Angola committed to combat climate change – Vice President

Angola’s Vice President of the Republic Esperança da Costa Thursday reaffirmed the country’s commitment to the fight against climate change, which she described as one of the greatest challenges facing humanity.

Esperança da Costa expressed the country’s pledge at the opening ceremony of the Regional Conference of the Pan-African Women’s Organisation (PAWO), which takes place under the motto “The Resilience of African Women: The Contribution of the Agriculture Sector to Adaptation to Climate Change”.

Making her speech, Esperança da Costa mentioned the national and international environmental issues as the country’s priority, due to the damage that this phenomenon has caused.

She also underlined the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement on Climate.

The leader spoke of the country’s contribution to global efforts, having approved the National Strategy for Climate Change, which establishes a 2021-2035 vision.

The Strategy promotes adaptation and resilience throughout the national territory, resulting in programmes to mitigate the drought and other extreme events that have devastated the south of the country.

According to Esperança da Costa, under the strategy to combat drought in southern Angola, the Government built the Cafu Canal to transfer water from the Cunene river to the Chanas region of the same province.

The project aims to create conditions for the development of agriculture and livestock, thus benefiting more than 230,000 inhabitants.

The Vice President also added that Angola has specific objectives and targets on climate issues and sustainable development.

She added that the country defined the contribution for the reduction of carbon in the production of electricity until 2025 and outlined complementary actions of sustainable management of forests, transports and agriculture.

Esperança da Costa said that in Africa, women and youth constitute the majority of the main food producers, around 70 percent of the workforce and productive potential.

She considered that these groups of society are not involved in high value activities such as processing, agribusiness, marketing and export.

She defended the need to increasingly expand the resilience of African women, at a time when they continue to be the most affected by the impact of climate change, often the cause of large and forced population displacements and poverty.

“We therefore defend access to land ownership, improved financial inclusion of women and young women, access (…) to the main agricultural markets, more training and access to new technologies and the digital world”, she emphasized.

She pointed out that women play an important role in the process of mitigating and adapting to climate change, as they continue to raise their voices in favour of the environment while positioning themselves as strong defenders of this cause.

She recalled that Angola takes this month the rotating chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), highlighting food and nutritional security and the industrialisation of the sub-region as the most important programme to support regional aspirations to leverage South-South cooperation.

In her speech, Esperança da Costa highlighted her support for food and nutritional security in the challenge of contributing to a world with greater climate justice, more equality and peace.

The Pan-African Women’s Organisation was created 61 years ago with the aim of guaranteeing the effective and responsible participation of women in the socio-economic and cultural development of Africa, and creating all the conditions for them to participate and have space in the most diverse sectors.

The Vice-President Esperança da Costa highlighted that more than mitigation, adaptation mechanisms need to be chosen, strengthening the motto “Africa we want”, of Agenda 2063.

She said that the Malabo Declaration provides an opportunity to evaluate the implemented aspects and propose a more impactful review, as part of the challenges of agriculture and climate change, which represent a real threat to humanity and the maintenance of life on the planet.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)