Dans son point au terme du Conseil des Ministres de ce mercredi 20 novembre 2024, Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, Porte Parole du Gouvernement a abordé le sujet agression des Guépards du Bénin à Tripoli quelques minutes après la qualification pour la CAN 2025.
"Dès le lundi même, les protestations ont été formulées dans les règles de l'art par l'État béninois. Le ministre des affaires étrangères a agi là où il devrait agir. Le Ministre des Sports et le président de la Fédération Béninoise de Football ont été instruits pour poser les actes qu'il faut au niveau des instances faîtières. Nous veillerons à ce que les intérêts de notre équipe nationale soient défendus.", a clarifié Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji.
La Libye pourrait à nouveau être sanctionnée après une première sanction il y a quelques semaines dans le cas concernant la réception inappropriée des Super Eagles du Nigéria.
J.S
La Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie du Bénin (CCI Bénin) a lancé, mercredi 20 novembre 2024, les Journées de l'Entrepreneuriat Féminin sous le thème « Réveille l'esprit d'entreprise qui est en toi ! ». Cet événement s'inscrit dans le cadre de la semaine mondiale de l'entrepreneuriat et du mois de l'entrepreneuriat au Bénin.
« Réveille l'esprit d'entreprise qui est en toi ! », c'est le thème des Journées de l'Entrepreneuriat Féminin organisées du 20 au 22 novembre 2024 par la Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie du Bénin (CCI Bénin) en partenariat avec la GIZ. La cérémonie d'ouverture a réuni des organisations féminines et femmes entrepreneures. Selon le Secrétaire général de la CCI Bénin, Raymond ADJAKPA ABILE, l'objectif de ces trois jours d'activité à la CCI Bénin est de célébrer les femmes entrepreneures. Ces femmes, souligne-t-il, doivent faire part de leur expérience afin d'inspirer d'autres femmes à entreprendre.
« La CCI Bénin a constaté que 70 % des femmes considèrent l'entrepreneuriat comme une opportunité. 46 % d'entre elles considèrent qu'entreprendre permet d'avoir une indépendance. Ce sont tous ces éléments qui nous permettent aujourd'hui d'affirmer que si nous faisons un focus sur l'entrepreneuriat féminin, nous pouvons avoir des résultats probants pour le secteur privé », a déclaré le Secrétaire général de la CCI Bénin.
Sur cet événement, l'institution consulaire bénéficie du soutien de la GIZ. « Nous accordons une attention particulière aux entreprises gérées par les femmes, les employés féminines et les organisations des femmes », a déclaré Stéphanie Zirpins, Chargée du Projet de Promotion des MPME à la GIZ. Elle soutient qu'une participation équitable des femmes aux activités économiques est essentielle pour le développement économique et social humain. Stéphanie Zirpins a relevé les obstacles significatifs auxquels les femmes sont confrontées notamment en matière d'accès au financement, aux marchés, aux ressources et à la conciliation entre la vie privée et la vie professionnelle. À travers le programme ProPme, la GIZ soutient les femmes entrepreneures par des formations et les accompagnements adaptés afin de les aider à surmonter ces barrières.
Des échanges autour des enjeux et défis
Un panel axé sur le thème « Les organisations féminines, Entrepreneures : enjeux, défis, leçons apprises » a été modéré par la consultante Gwladys TAWEMA. Les panélistes Christiane Codjo Tossou, Présidente du Women Investment Fund Bénin (Wifund-Bénin), la représentante de la Fédération des Femmes Entrepreneures et Femmes d'Affaires du Bénin (FEFA), Huguette Akplogan Dossa, Présidente de l'African Women Leaders Network (AWLN-Bénin) et Alida Ahouandjinou, présidente de l'Association African Women's Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP-Bénin). ont exposé la mission, les activités et les réalisations de leur organisation. Elles ont aussi mis l'accent sur leur mode de fonctionnement et appelé à une plus grande sonorité entre femmes entrepreneures afin de surmonter les obstacles.
Les journées de l'entrepreneuriat féminin sont aussi marquées par une exposition de produits de femmes entrepreneures. Il est prévu tout au long de ces journées des panels et master class.
