UN BACKS KENYAN APPEAL FOR $81 MILLION TO RESTORE CRITICAL FOREST AREA

Kenya launched an appeal for $81 million to fund efforts halting the degradation of its Mau Forests Complex, the United Nations Environment Programme (<"http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=596&ArticleID=6302&l=en">UNEP) announced today.

In addition to being the single most important source of water for direct consumption in the Rift Valley and western Kenya, the Mau complex helps to control river flows, mitigate flooding, reduce soil erosion, maintain biodiversity, sequester carbon and regulate the microclimate in Kenya and the region.

"The Mau Complex is of critical importance for sustaining current and future ecological, social and economic development in Kenya," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner told a one-day UN Partners Forum in Nairobi, which hosted today's launch.

Kenya is seeking $81 million over the next three years to implement some of the key rehabilitation interventions to protect the forest.

In the last 20 years the forest has lost around 107,000 hectares – approximately 25 per cent – of its cover due to irregular and unplanned settlements, illegal logging and charcoal burning, the change of land use from forest to unsustainable agriculture and change in ownership from public to private, UNEP said in a news release.

"The rehabilitation of the ecosystem will require substantial resources and political goodwill," stressed Mr. Steiner. "UNEP is privileged to work in partnership with the Government of Kenya towards the implementation of this vital project."

A recent report released by the Kenyan Government warned of serious consequences to the country's socio-economic health and internal security and even the likelihood of conflict emerging if the forest is allowed to continue on the path of deterioration.

The appeal for the rehabilitation of the Mau complex, the largest closed-canopy forest ecosystem in Kenya covering over 400,000 hectares, comes amid widespread drought in Kenya which has led to water and electricity rationing across the country.

KENYA: UN AGENCY SOUNDS ALARM ON DIRE FOOD SITUATION

The United Nations food agency today issued a warning that Kenya faces a dire hunger crisis due to failed rains, appealing today for $230 million to feed nearly 4 million Kenyans – nearly one-tenth of the African nation's population – over the next six months.

"Red lights are flashing around the country," said Burkard Oberle, Kenya director of the World Food Programme (WFP).

"People are already going hungry, malnutrition is preying on more and more young children, cattle are dying – we face a huge challenge and are urging the international community to provide us with the resources we need to get the job done," he added.

WFP is currently distributing 2.6 million drought-affected Kenyans with food aid and hopes to increase that number by 1.2 million.

Many parts of Kenya have experienced three or even four consecutive seasons of failed rains, and conditions are expected to deteriorate, with the Government projecting the main maize harvest to fall nearly one-third below the five-year average. In addition, pasture and water for livestock is quickly dwindling.

The hardest-hit Kenyans have taken drastic measures, such as reducing the number of meals each day, eating cheaper and less nutritious food, migrating to urban centres and taking on massive debt.

Acute malnutrition rates among children under the age of five are over 20 per cent in some areas, well above the 15 per cent emergency threshold.

"Life has never been easy for the poor in Kenya, but right now conditions are more desperate than they have been for a decade," Mr. Oberle said. "WFP is aiming to help almost 1 in every 10 Kenyans to cope wit this serious crisis but we can't do it without money."

The agency also hopes the influx of funds will allow it to expand its school feeding programme by 100,000 to reach almost 1.2 million children. The Kenyan Government provides schools meals to some 500,000 more young people through its own scheme.

Across the Horn of Africa, WFP is facing funding shortfalls, including over $160 million for Somalia and nearly $100 million for Ethiopia.

Last month, the agency's Executive Director, Josette Sheeran, warned that millions of hungry people around the world will not receive food aid from due to a "dangerous and unprecedented" $3 billion budget shortfall this year.

WFP is hoping to reach 108 million people in 74 countries this year with food aid, but it expects to receive only $3.7 billion of the $6.7 billion needed for 2009.
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UN RELOCATES FIRST BATCH OF SOMALI REFUGEES FROM OVERCROWDED KENYAN CAMP

The first of nearly 13,000 Somali refugees have been moved out of an overcrowded Kenyan camp by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency reported today.

Just over 300 refugees arrived on 15 August after a three-day road journey at Kakuma camp, in Kenya's north-west, from the Dabaab complex, whose three sites house a total of 289,500 refugees.

Another convoy carrying 520 refugees left the congested Dabaab camps for Kakuma yesterday.

The relocation of Somali refugees "is part of a multi-phase plan to alleviate the chronic overcrowding in the 18-year-old Dabaab refugee camps, which currently host more than three times the population they were initially designed to accommodate," UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic told reporters today in Geneva.

The moves will wrap up by the end of October before the start of the rainy season, he added.

Upon arriving in Kakuma, refugees were given blankets, sleeping mats and kitchen sets before being transferred to their new accommodations.

