more than the number of people killed by HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined. The number of people living with diabetes is expected to increase to more than 500 million, or one in 10 of the global population, within a decade if the current lifestyle trends continue.
Nigeria, others to benefit from UNDP and Eni sustainable energy deal
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Eni S.p.A (Eni), a global energy company, have signed an agreement to improve access to sustainable energy and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa. The agreement was signed on the margins of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Under the agreement, Eni will develop business ventures to increase access to clean energy in the region and UNDP will use its extensive development network in over 170 countries to foster an enabling environment to implement the partnership and assess its sustainable impact in local communities. The Eni projects will include electricity production from photovoltaic plants, wind farms, offgrid hybrid solutions, reforestation and clean cooking solutions.
According to a statement by the energy giant, Nigeria, Angola, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania are the first countries slated for the initial roll out of the partnership.
As part of this partnership, UNDP will also work to raise awareness for clean energy and sustainable business models, and provide training and capacity building in recipient communities.
Africa Data Centre Association launches with 28 members
The Africa Data Centre Association (ADCA) has formally launched with 28 members at the maiden edition of the Datacloud Africa Leadership Summit in Morocco on September 28. Fatounmata Sarr Dieng, Director of International Operations and Operators at Sonatel – a telecommunication company in Senegal, was elected as president of the ADCA.
Datacloud Africa is the premier networking and deal-making event for data centres and cloud IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service); and for their customers and investors.
According to a statement by BroadGroup, smartphone penetration, digital services explosion, data sovereignty law, bandwidth and latency times are triggering a bright future for the data centre and colocation business in Africa. The data centre industry is one of the pillars of African economic development.
The ADCA, according to the statement, is a non-profit, Pan-African professional association which will foster the development of the industry in Africa and create a strong industry body on the continent, and internationally.
The other ADCA board members include Nigerian Ayotunde Coker, Managing Director, Rack Centre.
German agency to launch
$4.1 million agricultural finance scheme in Nigeria
The Green Innovation Centre for Agriculture and Food Sector (GIC) has announced that it will launch a $4.1 million agricultural finance scheme in Nigeria in November. The Programme Coordinator in Nigeria for the German agency, Caroline Trimborn, said the programme will run for four years and the fund will be disbursed to small-scale farmers through commercial banks.
The programme coordinator made the announcement in Abuja during a training organised by the GIC for journalists.
“We are working with banks to come out with good criteria that farmers could meet,” said Triborn, adding that the funds will require collateral but it will be specific to each bank and its criteria.
The goal of the scheme, according to Triborn, is to improve the income and productivity of 200,000 smallholder farmers cultivating rice, maize, Irish potato and cassava in the country. Triborn said the agency has different intervention plans along various value chains.
The agency is working on projects in Kano, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Benue, Plateau, Cross River, Oyo, and Ogun State to train up to 150,000 smallholder farmers. GIC is working with the federal and state governments and with a lot of private organisations to boost agricultural production and the livelihood of farmers in Nigeria.
The GIC is a division of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ). The GIZ, under the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), works with businesses, civil society actors and research institutions to foster successful interactions for development.