AN OUTCRY FROM THE RIVER BASIN: AFRICA AND THE UNFCCC CLIMATE TALKS

As African nations join all other countries at another round of international talks on Climate Change at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Durban, South Africa, it still remains clear that the continent will be the worst hit by the effects of climate change that it contributed the least to. Perhaps, one could have agreed that the Kyoto agreement was signed by the Conference of Parties (COP) all because of developing countries, and in particular - Africa.

The Kyoto agreement which was to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5% will come to an end by 2012, which suffice it to say that for Africa to get a good deal in Durban, there must be a new agreement, and a new round of greenhouse gas emission cut, if not as much as 30%. But with reports filtering in, most of the world's leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest, and that even if it were negotiated by then, they would stipulate it could not come into force until 2020.

Even as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that levels of carbon dioxide have reached 389 parts per million, a 39 percent increase since the beginning of the industrial era in 1750.“This is primarily because of emissions from combustion of fossil fuels, deforestation and changes in land-use,” the WMO bulletin states. Nevertheless, Africa must be ready to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change in order to reduce the impacts that have been felt in the course of the year.

While growing up in the south western part of Nigeria might be challenging, it is quite glaring that there has been a change in the climate and weather patterns. During the year, we have seen sea level increase from the Ogun River, the River Niger, and the Ogunpa River resulting into thousands of deaths, Internally Displaced People (IDPs), and building collapse.

Moving up north to Sudan, it’s been a dry year with the Sahara Desert advancing more and rainfall down 30-40% in few decades, and still they struggle with the ruins of war; to the East has been the drought that has continued to ravage the horn of Africa, especially Somalia, the third in ten years, threatening half of the population. In other African communities, agriculture has been affected by low rainfall or extreme weather conditions, thus, generating much talk about food security in Africa.

To show how crucial the climate talks will be for the future generation of Africa, there has been an African Youth Climate Justice Caravan movement from Nairobi to Durban, to help sensitize and create awareness about issues surrounding climate change, and much need to listen to youth’s plight as it concerns environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation.

The African continent is faced with more challenges than it could have been able to handle - with Leadership problems being the bane of development, it cannot afford to allow the deeds of external forces or bodies to affect her poise for a sustainable society. African delegates must be able to negotiate for a fair deal, and initiate an agreement for an ambitious greenhouse gas emission cuts; an outcry for accessible and effective Global Climate funds and technology transfer for mitigation and adaptation to climate change effects must shake the city of Durban, Africa and the world at large.

Nevertheless, Africa still needs a plan, not to change the climate, but to slow the rate of change and enable those already affected to adapt to the new world, which they didn’t choose; and to kick start a new path to prosperity-sustainable development-where people who have yet to make poverty a distant memory can leapfrog into a low carbon future.

THE AGE OF OPEN DATA IN AFRICA

From Johannesburg to Lubumbashi, Lagos to Bamako, Algiers to Djibouti, Mogadishu to Nairobi, one of the greatest challenges in researching lessons, monitoring and evaluation of human development in these and other African states is the lack of available quantitative and qualitative data, due to challenges of security and access, along with low statistical capacity. As reiterated in the World Development Report 2011, Institutional transparency and legitimacy still remains the key to stability - before basic institutions can be transformed in Africa,there is much need to restore public confidence in basic collective action by the principal government and MDAs by giving free access to data.

while technological advancements have produced radical shifts in the ability to reproduce, distribute, control and publish information, the Internet in particular has radically changed the economics and ease of production of data. Generating and sourcing for data costs are now much lower for both the rights holders (content owners) and infringers- journalists, public analysts, hackers, and coders in Africa and the world at large.

One consequence is an erosion of what were once the natural barriers to infringement, such as the expense of reproduction, and the decresing quality of successive generations of data using the traditional media.In Africa, the penetration of mobile technologies have also radically changed the distribution of data, with transmission speeds approaching a billion characters per second, enabling sending of information worldwide, cheaply and almost instantaneously.

