CLEANING UGANDA’S IMAGE WITH CLEAN DEVELOPMENT HUB ROLE

CLEANING UGANDA’S IMAGE WITH CLEAN DEVELOPMENT HUB ROLE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Great good news is coming out of the African continent by the day, one them being the new role assigned to Uganda as clean development mechanism or CDM hub. I surely welcome this new development for Uganda, and wish no less for its immense success.

The target is to roll out the pioneering sectors over the next three (3) years that will exhibit the benefits of clean development. Belgium is bankrolling the research & development aspect. Already, a short list of industry sectors such as stove industry and hydropower were identified as key drivers of the CDM efforts.

Uganda’s image globally would surely change towards the better with the CDM hub role. The global community cannot forget those horrific times of Idi Amin tyranny era, when Uganda became an eyesore for Africa being a bloodbath country.

Below is the gladdening news about the new development in Uganda.

[Philippines, 02 April March 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/news/uganda-to-become-clean-development-mechanism-hub.html

Uganda to become Clean Development Mechanism Hub

Esther Nakkazi

2 March 2012

[KAMPALA] Uganda is set to become a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Hub over the next three years, with financial assistance from Belgium.

The Belgian Development Agency is investing US$2.6 million in the scheme, which will be overseen by the designated national authority — the Climate Change Unit (CCU) at the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment.

Private companies can register to receive training in monitoring, validation, verification and how to negotiate carbon credit transactions under the CDM. These will be registered with the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat through the CCU.

Companies with the potential to earn carbon credits include many in the domestic sector: cooking stoves, domestic biogas and green charcoal — a household fuel produced from agricultural waste.

Other sectors with the potential to benefit include those involved in small-scale hydroelectricity, landfill gas, photovoltaics, solar-powered LED lighting, solar water heaters and water purification,as well as industrial activities in the sectors of cement, biodiesel, sugar and wastewater.

Traineeships will open for applications on 1 April 2012. Associates of the scheme will offer training in CDM basics, investment analysis and the mechanism's legal aspects, according to Adriaan Tas, managing director of Carbon Africa Limited and an advisor to the project.

Ten projects are currently registered with the CDM, and the newly established Hub will work with them to help them sell Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs). These include Africa's largest CDM renewable energy project, the Bujagali hydropower project, which is hosted by Uganda. More projects will be taken on by the Hub in the future.

Speaking at the CDM Hub launch in Kampala, Uganda, on 14 February, Tas said the scheme would add momentum to the CDM phenomenon in Uganda.

"A lot of projects get stuck without financing. They only remain at the registration level. The CDM enables us to support such projects through [to] trading and capacity building," he said.

"We need to push this market so that it matures," he said, adding that the programme has added benefits, including increased economic activity, job creation and technology transfer.

Bob Natifu, the CCU's communications officer, said: "These projects not only modernise eligible sectors, but also contribute to global climate protection."

Michael Zkalubo, meteorology commissioner at Uganda's Water and Environment Ministry, said: "Capacity building will help us benefit from adaptation and mitigation."

The Hub Scheme will be implemented by the CCU, working closely with international consultants from Camco International Limited and Carbon Africa Limited.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

PROF. ERLE FRAYNE ARGONZA WEBSITE: http://erleargonza.com

ARGONZA SOCIAL BLOGS & LINKS:

http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, http://unladtau.wordpress.com, http://www.facebook.com, http://www.newciv.org, http://sta.rtup.biz, http://magicalsecretgarden.socialparadox.com, http://en.netlog.com/erlefrayne, http://talangguro.blogfree.net, http://www.blogster.com/erleargonza, http://efdargon.multiply.com,

http://internationalpeaceandconflict.org, http://erleargonza.seekopia.com, http://lovingenergies.spruz.com, http://www.articlesforfree.net, http://www.facebook.com

DEVELOPMENT SITES:

http://www.adb.org, http://www.asean.org, http://www.bis.org, http://www.devex.com, http://www.eldis.org, http://www.fao.org, http://www.icc-cpi.int, http://www.imf.org, http://www.iom.int, http://www.scidev.net, http://www.un.org, http://www.undp.org, http://www.unescap.org, http://www.unesco.org, http://www.unhabitat.org, http://www.unhcr.org, http://www.unido.org, www.unis.unvienna.org, http://www.who.int, http://www.worldbank.org, http://www.wto.org

UGANDA ON WORLD BANK FUNDING: WHAT’S THE TAKE?

UGANDA ON WORLD BANK FUNDING: WHAT’S THE TAKE?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Uganda is seemingly cold about tapping World Bank funding for its latest development initiatives. Among all sectors that will be hit by the decision is science & technology. Accordingly, the backlash of the lackadaisical attitude is apathy towards science by the broad public.

I guess the attitude exhibited by policy makers towards the Bank is traceable to the olden ways of the Bank being used to clobber small nations to follow the dictates of financial cartels. The shift in World Bank frame since McNamara’s incumbency has seen a veering away of the Bank from such thuggish behavior, a thuggishness that is now the monopoly of the International Monetary Fund or IMF.

Ugandans are very sensitive to British financiers’ maneuverings in particular, the shadows of which they see in the World Bank. Distrust and apprehension could be behind the lackadaisical attitude towards World Bank financing.