Akpédjé Ayosso
Quelques photos
The COP29 Presidency’s draft text acknowledges that developing countries suffer disproportionately from impacts of climate change. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kamran Guliyev
By Joyce Chimbi
BAKU, Nov 21 2024 (IPS)
Today the COP29 Presidency released a much-awaited new draft text as the end draws near.
The draft acknowledges that developing countries suffer disproportionately from impacts of climate change amid a plethora of barriers and challenges, such as the high costs of capital, limited fiscal space, high levels of indebtedness, and high transaction costs, which also further exacerbate existing developmental challenges.
“The African Group welcomes the new draft decision text on New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), now much streamlined. These ten pages contain many of the principled positions from the African Group and other developing countries, although continues to include many of the untenable positions of the developed countries as options in the text,” says Ambassador Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Chair of the African Group of Negotiators.
“The elephant in the room, however, is the lack of a quantum proposal, and the text does not specify numerical figures for the proposed mobilisation goal or for the provision element, despite a common position from the G77 and China on a USD1.3 trillion annual mobilisation goal. This is the reason we are here, identifying a quantified goal, but we are no closer and we need the developed countries to urgently engage on this matter.”
The text’s first option closely mirrors what the developing countries are asking for. It states that an unspecified trillion of dollars will be raised annually from 2025 through 2035, provided and mobilised from developed to all developing countries. But it also raises eyebrows as it ‘invites’ developing countries to provide finance ‘voluntarily’ as long as this does not count towards the main goal.
These funds will be used to address developing countries evolving needs, in grants or grant-equivalent terms of new, additional, affordable, predictable, non-debt inducing and adequate climate finance, for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage, to support developing country Parties and to support the implementation of their nationally determined contributions.
Mohamed Adow, a climate justice advocate and director of energy and climate think-tank Power Shift Africa referred to the new text on the NCQG on climate finance as a blank cheque and asked developed countries to put actual figures on the table. Stresing that it is only by putting specific numbers to the goal that negotiations at COP29 will move forward smoothly.
“The new text rightly diagnoses the climate problem, including the required finance for adaptation and energy transition, but glaringly omits what the rich countries will actually provide to developing countries. The elephant in the room is the lack of specific numbers in the text. This is the ‘finance COP’. We came here to talk about money. You measure money with numbers. We need a cheque but all we have right now is a blank piece of paper.”
Further stressing that the text includes “some important signals on grant-based financing, and the need to avoid debt inducing instruments. Developed countries now urgently need to fill in the blanks and put their finance card on the table to move the negotiations forward.”
Developed countries are more aligned to second option which indicates that the NCQG has one provision and one mobilization component, and that developed country Parties shall provide at least USD [X] billion per year in grants or grant-equivalent terms referred to as provision goal to support the achievement the mobilization goal from the floor of their current levels – USD100 billion per year – of financial contributions. Observers say option two is ‘a goal to be reached by 2035, giving wealthy nations longer to mobilise to meet it.’
Others have taken issue with the draft saying it is has explicitly attempted to remove all references to historical polluters’ obligation to pay in line with the Paris Agreement, saying that this is an attempt to set things in motion for private sector financing to enable polluting countries to take bare minimum financial accountability. Notably, the draft suggests burden-sharing arrangements for developed country Parties based on historical emissions and GDP per capita.
Cristina Rumbaitis, Senior Adaptation and Resilience Advisor, UN Foundation says the text is “very poor and disappointing, especially on adaptation. First, the floor for adaptation is out. Secondly, there is no reference to the Global Goal on Adaptation or the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience. Thirdly, there is only language around balancing between mitigation and adaptation and loss and damage. This could further reduce funding for adaptation.
She nonetheless says there is “some good language on qualitative elements and call for a floor for adaptation for Least Developed Countries and the Small Island Developing States from all relevant actors and financial mechanisms. But also very weak statements like grant financing should be used for adaptation and loss and damage to the largest extent possible. We had hoped for more.”
On gender and climate change, the text notes that gender-responsive implementation and means of implementation of climate policy and action can enable Parties to raise ambition, as well as enhance gender equality, and just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.
The text decides to extend the enhanced Lima work programme on gender for a period of ten years. The Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWPG) was established in 2014 to advance gender balance and integrate gender consideration into the work of Parties and the secretariat in implementing the Convention and the Paris Agreement.