In recent times there has been an uprising of Journalists, Public Analysts, Systems Analysts that are becoming interested in data from different government of the world. The Open Knowledge Foundation remains the greatest stakeholder in the campaign for Open Data, however, its prescence in Africa is still yet to be far-fetched. As Transforming institutions emerges in trickles in few African countries, initiatives like "Where does my money go", "Weaving History", Localocracy, Earmarkwatch.org, OpenCongress.org, Punch Clock Map and the Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw, Poland should be emulated by collaborative, inclusive - enough coalitions. Perhaps, if governments in Africa decides to still make data elusive from the public, then the public will make it available, might be the age of citizen investigation and reporting.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE NIGERIA SAT-II AND SAT-X LAUNCH INTO SPACE

As Nigeria establish its prescence in the Space technology world again, by lauching its Nig-Sat II and NigSat-X Satellites on August 17, 2011 at 7.15 GMT in Yasni, Russia; so much question lingers in the mind of every Nigerian on how much benefit these Satellites in outer space could bring to the man on the streets of Nigeria, perhaps to Africans at Large.

The Nigeria SAT-II has a resolution of 2.5m (panchromatic), 32m (compatible with DMC) and 5m (multispectral) at 700km; has a swath of 300km and mass of 286kg; its application areas include land resources, water resources,the environment and monitoring of disaster prone areas in Nigeria and neighbouring countries. The Nigeria SAT-X built by Nigerian Engineers from the National Space Research Development Agency (NASRDA) is an Earth Observation satellite with resolution of 22m at 700km, has a swath of 600km with a mass of 88.1kg; application areas will include mapping, agriculture, urban planning etc

Space technology as always been finding increasing application and relevance in daily life, to the point where, nowadays, space applications are an indispensible part of the modern information society. With Insecurity and Natural Disasters been prevalent in Nigeria, and the Sub Saharan Africa, one of the potentials of these Satellites is the ability to address issues of National Insecurity by protecting lives, properties and the environment, Allow for early warning systems in Disaster Preparedness; co-ordinates Emmergency Response,and stimulates industrial and economic development.

In some developing countries that are operating satellites of their own - Venezuela, Brazil, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Algeria, Turkey, South Africa, Malaysia and a list of others, space applications include its use for urban planning and transportation, water resources and agriculture, addressing issues of air pollution and energy, disaster and natural resource management, positioning and navigation, Health issues, education and communication.

Nevertheless,in Nigeria, these space applicatons still remain vague owing to the fact that education and capacity building initiatives have not been encouraged to develop the requisite human capital to support activities of National Space Agencies in the country, which includes development of space applications products and services. However,with the launch of these two satellites, our decision makers and policy makers should be able to set up SpaceAid resources - which could be delivered by the media - web, TV, mobile, radio, prints that includes availability of space-based products - remote sensing, mapping, geo-datas, geo-links and databases, satellite imageries, pre and post-disaster imageries, and early warning systems.

CITIZEN REPORTING AND THE LAGOS TRAFFIC CROWDMAP

Lagos state, the smallest in Nigeria, has a population of 17 million out of a national estimate of 150 million. The UN estimates that at its present growth rate, Lagos state will be third largest mega city the world by year 2015 after Tokyo in Japan an Bombay in India.

Out Of the overwhelming population, Metropolitan Lagos, an area covering 37% of the land area of Lagos State is home to over 85% of the State population. The state has become the economy center of Nigeria.

Current demographic trend analysis revealed that the State population growth rate of 8% has resulted in its capturing of 36.8% of Nigeria’s urban population (World Bank, 1996) estimate at 49.8 million people of the nation’s million population. The implication is that whereas country population growth is 4/5% and global 2%, Lagos population is growing ten times faster than New York and Los Angeles with grave implication for urban sustainability and especially traffic in the state.

The Lagos Traffic Map hopes to account for the appalling situation that inhabitant and motorists go through everyday; helps to give out early warnings to air, water and road users; and helps emergency managers in coordinating and managing mishaps. The Lagos Traffic Map is a two months pilot project that is been coordinated by the ihumanitarian group in Nigeria and some SBTF members in Nigeria. The ihumanitarian group are volunteers from Nigeria that uses the internet, their laptop and mobile phones to help co-ordinate emergencies and help disseminate early warning

THE LAGOS FLOOD AND BEYOND: GETTING IT RIGHT IN DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE

In the wake of July 10, 2011, Lagos was greeted with a torrential rainfall of about 300m that resulted into flood of about 1000mm to 1200mm. Still battling with that, the Calabar Flood struck, displacing thousands of people. All were forecasted by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET);that became the beginning of Lagos floods and became a disaster when it claimed the lives of no fewer than 31 persons (as reported by Vanguard, July 15, 2011) including a 5year old that was drown.

