- About 100 experts and stakeholders from Africa and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries will hold a one-day high level session of the Africa Partnership Forum (APF) on 3 September in Addis Ababa to reinforce the concerns and expectations of Africa on climate change as global negotiations continue towards a new agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009.
According to the commission, participants, will hear an update on ongoing negotiations on climate change and expert presentations on carbon finance in Africa; enhanced action on adaptation and mitigation; technology development and transfer; as well as financial resources and investment for climate change in Africa.
The United Nations Economic Commission of Africa (ECA), which is hosting the special session, says the meeting is expected to build a broad coalition around Africa’s key concerns and expectations to ensure that they are adequately addressed in a new agreement which will emerge from the Fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP-15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) taking place in Copenhagen from 7-18 December 2009.
ECA said the special session will also contribute to the implementation of African Union decisions on climate change and complement the outcomes of related regional processes, including a special session of African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) which met in Nairobi in May this year.
Ministers in charge of the environment from Sierra Leone, DRC, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Cameroon, Sudan, Kenya, Mozambique and Algeria will attend the special session which will be chaired by the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, and feature a presentation from Ogunlade Davidson, former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) negotiator and Sierra Leone’s Minister of Energy and Water Resources. Lord Nicholas Stern, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, will also deliver an address.
Other high level participants include Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr Ibrahim Mayaki, CEO of NEPAD Secretariat, and Abdoulie Janneh, UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA.
The Africa Partnership Forum (APF) was established in November 2003 to broaden existing high-level G8/NEPAD dialogue to include Africa's major bilateral and multilateral development partners, with a mission is to strengthen partnership efforts for Africa's development. APF Secretariat is maintained by the OECD in Paris.
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