Further, the United Arab Emirates just transition work program recognizes that “the widening adaptation finance gap may hinder the implementation of just transition pathways in developing countries, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.”
It underscores that multi-stakeholder, people-centric, bottom-up, whole-of-society approaches are required to achieve just transitions and recognizes the importance of education systems and skills development, including through upskilling and reskilling, labour rights and social protection systems, and of consideration of the informal sector, the care economy, unemployed people and future workers for ensuring a just transition of the workforce.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
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Az amerikai légierő egyik igáslova az F-105 Thunderchief volt Délkelet-Ázsiában, ahol az eredetileg nukleáris csapásmérésre szánt típust vadászbombázóként, később pedig a légvédelem elnyomására is használták. Az F-105-ösökből 833 darab készült és a vietnami konfliktusban 1965 és 1972 között 382 veszett oda; 321 harci bevetésen, 61 egyéb okokból, baleset következtében pusztult el. A legrosszabb év 1966 volt, amikor 127 Thunderchief került veszteséglistára.
1966 októberében négy pilóta azt a feladatot kapta, hogy a veszteségek pótlására a kaliforniai McClellan légierő bázisról nagyjavított F-105D-ket repüljenek át Takhliba, a thai királyi légierő bázisára, ahol a US Air Force 355. harcászati vadászrepülő ezrede települt. A négy pilóta közül hárman száz bevetéses F-105-ös veteránok voltak, a negyedik viszont első harctéri szolgálatára készült. Az őrnagy korábban F-86-oson és F-102-esen repült, majd mérnökként a Gemini-programban dolgozott. Többször kérelmezte, hogy helyezzék vissza hajózó státuszba, de az űrprogram elsőbbséget élvezett. Aztán amikor a vietnami háború eszkalálódása miatt nagy szükség volt pilótákra, az újabb kérelmét már elfogadták és az F-105 Thunderchiefre kapott átképzést. Amikor kiderült, hogy Takhliba vezénylik, logikus döntés volt, hogy ha már úgyis oda megy, ő repülje át az egyik gépet. Így került a rajba, de azt senki nem gondolta, hogy az egyszerű „ferry flight” mennyi nehézséggel jár majd.
A recently displaced mother holds her child in a makeshift displacement camp in Léogâne. Credit: UNICEF/Maxime Le Lijour
By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 2024 (IPS)
Doctors Without Borders, the medical humanitarian organization, which has served in Haiti for over 30 years, announced on Wednesday that it would suspend its activities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital amid repeated threats from local law enforcement. This announcement indicates the precariousness of the situation in Haiti where humanitarian groups on the ground face security issues from even members of law enforcement.
In their announcement, Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), cited multiple incidents where local police made verbal threats on staff members, threatening violence, death and rape. Other incidents included attacks on ambulances, tear-gassing, and harassment. This also comes following an incident on November 11, where two patients were executed following an attack on an ambulance by police and vigilante groups. The spokesperson for the Haitian National Police has not a public comment.
MSF patient admissions will be halted, excluding patients that are currently in care and those that are receiving care in the maternity sector. All five of the organization’s medical facilities in Haiti are currently inactive.
“As MSF, we accept working in conditions of insecurity, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend admissions of patients in Port-au-Prince until the conditions are met for us to resume”, said Christophe Garnier, MSF’s head of mission in Haiti.
Prior to halting operations, MSF provided care to over 1,100 patients, 54 children with emergency conditions, and more than 80 survivors of sexual violence on a weekly basis. Humanitarian organizations predict that this will be a massive blow to Haiti’s barely functioning healthcare system.
“Healthcare services have never been so limited for people in Haiti. Many people will lose access to MSF services because we are not able to work safely in Port-au-Prince,” Garnier added.
The appointment of Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as the new prime minister of Haiti has been followed with sharp rises in social insecurity and gang violence. In recent days, attacks on civilian settlements reached new levels of brutality, with armed gangs gaining more territory in the capital, Port-Au-Prince.
Thousands of civilians have fled their homes. Due to the wide scale of needs, as well as numerous security challenges, humanitarian efforts have been pushed to their limits. Shelters and essential resources remain critically strained.