Below is a discussion by David Dickson, editor of the SciDev.net.

[Philippines, 02 October 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/r-d-in-africa/editorials/uganda-should-rethink-its-decision-on-world-bank-funding-1.html

Uganda should rethink its decision on World Bank funding

David Dickson

16 September 2011

Millennium Science Initiative funding has produced an impressive range of projects in Uganda. The government is wrong to bring it to an end.

For the past five years, winds of change have been blowing through Ugandan science. Funded largely by a US$30-million loan from the World Bank under its Millennium Science Initiative (MSI), a large number of projects have taken place aimed at boosting the country's capacity to use science and technology in agriculture and industry to meet its development needs.

Their diversity is impressive. They range from research on methods for farming the Nile perch and processing bananas — both important sources of protein — to the development of a malaria vaccine, and from renovating facilities for industrial research to funding university research groups, doctoral students and undergraduate courses.

Sadly, the momentum that has built up is now under threat. According to the 2012 budget proposed by the government and passed by parliament in June — and despite invitations from the World Bank — Uganda is not seeking further funds when the current phase of the initiative finishes at the end of this year.

The government's justification for the move has some plausibility. It claims to be reluctant to depend on international donors for funding projects that should, it says, be a national responsibility.

But with little indication that domestic funding will become available, the Ugandan scientific community is concerned that the decision reflects a new apathy towards science, and that ongoing research initiatives will lose their lifeline.

This could be disastrous for the country at a time when many of its neighbours, such as Rwanda and Tanzania, are moving in the opposite direction, keen to embrace the social and economic benefits of a thriving knowledge economy.

"A dream come true"

When the World Bank's loan to Uganda was announced in 2006 — supplemented by a further US$3.3 million from the Ugandan government itself — it represented a radical new approach to funding science through the MSI.

Previous loans under the MSI banner, in particular to Chile and other countries in Latin America, had sought to build scientific capacity primarily through establishing centres of research excellence. The hope was that such centres would have a wider positive impact on other scientific activities by, for example, discouraging brain drain.

Uganda's MSI loan uses a different approach. It was structured to support all aspects of the country's innovation system, from training for research to supporting mechanisms for injecting research findings into the marketplace, for example by providing a US$4-million upgrade for the Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI).

This approach has won support both inside and outside Uganda's research community (and, at least initially, even from President Museveni himself). Describing the impact of the MSI-funded upgrade on the UIRI's work, its executive director, Charles Kwesiga, said it was "a dream come true". [1]

Dismay

Unsurprisingly, Uganda's scientific community has expressed dismay at the government's decision not to seek renewed funding.

The Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST), the government-funded agency responsible for handling the funds, is putting a brave face on the decision, saying it does not necessarily reflect a move to reduce funding for science but is merely a political decision about where the funds should come from.

Others have been less charitable. Writing last year in one of Uganda's leading newspapers, the Daily Monitor, Thomas Egwang, director of Med Biotech Laboratories in Kampala and a recipient of MSI funding for his work on a potential malaria vaccine, warned of the impact of the imminent decision.

According to Egwang, the government's attitude towards science reflected apathy within the Department of Finance, which has direct control over the science budget, as there is no science ministry.

Calling for the creation of a science and technology ministry, he described the current situation as "a death knell for science in Uganda".

A tragic waste

It would certainly be tragic for the country's development if the gains made through MSI funding in recent years are allowed to go to waste.

In the past, certain World Bank-funded projects, such as large dams, have been criticised for destroying local communities and habitats without either meeting local needs or fulfilling their promise.

But Uganda's MSI initiative has been different. From the start, both its designers and those responsible for implementing it have tried to ensure that local needs were at the core of every activity financed. And progress reports over the past five years indicate that it has met its goals, even if at a slightly slower rate than planned.

Successful projects range from an investigation into the causes of cassava brown streak disease, which is caused by a virus that causes the roots to rot and costs the central African region an estimated US$100 million a year, to an outreach programme to support community wireless networks based at telecentres in cities and rural areas.

The MSI has also shown the merits of a comprehensive funding strategy to support research and its applications, rather than a strategy focused on funding isolated projects without considering the need to develop markets for their results.

Commentators on science projects in Africa have pointed out that the continent is littered with the carcasses of donor-funded initiatives that have been left to die through a lack of sustained funding once the initial donor support dried up.

In the case of Uganda's MSI initiative, the problem is (unusually) not money, but a lack of political will. The government should reconsider its decision, in the interests of the country and its future, before the MSI funding runs out at the end of the year.

David Dickson
Editor, SciDev.Net

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

PEACE, DEVELOPMENT & SOCIETY LINKS:

http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, http://unladtau.wordpress.com, http://www.facebook.com, http://www.newciv.org, http://sta.rtup.biz, http://magicalsecretgarden.socialparadox.com, http://en.netlog.com/erlefrayne, http://www.blogster.com/erleargonza, http://www.articlesforfree.net, http://ipeace.us, http://internationalpeaceandconflict.org, http://www.blogleaf.com/erleargonza, http://erleargonza.seekopia.com, http://lovingenergies.spruz.com, http://multiply.com/erleargonza, http://www.blogleaf.com/erleargonza, http://talangguro.blogfree.net