Most definitely, this will not be the last of disasters we will be experiencing in Lagos, and perhaps, some other vulnerable states in Nigeria. Even as the unverified news of a 20-meter high tide tsunami heading towards the coast of Lagos, Lome and Accra, following an offshore quake in Malabo circulates round the disaster risk response world.

Consequently, We might need to ask ourselves, if we are prepared for natural disasters in Nigeria? and if we are, how fast do we respond to all these disasters, we call emergency management. With the head of the senate recently reiterating the need for emergency response managers to quickly and hastenly develop disaster response techniques - Perhaps, its time to take a cue from the Haiti Earthquake, the Negris Cyclone, the Alabama Tornadoe, the Pakistan Flood, and the recent Japan Earthquake.

Analytically, the world is changing, and we now live in a "state where a traditional framework and several experimental approaches existed in parallel — a period when the explanatory power of the old system wanes while some inchoate new system explores and codifies the methods that are strong enough to begin replacing the old ones" as Thomas Kuhn defined Paradigm Change in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The working tools that are now been deployed before, during and after disaster is the growing Virtual Technology Communities (VTCs) that we call "humanitarian technologists".

These new breeds are experts who are most often technical professionals with deep expertise in geographic information systems,mapping, web development and database management, social media, and/or online campaigns - they apply their skills to some of the hardest elements of disaster risk communities. They include the international Network of Crisis Mappers, Google Map Maker, Ushahidi, The Global Earth Observation - Catastrophe Assesement Network (GEO-CAN), The SBTF ( Stand by Task Force), Crisis Commons, Random Hacks of Kindness RHoK.

Quite notably, is the fact that VTCs will never replace the current institutional

frameworks of Nigerian Meteorological Agency(NIMET), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and its state agencies,and other humanitarian organizations, but crisis response and other elements of the disaster risk management cycle are approaching a state resembling a shift in paradigm. It is pertinent for these organizations to start bulding capacity in this vein, and look for ways to collaborate with professionals that uses this technology, those in Nigeria and in diaspora. Because the penetration of Internet and Mobile Technology is escalating everyday in our Country, it will be a shift to a new direction to leverage on their potentials, for which these new technologies are been used.

EMERGENCY/CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND CROWDSOURCE MAPPING IN NIGERIA

Emergency management (or disaster management) is the coordination and integration of all activities necessary to build, sustain and improve the capability for disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. It is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the hazards. And, effective emergency management relies on thorough integration of emergency plans at all levels of government and non-government involvement.

Nigeria has continued to witness a series of embarrassing disasters and emergency situations that are largely human-induced from post-election violence, youth militancy, communal clashes, religious conflicts, fire outbreaks, road accidents, kidnapping and robberies. The magnitudes of the carnage usually overwhelm response agencies responsible for tackling and mitigating the situations.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) as the coordinating organ for response agencies becomes the major attraction, even when its staffs on humanitarian duties survives attacks from warring parties, cases which have been seen during the Jos ethnic crisis, communal clashes between villages. It could be said that with NEMA in place in Nigeria, we have had the problem of coordination with local disaster management, during pre and post emergencies and disasters and because disasters are always localized, all the five phases of emergency management – prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery depend on local structures, which are not effective, to succeed.

Nevertheless, emergency management and coordination has shifted from grounds men to the use of technology to co-ordinate emergencies and humanitarian services. In recent years, advancements in technologies have made it possible for virtual communities such as OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi, Sahana, CrisisMappers, Virtual Disaster Viewer, Google MapMaker and INSTEDD to provide increasing support to disaster preparedness and emergency response efforts. A feat that has helped in managing crisis in Libya using the Libya Crisis Map, was used in co-ordinating humanitarian affairs in Haiti and in the Alabama Tornadoes and a list of others.