The past few weeks have yielded a considerable surge in gang violence, with most of the attacks being concentrated in the capital and the Artibonite River region. According to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a total of 20,000 Haitians have fled their homes in the past week, noting significant disruptions to basic services such as education, protection, and healthcare.
This recent escalation has also led to a rise in civilian casualties. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the recent attacks have pushed the total death toll from gang violence past 4,000 in 2024 alone.
Currently, it is estimated by OCHA that armed groups control 85 percent of Port-Au-Prince. According to Ulrika Richardson, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Haiti, gangs have begun to gain increasing amounts of territory within the capital.
This endangers thousands of civilians and provides humanitarian organizations with numerous access challenges. “With only 20 percent of Port-au-Prince accessible, humanitarian workers face immense challenges in reaching affected populations,” said chief of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti, Grégoire Goodstein.
On November 19, the Viv Ansamn gang launched an attack on Petionville, an upscale neighborhood in Port-Au-Prince. Armed gang members clashed with the local police and civilians, resulting in the deaths of at least 28 suspected gang members according to the Haitian National Police. Jimmy Chérizier, the leader of Viv Ansamn, has threatened reprisals of violence, encouraging opposition from the police and the Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission, saying, “They think they can stop us, but all the helicopters in the world won’t be enough. The gangs are here to stay”.
This is only the latest in a series of attacks following the Fils-Aimé’s appointment as prime minister. The Viv Ansamn coalition is especially known for capitalizing on moments of extreme political instability in Haiti. “In a power vacuum like this, it’s a fertile ground for organized crime,” Richardson remarked.
In the hours following the attack, MSF made their announcement to suspend its activities in Port-au-Prince until further notice. The conditions in Haiti pose a security threat to humanitarian workers, even as they work tirelessly to remedy the needs of affected civilians.
Living conditions in displacement shelters have considerably deteriorated due to the lack of humanitarian aid and medical care. According to a report from OCHA, approximately half of the Haitian population faces severe food insecurity. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reports that access to healthcare and sanitation resources are severely limited, with women being highly susceptible to gender-based violence and unsafe practices, such as transactional sex.
The UN has pledged to continue its efforts in providing humanitarian assistance wherever it can. “Despite the temporary suspension of air transport, humanitarian operations continue actively in the Port-au-Prince area, although security conditions are unpredictable. In addition, humanitarian and recovery activities continue uninterrupted in the rest of the country,” Richardson said.
Aid personnel are currently on the frontlines, distributing essential resources to affected communities, including hot meals, cash transfers, clean drinking water, healthcare, and psychosocial support. Additionally, the UN urges member states of the MSS mission to continue their support.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureauActivists speak out against fossil fuels amid a new pledge from wealthy nations and EU against new unabated coal power plants. Credit: Joyce Chimbi
By Joyce Chimbi
BAKU, Nov 21 2024 (IPS)
Of all fossil fuels, coal has had the most serious and long-term effects on global warming. When burnt, coal releases more carbon dioxide than oil and gas, producing an estimated 39 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions. Yet, coal is still the number one energy source, providing nearly 40 percent of the world’s electricity.
A COP29 deal struck on Wednesday November 21 now holds the promise to change the fossil fuel landscape and climate change trajectory, placing the world back on track to net zero. Twenty-five countries and the EU have now pledged not to build any new unabated coal-power plants in their next round of national climate plans in bid to scale up ambitions in the next phase of climate action.
Fossil fuels are highly polluting. The ‘no new unabated coal power’ COP29 initiative was signed by EU climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra to pledge that when the 25 nations submit their national climate plans by February 2025 along with all other nations party to the Paris Agreement, theirs will reflect no new unabated coal in their respective energy systems to accelerate phasing out of fossil fuels.
In reference to fossil fuels, ‘unabated’ means taking no measures to reduce the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. Abated refers to attempts to decrease release of polluting substances to an acceptable level.
“I’m often asked what gives me confidence that we can get this job done. The answer is lots of things. Quiet acts of solidarity, from people who get knocked down, but who refuse to stay down. But there are also big things – the macro trends that aren’t up for debate. And there’s none bigger than the global clean energy boom – set to hit two trillion dollars this year alone. And it’s just getting started,” Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, stressed.