Escalating violence and a deteriorating humanitarian situation have driven thousands of Somalis from their homes, with many seeking refuge in neighbouring nations. Since the start of this year, more than 43,000 Somali refugees have arrived in Dabaab.

Mr. Mahecic also voiced concern over the prolonged clashes in Somalia, where a World Food Programme (WFP) compound was attacked over the weekend, the fourth time in two months that UN offices in the Horn of Africa nation have been deliberately targeted.

"The continued abductions, killing and intimidation of aid workers and the pillaging of humanitarian facilities and supplies are making it increasingly difficult to reach and access the needy population," he said.

The security situation is also thwarting the delivery of aid to 1.3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia, where more than 3 million people are in dire need of assistance, the spokesperson emphasized.

UNHCR helps and protects over 500,000 refugees in Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Uganda.
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UN WELCOMES US COMMITMENT TO BOOST AGRICULTURE IN POORER COUNTRIES

A senior United Nations official today welcomed United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent statements in Kenya as a clear signal that Washington is committed to boost sustainable agricultural development in the world's poorer countries as a way to root out global hunger and poverty.

Mrs. Clinton's comments, in which she called for more agricultural aid money to be spent in poorer countries, show a clear US resolve to act upon the $20-billion pledge for sustainable agricultural development made at last month's G8 summit of industrialized nations in L'Aquila, Italy, UN Fund for Agricultural Development (<"http://www.ifad.org/media/press/2009/37.htm">IFAD) President Kanayo F. Nwanze said in a news release.

"After the historic pledge of $20 billion for sustainable agriculture development, the world is eager to see concrete actions that will translate into improvements in the lives of poor people in developing countries. There is no time to lose," he declared.

"The initiative, as well as Secretary Clinton's remarks, reflects a shift in emphasis – from dependence on food aid to greater investment in agriculture as a key to eradicating poverty."

In a speech at the 8th Forum of the African Growth and Opportunity Act in Nairobi, Mrs. Clinton noted that while past US assistance has yielded gains, "we have spent too many dollars and too many decades on efforts that have not delivered the desired long-term results," according to a State Department transcript.

"Too much money, for example, has stayed in America, paid salaries to Americans, furnished overhead to the contractors that were used. Too little has reached the intended target or contributed to lasting progress," she added.
Mr. Nwanze thanked Mrs. Clinton for keeping the global spotlight on agriculture and rural poverty. "Investing in agriculture – and in particular smallholder agriculture – is indeed the most cost-effective way of reducing poverty, saving and improving lives," he said.

The L'Aquila Food Security Initiative has been hailed as a major commitment to root out hunger and poverty, prompted mainly by the recognition that the global economic slowdown has pushed 90 million more people into extreme poverty.

"With a significant increase in the flow of external resources to agriculture, much will still depend on how these resources are spent; most importantly, whether higher commitments for agricultural development will trigger a matching response from developing countries by putting in place the right policy framework to support farmers," Mr. Nwanze said.

Rome-based IFAD works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes, and determine the direction of their own lives. Since 1978, it has invested over $11 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering some 340 million people to break out of poverty.

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT RECEIVES MATERIALS ON KENYAN POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) today received sealed information about persons suspected of being responsible for last year's post-election violence in Kenya from Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general who helped mediate an end to the deadly clashes.

In a press release issued in The Hague, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he had received a sealed envelope and supporting materials that had previously been entrusted to Mr. Annan – who is also the Chairman of the African Union Panel of Eminent African Personalities – by a commission investigating the violence that erupted in December 2007 and early 2008.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo's office has had the situation in Kenya under preliminary examination since last year, and last week a high-level Kenyan Government delegation visited The Hague to discuss the need for accountability for those responsible for the violence.

"The Kenyan authorities, while continuing all efforts to set up national proceedings, have committed to start sharing information on the current status of investigations and prosecutions arising out of the post-election violence, as well as on measures taken to protect witnesses, with a view to assisting the [ICC] Prosecutor's work," the press release noted.

If the efforts to conduct national proceedings fail, the Government agreed last week to refer the situation to the ICC within one year.

"The transmission of documents by Mr. Kofi Annan forms part of these collaborative efforts to ensure that justice is not delayed and that future crimes can be prevented," Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said.

The ICC is an independent, permanent court that investigates and prosecutes people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. It is based on a treaty known as the Rome Statute, of which 109 countries are now States Parties.
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Interview: Africa Yet To Feel Full Force Of Slowdown.