With disasters been prevalent in Africa, it is most important that we begin to look at leveraging on these technologies, thus leading to capacity building in this area, which in some months will start, no thanks to crisismappers members that are resided in Nigeria. Our Strength lies in the number of Nigerians that uses mobile technologies in communication escalating every day. We hope to create crisis camps in each state, which might comprise of disaster emergency officers, especially in states, Information Technology professionals, social entrepreneurs and volunteers.

FORESTS AND ITS SERVICE TO NIGERIA AND NIGERIANS

Forest is a plant community, predominantly of trees or other woody vegetation, occupying an extensive area of land. In its natural state, a forest remains in a relatively fixed, self - regulated condition over a long period of time.

In Nigeria, we have two predominant classes of forest, which is the Tropical Savannas of the Northern Nigeria, which are dominated by grasses and sedges, with open stands of widely spaced trees that are frequently thorny; and we have the Tropical rain forests which are characteristics of the Southern Nigeria, plant growth is quite profuse here, and because the metamorphosis of leaves occur gradually throughout each year, the forest is always active.

Forests cover only about 12% in 2005 of the country's total land area, but has shrank into 9.9% in 2010. Deforestation, which is the illegal cutting down of trees has become a major problem, made worse by massive rural-urban migration, and construction works. Other environmental threats include settlement within forest reserved areas, bushfires, increasing demand for fuelwood and timber, road expansion and oil extraction activities.

Perhaps, it should be known that the livelihoods of 80% of the Nigerian population depends on forests, and it provides home to more than 15% people in Nigeria, and even serve as a home to 60% of terrestrial biodiversity.We are quite sure that Nigeria has a wonderful share of the $379 billion total global trade in forest products in 2005.Forests, at large helps in the cycle of carbon usage by which energy flows through Earth's ecosystem

Nigeria has an organized system of nature preserves, game reserves, and national parks in addition to a forest management system, but most management is carried on at the state level where cases of malpractices and mismanagement of funds are gross, especially with the introduction of ecological funds .Law enforcement and protected system infrastructure are lacking, and abuses of protected land are common. The country also participates in the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Several Nigerian groups have campaigned actively, but with little success, to compel the government and major oil companies to introduce environmental safeguards. In 1988 the government created the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) to address problems of desertification, oil pollution, and land degradation, but the FEPA has had only a minor impact

Forest is a plant community, predominantly of trees or other woody vegetation, occupyin an extensive area of land. In its natural state, a forest remains in a relatively fixed, self - regulated codition over a long period of time.

In Nigeria, we have two predominant classes of forest, which is the Tropical Savannas of the Northern Nigeria, which are dominated by grasses and sedges, with open stands of widely spaced trees that are frequently thorny; and we have the Tropical rain forests which are characteristics of the Southern Nigeria, plant growth is quite profuse here, and because the metamorphosis of leaves occur gradually throughout each year, the forest is always active.

Forests cover only about 12% in 2005 of the country's total land area, but has shrank into 9.9% in 2010. Deforestation, which is the illegal cutting down of trees has become a major problem, made worse by massive rural-urban migration, and construction works. Other environmental threats include settlement within forest reserved areas, bushfires, increasing demand for fuelwood and timber, road expansion and oil extraction activities.

Perhaps, it should be known that the livelihoods of 80% of the Nigerian population depends on forests, and it provides home to more than 15% people in Nigeria, and even serve as a home to 60% of terrestrial biodiversity.We are quite sure that Nigeria has a wonderful share of the $379 billion total global trade in forest products in 2005.Forests, at large helps in the cycle of carbon usage by which energy flows through Earth's ecosystem

Nigeria has an organized system of nature preserves, game reserves, and national parks in addition to a forest management system, but most management is carried on at the state level where cases of malpractices and mismanagement of funds are gross, especially with the introduction of ecological funds .Law enforcement and protected system infrastructure are lacking, and abuses of protected land are common. The country also participates in the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Several Nigerian groups have campaigned actively, but with little success, to compel the government and major oil companies to introduce environmental safeguards. In 1988 the government created the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) to address problems of desertification, oil pollution, and land degradation, but the FEPA has had only a minor impact.

With the inception of the internet and youth organizations, the future looks brighter than what it has used to be; we have organizations, volunteers, climate change advocators and social entrepreneurs, now collaborating to make the environment sustainable, we only hope that all levels of government in Nigeria will join hands with this new formations to at least kickstart a new path to a sustainable environment.

THE WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2011 IN NIGERIA

The World Environment Day (WED) was established by the United Nations

General Assembly to mark the opening of the 1972 Stockholm Conference

on the Human Environment.Celebrating WED is about the inspirational power of individual actions that collectively become an exponential force for positive change.

WED is celebrated around the world in many ways, including street rallies,

bicycle parades, green concerts, essay and poster competitions in schools,

tree planting, recycling efforts, clean-up campaigns and much more.

In Nigeria, WED will be celebrated by hiking the hills of Gwarinpa, in Abuja and organizing a climate change workshop on the hills of Gwarinpa on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 9am and on Sunday, June 5, 2011 we will be having an Arts and Crafts exhibition at Dreemi, Plot 75, 1st Avenue, Gwarinpa, Abuja by 3pm with the theme: Forests, Service to Nature. No thanks to the Nigeria Youth Climate Change Coalition and Greenback Nigeria that is putting this together to create awareness about environmental sustainability and issues surrounding Climate Change.

However, as the Environment becomes the biggest threat to all other Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), it will be of much concern to create more awareness on environmental sustainability, in essence, Nigeria's natural resources, which as become its valuable assets are seriously threatened, mostly by anthropogenic causes. Grim statistics from the Nigeria MDG report for 2010 showed that between 2000 and 2010, the area of forest shrank by a third, from 14.4% to 9.9% of the land area; little progess was made up to 2005 in providing access to safe water and accessing improved sanitation.

Moreover, Nigeria remains acutely vulnerable to climate change and its impacts in each ecological zone will be different. But, if well managed, measures to deal with the effects of climate change which include creating awareness, building eco-friendly communities, encouraging eco-friendly products, and enforcing environmental degradation laws provide important opportunities for ensuring more sustainable progress.

ONLINE INTERNET BUSINESSES: NO SHORTCUT!

In the past six months, six out of ten clients have made enquiries about an internet business that can fetch them more and quicker profit than what they are doing presently- "the-get-rich-quick-schemes"...what more can we tell them...there are no get-rich-quick-scheme. Just as there are no get-rich-quick-schemes, so there are no secrets.

If you type in "Opportunities to make money" into Google, you get over 72,100,000 hits; 427,000 if you Google Get-rich-quick-schemes; 594,000,000 if you Google "sex", but God is up there with 363,000,000 and "work is a staggering 5,670,000,000 so maybe there's hope for us yet.

Now believe us, they do work. But not for you, not for the mugs who sign up, they work for the instigators, beginners, the ones who launch such schemes...as about 45 million Nigerians, using the internet are looking for ways to adapt to a new world...Internet get-rich-quick schemes still exist as a shortcut to success...and the more you try looking...the less you will see...so don't go buying any of them either.

INTERNET USERS BEWARE: THIS COST OUR CLIENT A MILLION!

Perhaps, you must have come across a mail in your inbox titled United Parcel Service Notification or DHL Notification, Please ignore. UPS and DHL does not and will not send a notification to you. Furthermore, the mail is been sent from an e-mail address that looks like these - support3hlfu@ups.com, dhlinqx@dhl.com; a file with a .zip extension is always attached with the mail, for you to view, if you try extracting that file, your device operating system will crash the next day.
Please adhere, and inform others, its quite inevitable, because there are over 40million Nigerians using the internet. Remember, no one can reap, where he/she has not sowed.

Chuka Momoh, use to be one of our new clients, he's internet saavy, and leverages on Internet to increase ROI with respect to his business. Last week, he sent us a support form for his 5 workstations for vulnerability. We arranged for a vulnerability test, and in few mins, we found out that these mails were the cause of his/workstation's demise.

He told us the mail was sent to all his employee, and they all tried opening the attachement. Alas!there was a 1.2million worth prototype estate on one of the workstation. The only back up they had was one of the compromised workstation.