“Money talks, and as we enter the second quarter of this century, it is saying loud and clear: there is no stopping the clean energy juggernaut, and the vast benefits it brings: stronger growth, more jobs, less pollution and inflation, cheaper and cleaner energy. The list of benefits goes on.”
The coalition of nations backing the diplomatic campaign to encourage all countries to end new coal power is constituted of mostly wealthy nations such as Germany, France, Canada, the United Kingdom and notably Australia – a major coal producer. This is the latest pledge towards curbing use of the fuel and phasing out fossil fuels in line with the COP28 deal.
The pledge is incredibly critical for despite coal being extremely dangerous to the global climate goals, a coal boom is unfolding. Data in the Global Coal Plant Tracker show that “69.5 GW of coal power capacity was commissioned while 21.1 GW was retired in 2023, resulting in a net annual increase of 48.4 GW for the year and a global total capacity of 2,130 GW. This is the highest net increase in operating coal capacity since 2016.”
COP29 has been centered around a new deal for climate financing to support the third Nationally Determined Contributions in the developing world, but delegates have not lost sight of the COP28 landmark deal when nearly 200 nations—for the first time—called on all nations to transition away from fossil fuels.
Activists want a net-zero world and they want it now, calling for ambitious climate actions to save the planet. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPSTeresa Anderson, the Global Lead on Climate Justice at ActionAid International, told IPS, “Just transitions and climate finance have to go hand in hand. Last year’s agreement to transition away from fossils was an important step. But without finance to make the just transition a reality, developing countries are in a bind.”
Stressing that climate-hit countries want to “leapfrog the fossil fuel era and scale up renewables, but can’t do so when they are being pushed deeper into debt by the climate crisis. To finally unlock the climate action the planet needs, COP29 needs to agree on an ambitious finance goal worth trillions of dollars in grants each year. Ensuring a just transition in energy is about much more than encouraging corporate investment and can’t just be left up to the private sector.
“When shifting away from fossil fuels, governments have a responsibility to actively involve communities in planning, training, social protection and ensuring energy access and secure livelihoods. Public services can join the dots, and have a key role in the just transition. The new climate finance goal has to provide trillions of dollars in grants, not loans or corporate investment targets,” Anderson observed.
Hailed as a major progressive step in the journey towards phasing out fossil fuels, the initiative is nonetheless not the silver bullet to end coal. The new commitment does not compel nations to stop mining or exporting coal. Notably, the world’s greatest coal-power generators, such as the United Nations and India, are not part of the initiative. Nonetheless, despite coal power growing in the past years despite the COP28 deal on fossil fuels, Hoekstra expressed optimism that this call to action will set the ball rolling towards a much-needed fossil fuel phasing out.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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On November 19, 2024, the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, in partnership with the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre/Forum for Security Co-operation Support Unit (CPC/FSC SU), facilitated a roundtable discussion with representatives from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of National Security, the State Customs Service, and the State Frontier Service. This meeting aimed to enhance the understanding of Turkmenistan's national authorities regarding the comprehensive agenda of the FSC, as well as to introduce the available online E-Learning tools designed to support a deeper understanding of the FSC area of work.
The discussion primarily centered on the OSCE's assistance mechanism for Small Arms and Light Weapons and Stockpiles of Conventional Ammunition (SALW/SCA), as well as the ongoing projects in the Central Asia region. Nora Vanaga, the CPC/FSC SU Project Support Officer, provided valuable insights during her briefing, highlighting the growing momentum since 2021, where participating states in the region have shown increasing commitment to collaborating on SALW/SCA matters.
A notable area of cooperation involves capacity building for conventional ammunition propellant chemical testing, which Austria is contributing as an in-kind support for the Central Asia region. Mr. Werner Kernmaier, the Head of International Weapon and Ammunition Logistics at the Austrian Armed Forces Logistics School, offered his expertise and practical approaches to assist country in this field. This presentation captured the interest of the Ministry of Defense of Turkmenistan, reflecting a willingness to explore collaboration in this important area.
In closing, Mr. William Leaf, the Conflict Prevention and Confidence and Security Building Political Officer at the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, expressed appreciation for the active participation of Turkmen authorities and the rich discussions that took place during the event. He conveyed optimism that these dialogues would pave the way for meaningful and practical initiatives in the near future.