In an interview with Reuters, International Finance Corporation (IFC) Sub-Saharan Country Director Saleem Karimjee said, "Africa's economies are yet to feel the full force of a consumer slowdown in the West, which is likely to cause some corporate failures but nothing like on the scale of other regions... 'My concern in Africa is that the real sector will start to hurt, and it hasn't yet felt all of the impact of the crisis,' said Karimjee.... As the crisis evolves into a wider recession, affecting the spending habits of consumers in Europe and the US, any related African economy would feel a direct squeeze, Karimjee said. 'It's hard to predict -- how will the average family in the UK change their shopping behavior because of the crisis?' he told Reuters in an interview Tuesday, saying his views did not necessarily reflect the official ones of the IFC. 'Will they stop buying roses every week and buy them only two weeks and how will that affect the cut-flower industry in Kenya?' he said. 'This is the cycle I feel has not yet been fully experienced in Africa.'...

However, despite the occasional but inevitable failure in manufacturing and other industries, there was little risk of a domino-effect ripple through its still relatively unsophisticated banking system, Karimjee said. 'I don't think the banks are exposed to the extent that the few failures you will see in the real sector will cause them to crash,' he said...." [Reuters/Factiva]

KENYAN VILLAGERS TO TEST OUT UN CARBON BENEFITS PROJECT

KENYAN VILLAGERS TO TEST OUT UN CARBON BENEFITS PROJECT
New York, May 11 2009 11:00AM
Villagers in western Kenya are the latest participants in a project carried out by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its partners to calculate how much carbon can be stored in trees and soils when the land is managed in sustainable, climate-friendly ways.

The <"http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=585&ArticleID=6159&l=en">Carbon Benefits Project was launched today in communities in and around Lake Victoria by UNEP and the World Agroforestry Centre, along with a range of other key partners.

Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the project is already being carried out in communities in Niger, Nigeria and China, where scientists are developing a system for measuring, monitoring and managing carbon in a diverse range of landscapes.

Under the UN Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, developed countries can offset some of their greenhouse gas emissions by paying developing economies for implementing clean and renewable energy projects such as wind, solar and geothermal power.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (<"http://www.fao.org/">FAO) has noted that by keeping higher levels of carbon in the soil – a process known as "carbon sequestration" – farmers can help reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, enhance the soil's resilience and boost crop yields.

However, as UNEP noted, more research is needed to evaluate just how much carbon different farming systems actually lock away.

"This key issue must be resolved if farmers, conservationists, communities and land owners are to be paid per tonne of pollution removed from the atmosphere," the agency said in a news release.

As part of the initiative, researchers will work with project managers in all four countries to set up carbon and greenhouse gas prediction systems.

"Farming carbon alongside farming crops is just one of the tantalizing prospects emerging as a result of the world's urgent need to combat climate change," said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. "Some industrialized countries are considering investing tens of billions of dollars in capturing carbon off the smoke stacks of power stations and burying underground.

He added that managing the land and its vegetation in more "intelligent and climate-friendly" ways may generate multiple benefits from stabilizing soils, securing water supplies, conserving biodiversity and generating much needed income for poor and low-income communities.

Dennis Garrity, Director-General of the World Agroforestry Centre, emphasized that the knowledge gained from study sites around the world, including Lake Victoria, will help enable some of the world's poorest people – in the most vulnerable places – to obtain the benefits of carbon sequestration.
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KENYA MUST STOP ORGANIZED HARASSMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS – UN EXPERT

Kenyan law enforcement agencies have systematically harassed and intimidated human rights defenders, a United Nations independent expert said, expressing outrage at threats made against those who have cooperated with the world body.

"Dozens of prominent and respected human rights defenders have been targeted in a blatant campaign designed to silence individual monitors and instil fear in civil society organizations at large," with many rights defenders having been forced into hiding or exile, said Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions.

The Kenyan police and military are violating the most basic rules governing the treatment of the world body's fact-finding missions, he underscored.

"Non-cooperation with a UN mission is one thing, but making threats against those that have provided information to the UN, as well as harassing their families, is quite another," the expert stressed.

Last month, Oscar Kamau Kingara, founder of the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic, along with a co-worker, was gunned down in Nairobi, one week after meeting with Mr. Alston.

Mr. Kingara's foundation had provided testimonies of family members of people who had been allegedly killed by police to the Special Rapporteur and, in 2007, had published a report entitled "License to Kill – Extrajudicial Executions and Police Brutality in Kenya."

According to Mr. Alston, the Government has accused the Oscar Foundation of having close links to a criminal gang, the Mungiki.

"We try to take every possible precaution to ensure the security of those that we speak with. At the end of the day if you have a very determined and ruthless group that is going to punish and intimidate these people, there isn't much that can be done," he said.

The expert noted today that "all indications seem to point to the face that the campaign has been carefully coordinated within the Government," with people from a range of civil society groups having been targeted, threatening telephone messages having been left for many prominent public figures and security forces having frequently visited and threatened family members of defenders who have fled.

President Mwai Kibaki, Internal Security Minister George Saitoti and others who control the security have not spoken out against the intimidation of the rights defenders, Mr. Alston noted, and there have been no substantive responses to complaints lodged by the UN.

