APO News from Africa:
SMS Mrs Josephine Teo will make a working visit to Maputo, Mozambique and Nairobi, Kenya from 20 to 25 March 2017. SMS Teo’s visit is part of a series of Ministerial visits from Singapore to Sub-Saharan Africa aimed at strengthening linkages between Singapore and countries in the region.
Mozambique and Kenya are fast growing economies and major markets in eastern Africa, a sub-region that is an increasingly attractive destination for Singapore-based investments. SMS Teo will meet political leaders in both countries to reaffirm our long-standing ties, and discuss ways to enhance bilateral cooperation. In Mozambique, SMS Teo will also sign the Portuguese text of the Mozambique-Singapore Bilateral Investment Treaty.
SMS Teo will also make a stopover visit to South Africa where she will meet her foreign affairs and transport counterparts.
SMS Teo will be accompanied by officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Distributed by APO on behalf of Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Singapore.
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Source: APO – Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa
Halima Aliko Dangote was recently appointed the president of The Africa Center in New York City (www.TheAfricaCenter.org) with the major responsibility of raising capital for the center. The goal is to raise funds to complete the center building in New York. In 2017, there would be three fundraising events lined up to achieve this, one of which will be hosted in Nigeria by the Aliko Dangote Foundation on the 23rd of March at the Eko Hotels & Suite Victoria island.
The Africa Center in New York City is a non-profit, multidisciplinary institution that provides a gateway for engagement with contemporary Africa, and a platform for the most compelling content from the continent. The goal of the Africa Center is to help people understand and engage with contemporary Africa.
The center is located at One Museum Mile, at the corner of Fifth Avenue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Avenue) and East 110th Street (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/110th_Street_(Manhattan) in East Harlem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Harlem), Manhattan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan). The new location represents a cultural gateway to Harlem the traditional African- American neighborhood in New York. The building, designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A.M._Stern), is the first museum building built on New York's Museum Mile since the completion of the Guggenheim in 1959.
While construction is being finalized, the Africa Center continues to present pop up events in its new space until the building is completed. It will serve as a cultural center, and will make the museum accessible to a wide range of people from the world over, thus solidifying the museum's presence as one of the most challenging and diverse art institutions in the U.S. The new building will encompass approximately 90,000 square feet (8,400 m2) with 16,000 square feet (1,500 m2) of exhibition space, as well as a theater, education center, library, classrooms, event space, restaurant and gift shop. The growth into the cultural center has been spearheaded by, among others, Hadeel Ibrahim (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadeel_Ibrahim) daughter of Mo Ibrahim (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Ibrahim), and Chelsea Clinton.
The focus areas of The Africa Centre’s programming include:
Business: The Center will help the private sector to navigate Africa’s 53 distinct business climates, will make hard-to-obtain data available and understandable, and will facilitate peer-to-peer introductions. The Center will help potential partners find each other, and share best practices from the continent.
Policy: The Center will focus its efforts on linking research capacity with change agents on the ground in Africa, building transcontinental teams to find policy solutions. They will also work to build a broader constituency for good policy through educational initiatives that aim to bring basic “Africa literacy” to a wide range of audiences.
Culture: Building on its history as the Museum for African Art, the Center will be a home for exhibitions, performances and showings of visual, performing, and digital art from Africa
Companies such as Dangote are at the forefront of re-defining for the world what African business is and what Africans can accomplish. Showcasing Africa in a new and positive light is what makes this project worthwhile and something that we can be proud to attach our name to – so long as we are on the Board and able to effectively influence what the Center does.
The ambition of the Center is to become a major rallying point on African issues globally, and Dangote Group’s position and relevance in Africa makes us a natural partner to the project.
Halima Dangote, President of The Africa Center will host an online press conference on Thursday, March 23 at 14:00 GMT.
Journalists interested in participating in this online press conference will be able to ASK QUESTIONS LIVE VIA THE INTERNET.
Where: Online
When: Thursday, March 23 at 14:00 GMT (Time converter: http://APO.af/uhB5gI)
Who: Halima Aliko Dangote, President of The Africa Center
Why: Dangote Group to launch fundraising for The Africa Center in New York City
Language: English
How it works: This service is FREE and only requires a computer connected to the internet.
REGISTER: http://www.APO.af/DANGOTE
Distributed by APO on behalf of Aliko Dangote Foundation.
Technical Contact :
sec.sg@APO-opa.org
+41 22 534 96 97
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- Image: Halima Aliko Dangote was recently appointed the president of The Africa Center in New York City
Source: APO – Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa
CERF approves million loan to further scale up FAO action to prevent famine in Somalia:
FAO is further scaling up its activities in drought affected regions of Somalia thanks to a $ 22 million loan approved this week by the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), which complements the loans already provided by FAO's Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities.
This effort is part of the international response to prevent another famine in Somalia five years after the previous one devastated the country. FAO's action aims to increase rural livelihood support and restore food production, while ensuring that families meet their immediate food and water needs.
Across Somalia, 6.2 million people will face acute food insecurity through June 2017. Of these, nearly 3 million people are in Phases 3 (crisis) and 4 (emergency) of the five-phase International Phase Classification for Food Security (IPC). This represents more than a two-fold increase compared to six months ago. Phase 5 is famine.
The head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, said he was releasing the loan from CERF to FAO “as part of the efforts to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia.”
“More than 2.9 million people are at risk of famine and many will predictably die from hunger if we do not act now. CERF is one of the fastest ways to enable urgent response to people most in need. FAO is a key partner in ensuring that crucial support to livelihoods is reaching affected people. The loan will bridge a crucial gap and allow FAO to immediately save lives and livelihoods of farmers and herders until additional funds from donors are received,” O'Brien said.
“CERF has long been a supporter of FAO's interventions to save and protect livelihoods and thus lives in crisis contexts. Livelihoods are people's best defence against famine and this $ 22 million loan is critical to FAO's famine prevention and drought response in Somalia, enabling the Organization to provide much-needed, rapid support to vulnerable rural households,” said FAO Deputy Director-General for Programmes, Daniel Gustafson.
Saving livelihoods, saving lives
Most of the 6.2 million people facing acute food insecurity live in Somalia's rural areas where hunger levels have spiked primarily due to losses in crop and livestock production and other sources of food and income caused by repeated droughts.
Early warnings are loud and clear: In a worst-case scenario where the traditionally, main rainy season, the Gu (April-June), will perform very poorly, purchasing power may further decline to levels seen in 2010/2011, and humanitarian assistance would not be able to reach populations in need, people may suffer/face famine.
FAO's work
FAO is scaling up the implementation of its Famine Prevention and Drought Response Plan, which combines lifesaving interventions with emergency livelihood support to address the distinct needs of rural people at risk across Somalia – a twin track approach that provides immediate assistance while offering livelihood support and income opportunities to reduce their dependency on humanitarian aid.
Measures implemented under the Response Plan include providing cash (cash-for-work and unconditional cash transfers), meeting immediate food and water needs; providing agriculture and fisheries based livelihood support in combination with cash (“Cash+”), and saving livestock assets and related food and income.
The loan from CERF complements FAO's own funding mechanism, the Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities, and will help kick start operations supported by the Governments of the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
Distributed by APO on behalf of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
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Source: APO – Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa
