The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
This book of case studies represents a collaborative effort to explore the potential of biofuels to provide sustainable livelihoods and local sources of energy for people in rural areas of developing countries, with a special emphasis on women. Although there are many forms of bio-energy that can be useful in …
A recent NY Times articles brings to fore the contribution of Soot, also known as Black Carbon, in the global warming. And how efforts are underway to reign in the global warming by replacing the mud-stoves in villages of India! On the Earth day, a legislation was introduced in US …
Agriculture is now recognised as both contributing to and suffering from the negative effects of climate change. Farming accounts for as much as 32% of greenhouse gas emissions, if deforestation is included. On the other hand, climate-driven water scarcity3 and increases in the severity of droughts and floods will affect …
This new report by Greenpeace International, European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA) and IEA SolarPACES outlines how under an advanced industry development scenario, concentrating solar power, could meet up to 7% of the world
The latest report on Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) power, a renewable energy resource which has a significant potential for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Explores the scale, potential and barriers of implementing CST in US, India, China and Middle East & North Africa. This report examines Concentrating …
Despite the spate of media reports and some published research, international land deals and their impacts remain still little understood. This report is a step towards filling this gap. The outcome of a collaboration between IIED, FAO and IFAD, the report discusses key trends and drivers in land acquisitions, the …
High food prices fueled a land-buying spree in developing nations, particularly in Africa, by countries and private investors wanting to assure food supplies for themselves, a think tank said on Wednesday. The International Food Policy Research Institute said 15 million to 20 million hectares of farmland in poor nations were …
Some of the developing world's largest rivers including Ganges in South Asia are drying up because of climate change. Researchers from the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) said this after analysing data combined with computer models to assess river flows across the world. NCAR analysed data of running …
Fresh efforts and funding to tackle malaria in recent years have brought the goal of eradicating the deadly disease within sight, health experts said on Friday. Wiping out malaria worldwide could take decades but many countries where it is endemic are on the brink of eliminating the disease, which infects …
A thaw of Arctic ice will open "plenty of opportunities" in oil and gas exploration and shipping even though the overall impact of global warming will be damaging for the region, Norway's Foreign Minister said. Jonas Gahr Stoere, who will host a meeting of the eight-nation Arctic Council in the …
NYT News Service As if some spells of droughts persisting over three centuries are not enough, Africa will experience more such mega droughts if studies are to be believed, writes Andrew C Revkin For at least 3,000 years, a series of potent droughts, far longer and more severe than any …
A network of "super-reefs" off east Africa are unusually resilient to climate change and could provide important lessons for coral conservation in other parts of the world, researchers said on Friday. Experts say the planet has lost about a fifth of its corals and warn that many of the remaining …
Europe should push for tighter laws to curb the illegal timber trade by making both importers and exporters get licenses to show their wood does not come from endangered rainforests, lawmakers said on Wednesday. EU countries are an important market for both legally and illegally harvested timber -- the largest …
Rivers in some of the world's most populous regions are losing water, according to a new comprehensive study of global stream flow. The study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), suggests that in many cases the reduced flows are associated with climate change. The process …
African nations must stop signing away their natural resources in skewed deals with foreign firms, the African winner of the 2009 "Green Nobel" prize, said in an interview. Ona, a wheelchair-bound Gabonese activist, has won the African 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize for a decade of activism to protect the Congo …
From the rainforests of Africa to the mountain-top coal mines of West Virginia, six campaigners who have fought governments and industry to protect the planet won prestigious Goldman Environmental Prizes on Sunday. The awards, often referred to as the Nobel Prizes of the environmental world, went to activists in six …
Although persistent drought in West Africa is well documented from the instrumental record and has been primarily attributed to changing Atlantic sea surface temperatures, little is known about the length, severity, and origin of drought before the 20th century. We combined geomorphic, isotopic, and geochemical evidence from the sediments of …
There will be climate related conflicts in the future if the global community fails to protect the ozone layer, Environment and Natural Resources Minister Champika Ranawaka said inaugurating the sub regional workshop on Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) pase out in military applications, yesterday.
For at least 3,000 years, a drumbeat of potent droughts, far longer and more severe than any experienced recently, have seared a belt of sub-Saharan Africa that is now home to tens of millions of the world
The recent decades-long drought that killed 100,000 people in Africa's Sahel may be a small foretaste of monstrous "megadroughts" that could grip the region as global climate change worsens, scientists reported on Thursday. Droughts, some lasting for centuries, are part of the normal pattern in sub-Saharan Africa. But the added …