The expert – who, like all UN Special Rapporteurs, reports to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council in an unpaid, independent capacity – called on the Kenyan Government to immediately publicly order the police and military to end the intimidation and harassment of the defenders.

"The international community can not stand by as Kenya responds to findings highlighting human rights violations by unleashing an attack on those struggling to document and respond to such violations," he said.
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THOUSANDS OF SOMALIS STILL FLEEING TO KENYA, REPORTS UN AGENCY

Despite recent elections and the establishment of new government in their homeland, thousands of Somalis are continuing to flee to north-eastern Kenya, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported today.

More than 20,000 Somalis have been registered in Kenya's Dadaab refugee camps since the start of 2009. Several of the new arrivals told UNHCR that they left due to rising insecurity, coupled with drought and food shortages.

"Many also express little optimism for the return of peace to their country in the near term," UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva. "Despite the recent elections held in Djibouti which saw a new Government come to power, many parts of Somalia are still insecure."

Somalia, which has been beset by factional strife since the overthrow of Siad Barre in 1991, has witnessed a number of positive developments in recent months, including the creation of an expanded Parliament, the election of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and the formation of the Unity Government.

At the same time, the UN estimates that over 3 million people, a third or more of the total population, will remain dependent on humanitarian assistance this year.

According to UNHCR, more than half of the new arrivals to Dadaab are women and children, some having travelled as much as 800 kilometres over 16 days by foot to reach the camps.

Mr. Redmond said UNHCR is continuing to receive new arrivals at Kenya's sprawling and overcrowded Dadaab refugee complex. Designed nearly two decades ago to accommodate a total of 90,000 people, the complex currently houses over 261,000. There are concerns that the upcoming rainy season, set to begin in early April, could put additional constraints on the already congested camps.

The agency and the Kenyan Government are finalizing plans for the construction of new camps to ease the burden on the Dadaab site. "It is crucial for the Government to provide us with land as soon as possible, where we can build other camps and thus decongest the existing camps and prepare for more people if the current arrival trend continues," Mr. Redmond stated.

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AFRICAN YOUTH REACH KILIMANJARO’S SUMMIT TO HIGHLIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE – UN

AFRICAN YOUTH REACH KILIMANJARO'S SUMMIT TO HIGHLIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE – UN
New York, Mar 6 2009 6:00PM

A team of disadvantaged African youth has scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania as part of a United Nations-backed campaign seeking to draw attention to the negative effects of climate change.

The 10 youth – from Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana – reached the summit of Africa's highest peak yesterday as part of the fourth annual ascent organized by Kilimanjaro Initiative, a Nairobi-based non-governmental organization, in partnership with the UN.

Upon reaching the peak under the banner of the "UNite to Combat Climate Change" campaign, they called Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who himself flew over the mountain last weekend and saw first-hand how there is less water in the streams and less snow on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

When the climbers reach the bottom, they reported on their findings to Janos Pasztor, the Director of the Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that rising temperatures, increased rainfall and extreme weather conditions will dramatically change where and how people live in cities.

Changing climates does untold damage to economic and public infrastructure and stretches the ability of urban centres to accommodate displaced populations, leading to unemployment, deteriorating educational facilities, inadequate health care systems and a possible rise in crime in urban centres, according to the agency.
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AFRICAN YOUTH TO CLIMB KILIMANJARO, JOINING UN CAMPAIGN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

AFRICAN YOUTH TO CLIMB KILIMANJARO, JOINING UN CAMPAIGN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
New York, Feb 25 2009 2:00PM

A group of young people from impoverished urban areas in Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana, will set off on a gruelling trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro under the United Nations banner to draw attention to the effects of climate change.

Ten underprivileged youth will join 25 other people from the private and public sectors in the fourth annual ascent to the "rooftop of Africa" organized by the Kilimanjaro Initiative, a Nairobi-based non-governmental organization (NGO), in partnership with the "UNite to Combat Climate Change" global campaign.

"This year's climb will highlight – with the melting ice of Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop – how global warming has a direct impact on the living conditions of individuals and communities throughout the world," said Wilfred Lemke, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace.

"By raising awareness about the impact of global warming, including in populated urban areas, the Kilimanjaro Initiative will assist in the achievement of MDG [Millennium Development Goal] 7 of 'ensuring environmental sustainability,'" he added.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that rising temperatures, increased rainfall and extreme weather conditions will dramatically change where and how people live in cities.

The change in climate does untold damage to economic and public infrastructure and stretches the ability of urban centres to accommodate displaced populations, leading to unemployment, deteriorating educational facilities, inadequate health care systems and a possible rise in crime in urban centres, according to the agency.

At the top of Kilimanjaro, the group will use a satellite telephone to call Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is currently on the South African leg of a tour that will take him to Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Egypt.

Mr. Ban is also due to fly over the receding ice cap of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, on his way to the city of Arusha to visit the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
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