Eleven African nations agree on cooperation in biofuels development and education

Eleven African nations agreed at an FAO meeting in Rome to improve cooperation aimed at ending rural poverty. The agreement targeted the exchange of scientific information and the establishment of rural training relating to biofuels and climate change. have agreed to join forces to meet the challenge of education for rural people. Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Niger, Uganda, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania adopted a series of recommendations for African governments, international agencies and higher learning institutions.

African countries are increasingly attempting to coordinate biofuels policy. Recently, in Burkina Faso, officials of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) completed three days of meetings that coordinated biofuels policy prior to the commencement of the 13th UN Conference on Climate Change which will be held in Bali next week.

African ministers have pushed for the inclusion of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) credit for nations that institute sustainable forest management practices. The credit would produce earnings of up to $119 per rural household.

African analysts estimate that conserving biodiversity and carbon through forest management has to take into account “degradation” (removing valuable timber without proper post-logging care) as well as outright deforestation, for the policy to have success in Africa.

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