The meeting is of exceptional importance and pivotal value for the African continent. This session comes at a time when desertification, drought, and land degradation are escalating due to climate change, posing a direct threat to food security, peace, and stability in Africa, which is the region most affected by these phenomena globally. The meeting also coincides with a crucial stage of deliberations and reviews concerning the draft drought protocol. The African Union Commission, through sponsoring this three-day meeting, seeks to enable national focal points and stakeholders within the African Group of Negotiators to review the agenda of the UN conference and familiarize themselves with the issues under discussion. This includes identifying the continent’s priorities and concerns to influence final decisions, developing strategies for building strong alliances with negotiators from other regions, and strengthening the link between science and policy by engaging science and technical correspondents to bolster the scientific basis of the negotiations.
The meeting aims to produce a set of key outcomes that will benefit African environmental action. These include agreeing on a common agenda and unified negotiating positions for the Ulaanbaatar conference, thoroughly reviewing the drought protocol, and agreeing to form negotiating teams. A diverse range of stakeholders are involved in shaping this vision, including the African Group of Negotiators, African regional institutions, regional economic communities, UN agencies, civil society organizations, international non-governmental organizations, and environmental journalists. This continental movement comes with the direct support and coordination of key partners, led by the Executive Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Regional Coordination Unit for Africa, the Chair of the African Group, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Arab Republic of Egypt as the host country.
On the sidelines of the meeting of the Africa Regional Preparatory Meeting for the UNCCD Conference of the Parties (COP17) in Mongolia: Interview with Dr. Ahmed Elmekass, coordinator of the African Union Office for Agricultural Research and Development (AU-SAFGRAD).
The link to the interview is below: