Nairobi — Mini-grid company WeLight has connected 186 villages across Africa to electricity, including 172 in Madagascar and 14 in Mali, as part of its rural electrification initiative.
Since January 2024, WeLight has connected 10,000 people monthly, directly electrifying 200,000 individuals and benefiting over one million through improved services such as schools, businesses, and public lighting.
The company’s success in Madagascar marks a significant milestone, proving the mini-grid model’s scalability and profitability without subsidies, according to WeLight CEO Romain de Villeneuve.
“We are proud to have transformed the lives of one million people through access to electricity. This milestone underscores our leadership in rural electrification and our readiness to expand into new territories, including Nigeria and the DRC,” he said.
WeLight also backs initiatives like the World Bank and African Development Bank’s M-300 program, aiming to connect 300 million people to electricity by 2030, addressing the needs of over 600 million Africans without power.
The firm’s growth has been supported by key partners like Norfund, Axian Group, and the European Investment Bank, alongside government agencies fostering public-private collaboration.
This progress positions WeLight as a leading force in sustainable electrification across sub-Saharan Africa.
Read the original article on Capital FM.
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Three billion people around the world are suffering the impact of poor and degraded land which will “increase levels of migration, stability and insecurity among many communities,” according to the newly-elected President of a UN-backed conference on desertification, drought and land restoration which is taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Abdulrahman Alfadley, the Saudi Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture was speaking as the 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) got underway in the capital of the Middle Eastern country.
The meeting, according to UNCCD, represents a “moonshot moment to raise global ambition and accelerate action on land and drought resilience through a people-centered approach.”
Globally up to 40 per cent of the world’s land is degraded, which means its biological or economic productivity has been reduced.
This has dire consequences for the climate, biodiversity and people’s livelihoods.
Droughts, which is a priority issue at COP16, are becoming more frequent and severe, increasing by 29 per cent since 2000 due to climate change and unsustainable land management.
Nurturing humanity
The UN desertification convention was agreed 30 years ago and the organization’s current Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw highlighted the continued importance of restoring land lost to drought and desertification.
“Land restoration is primarily about nurturing humanity itself,’ he said, adding that the “way we manage our land today will directly determine the future of life on Earth.”
He spoke of his personal experience of meeting farmers, mothers, and young people affected by the loss of land. “The cost of land degradation seeps in every corner of their lives.”
“They see the rising price of groceries, in unexpected energy surcharges, and in the growing strain on their communities,” he said. “Land and soil loss are robbing poor families of nutritious food, and children of a safe future.”
Reversing of land degradation
COP16 provides the opportunity for global leaders from governments, international organizations, the private sector and civil society to come together to discuss the latest research and to chart a way forward to a sustainable future of land use.
Together the world can “reverse the trends of land degradation,” Mr Thiaw said, but only if “we seize this pivotal moment.”
In a video address to the conference, the UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed urged delegates at COP16 to play their part and “turn the tide,” by focusing on three priorities including strengthening international cooperation.
She said it was also crucial to “ramp up” restoration efforts and work towards “the mass mobilization of finance.”
Financing these efforts is going to be challenging, and is unlikely to come from the public sector alone, but according to the UN deputy chief, “cumulative investments must total $2.6 trillion dollars by 2030; That is what the world spent on defence in 2023 alone.”
Speaking on behalf of civil society organizations attending the conference, Tahanyat Naeem Satti called for “ambitious and inclusive action at COP16,” adding that the “meaningful participation of women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists and local communities in decision-making at all levels must be institutionalized.”
She emphasized that “their insights and lived experiences are critical for shaping policies that effectively address land degradation and promote sustainable land management and restoration.”
The conference is set to last 2 weeks until 13 December and there will be some intense discussions and negotiations as delegates push towards the following outcomes.
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Fast facts: The UN and desertification
Read the original article on UN News.
The ‘Slow Onset, Silent Killer – ‘ Droughts Explained
COP16 – With Investment, Small-Scale Farmers Can Restore Lands And Deliver Significant Food Security, Climate, And Economic Benefits
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Droughts across the world are intensifying and have become a “slow onset, silent killer” to which no country is immune, according to the UN’s most senior official working on desertification, drought and land restoration issues.
Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was speaking at the opening of COP16 a major global conference taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where a new global drought regime is expected to be agreed which will promote the shift from reactive relief response to proactive preparedness.
