What We’re Reading 29/10/09

Oct 30th, 2009 10:00 AM EST
By Robyn Mitchell

The Guardian: Climate change will devastate Africa, top UK scientist warns
One of the world’s most influential scientists, Professor Sir Gordon Conway, argues in a new scientific paper that Africa is already warming faster than the global average and that people living there can expect more intense droughts, floods and storm surges. In addition to less drinking water and food shortages, Conway predicts that diseases such as malaria will spread and the poorest will be hit the hardest as farmland is damaged in the coming century. Conway did, however, hold out some hope that east Africa and the Horn of Africa, presently experiencing its worst drought and food shortages in 20 years, will become wetter.

The New York Times: Harnessing World Cup to Change Children’s Lives
FIFA has combined with the global NGO streetfootballworld to create Football for Hope, a festival which will take place in the second half of the month-long World Cup, which starts in June 2010. Some 32 organizations from around the world — the same number of nations as in the World Cup — have been chosen to take part, “based not on their football prowess but on the success of projects to address social issues like homelessness in London, landmines in Cambodia, gang violence in Colombia and South Africa’s scourge of AIDS.”

The Globe and Mail: Food summit should plant a seed for change (Editorial)
Columnist Eric Reguly editorializes that the UN food summit in November must not be solely a talking shop, but rather it should “break from the politically correct agenda of trying to please all the UN donor countries and suggests some out-of-the-box strategies.” Reguly quotes Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), who hopes that wealthy countries will be pushed into making good on the commitments they made last summer, at the G8 summit in Italy, to spend $20-billion on food development.

The Guardian: Why we need a world environment organization
German chancellor Angel Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy have called for the creation of a world environmental organization within the UN system “with real political clout.” In a letter to the UN secretary general they emphasized that we must overhaul environmental governance and use Copenhagen climate talks in December to progress the creation of a world environmental organization. According to the Guardian, “many ministers of environment have known for some time that solving environmental challenges and seizing opportunities will prove impossible without political clout and effective institutions.”

AllAfrica.com: Congo-Kinshasa: Pros and Cons to Huge Chinese Investment
China has just closed a deal to build a road network stretching for 4,000 km and a railway system spanning 3,200 km in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is a much needed development in a country the size of Western Europe and the second largest in Africa but with only 200 km of tarred road. However, according to AllAfrica.com, “concerns abound about a nine billion dollar Chinese investment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially around environmental consequences and transparency.” And, on the Chinese side, investors complain not only about the lack of security in the DRC but about their own government not providing enough support.

Plus News: AFRICA: Using DOTS for TB, HIV and other chronic diseases
Malawi’s successful use of a well-known tuberculosis treatment system to scale up antiretroviral treatment for HIV could improve chronic disease management in other African nations, experts say. The system, called directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) has been used to successfully deliver TB treatment in some of the world’s poorest countries.

TAGS: What We're Reading