EAST AFRICAN YOUTH MEET IN MWANZA TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE

East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 24 July, 2014: The East African Regional Youth Summit on Climate Change opens Friday, July 25, 2014 in Mwanza, Tanzania. The conference, organized by the East African Community Students Union in collaboration with the Tanzania Youth Vision Association, is being supported by the EAC Secretariat.

The East African Regional Youth Summit is a platform that brings together young people from different parts of East Africa to address various challenges. The youth meet once every year to discuss issues such as the EAC integration agenda, and how to take advantage of the opportunities that it (integration) presents.  The Mwanza conference will bring together over 200 participants mostly from Secondary Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning.

This year, the youth are focusing on climate change. Climate change is already wrecking lives in Africa. Changing weather patterns and extreme weather events, such as floods or droughts, have had debilitating consequences on the regional agricultural production. These changes have led to unreliable farming seasons. A December 2009 estimate put the number of people facing starvation across East Africa at 23 million as a result of successive failed rainy seasons.

With support from the European Union, United Kingdom Department for International Development and the Government of Norway, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are implementing a joint initiative to address climate change in the three Regional Economic Communities.

In the COMESA-EAC-SADC, climate change effects include increased frequency of extreme weather events, flooding, storms, and droughts, which has affected the region’s food production and its progress towards poverty reduction. Climate change may also spark conflict between and within nations as resources become scarcer and disasters destroy livelihoods.

In order to develop a unified African position on Climate Change, the programme is engaging key stake holders such as farmer organizations, women, youth and children to participate in climate change decision-making processes, strategies and interventions. Thus this three-day Youth Summit on Climate Change is a great platform to engage young people to build regional and continental consensus for the African Climate Solution.