Here’s what you need to know about droughts.
Droughts are increasing in regularity and intensity
Droughts are a natural phenomenon, but in recent decades have been intensified by climate change and unsustainable land practices. Their number has surged by nearly 30 per cent in frequency and intensity since 2000, threatening agriculture, water security, and the livelihoods of 1.8 billion people, with the poorest nations bearing the brunt.
They can also lead to conflict over dwindling resources, including water, and the widespread displacement of people as they migrate towards more productive lands.
No country is immune
More than 30 countries declared drought emergencies in the past three years alone, from India and China, to high-income nations such as the US, Canada and Spain, as well as Uruguay, Southern Africa and even Indonesia.
Droughts impeded grain transportation in the Rhine River in Europe, disrupted international trade via the Panama Canal in Central America, and led to hydropower cuts in the South America country, Brazil, which depends on water for more than 60 per cent of its electricity supply.
Firefighters were even called to an urban park in New York City, in the United States in wintry November 2024 to tackle a bush fire after weeks of no rainfall.
“Droughts have expanded into new territories. No country is immune,” said UNCCD’s Ibrahim Thiaw adding that “by 2050, three in four people globally, up to seven and half billion people, will feel the impact of drought.”
Domino effects
Droughts are rarely confined to a specific place and time and are not simply due to a lack of rainfall but are often the result of a complicated set of events driven or amplified by climate change, as well as sometimes the mismanagement of land.
For example, a hillside which is deforested is immediately degraded. The land will lose its resilience to extreme weather and will become more susceptible to both drought and flooding.
And, once they strike, they can trigger a series of cataclysmic domino effects, supercharging heat waves and even floods, multiplying the risks to people’ s lives and livelihoods with long-lasting human, social and economic costs.
As communities, economies, and ecosystems suffer the damaging effects of drought, their vulnerability is increased to the next one, feeding a vicious cycle of land degradation and underdevelopment.
Drought is a development and a security issue
Around 70 per cent of the world’s available freshwater is in the hands of people living off the land, most of them subsistence farmers in low-income countries with limited livelihood alternatives. Around 2.5 billion of them are youth.
Without water there is no food and no land-based jobs, which can lead to forced migration, instability, and conflict.
“Drought is not merely an environmental matter,” said Andrea Meza, UNCCD Deputy Executive Secretary. “Drought is a development and human security matter that we must urgently tackle from across all sectors and governance levels.”
Planning for greater resilience
Droughts are also becoming harsher and faster due to human-induced climate change as well as land mismanagement and typically the global response to it is still reactive. More planning and adaption is required to build resilience to the extreme conditions created by dwindling supplies of water and this often happens at a local level.
In Zimbabwe a youth-led grass-roots organization is aiming to regenerate land by planting one billion trees across the southern African country, while more farmers on the Caribbean island of Haiti are taking to bee-keeping in an effort to ensure that the trees those bees rely on are not cut down in the first place. In Mali, a young woman entrepreneur, is creating livelihoods and building resilience to drought by promoting the products of the moringa tree.
Experts say proactive initiatives like these can prevent immense human suffering and is far cheaper than interventions focused on response and recovery.
What next?
At COP16 countries are coming together to agree how to collectively tackle worsening droughts and promote sustainable land management.
Two key pieces of research were launched on the opening day.
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The World Drought Atlas depicts the systemic nature of drought risks illustrating how they are interconnected across sectors like energy, agriculture, river transport, and international trade and how they can trigger cascading effects, fueling inequalities and conflicts and threatening public health.
The Drought Resilience Observatory is an AI-driven data platform for drought resilience created by the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA), a UNCCD-hosted coalition of more than 70 countries and organizations committed to drought action.
How much is it going to cost?
One UN estimate suggests that investments totalling $2.6 trillion will be needed by 2030 to restore land across the world which is affected by drought and poor management.
At COP16 an initial pledge of $2.15 billion was announced to finance the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership.
It will serve as a global facilitator for drought resilience, promoting the shift from reactive relief response to proactive preparedness,” said Dr Osama Faqeeha, Deputy Minister for Environment, Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture of Saudia Arabia, adding that “we also seek to amplify global resources to save lives and livelihoods around the world.”
Read the original article on UN News.
Three Billion People Globally Impacted By Land Degradation
AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.
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