Day: October 16, 2022

The top leaders and youths of Ethiopia and Djibouti reiterated commitment to work in partnership with a view to realizing their shared development dreams and goals.

Ethiopian green youth delegation and Djibouti youth have planted tree seedling in Arta Region of Djibouti with the aim of strengthening African brotherhood on Saturday.

As part of the visit, a people-to-people meeting for youth aimed at strengthening the historic friendship between Ethiopia and Djibouti was held at the Ethiopian Embassy in Djibouti.

Speaking at the occasion, Coordinator of Democratic System Building Center at the Office of the Prime Minister, Ambassador Hassen Abdulkadir said that Ethiopia is working to solve its national problems by its own means and to bring about universal development.

In this Ethiopian journey, green legacy program is one of the program which aims at dealing  with climate change, he said adding that it is working to spread this experience to her neighbors and across Africans.

Apart from donating seedlings to Djibouti, more than 250,000 tree seedlings have been planted in three rounds in Djibouti, which strengthens comprehensive friendship of the two countries, he said.

The youth of Ethiopia and Djibouti confirmed that they will continue to strengthen the friendship of the two countries in new fields.

“Ethiopia and Djibouti have strong connections through roads, railways, electricity, water, telecom, and similar infrastructure. The two countries continue to strengthen their cooperation. They are showing their determination to strengthen friendship in various new ways. This will benefit the people of Ethiopia and Djibouti in the next few years,” Ambassador Hasen Abdulkadir elaborated.

The Minister of Agriculture of Djibouti, Mohamed Ahmed Awaleh mentioned that the relationship between the two countries is built on a solid foundation.

Ethiopia has included Djibouti in its green development program to deal with the climate change that is affecting the world, which is a great gift that we will never forget, he added.

Let the youth of Ethiopia and Djibouti know that the future belongs to them and he made a call that natural and man-made disasters should be reversed by strengthening unity.

Ethiopian Ambassador to Djibouti, Berhanu Tsagaye on his part said that Ethiopia played a significant role in igniting the anti-colonial struggle for Africans to stand together and gain their independence.

The African leaders of this era expressed their desire to repeat Pan-Africanism through green development, he stated  indicating that Ethiopia is a pioneer in this regard.

He said that African youths are entrusted with the vast responsibility of planting the African brotherhood of today.

He said that there is no force that can stop the youth of Ethiopia and Djibouti and the entire people from realizing the common vision of their countries.

“When it comes to the special friendship between the two countries, we started working together in green economy two years ago. Ethiopia has given Djibouti 250 thousand saplings in three rounds to the government and people of Djibouti. Today, with the permission of God, we begun  our journey. There will be no force that can stop the people of Ethiopia and Djibouti from achieving their long-standing common vision with the united arms of their hardworking youth.”

The youth of Ethiopia and Djibouti, who shared their experiences on the stage, promised to work hard to make the future of the country better.

They said that in order to strengthen African brotherhood, we must resist the pressures more than ever before and now is the time to join hands to achieve a common future.

Representatives of Ethiopian Youth, Abdulkadir Mohamed said ”as neighboring countries, we know each other very well about our common problems. Our common interests as well. “As our problems are similar, they require similar solutions and cooperation.”

We believe that the youth of Djibouti will continue the green development started by the youth of Ethiopia and are committed to realizing a climate change resistant, prosperous and conflict-free Africa.

Youth Representative of Djibouti Zihur Yassin Ahmed on his part said I am especially happy to be with you and the youth who are the ambassadors of Ethiopia. “We will work together on common issues in the future.”

 

Source:  Ethiopia News agency

Behind their homes is an oil pipeline, and above them are high-voltage cables suspended between pylons. A little further off is a flare tower, burning off excess gas 24 hours a day.

Yet these potent symbols of Republic of Congo’s oil and gas bonanza mean little to the villagers who live in their shadow.

When darkness falls, they have to fire up a generator or light lamps. None of their homes have mains electricity.

“I’m 68 years old and I live in darkness,” said Florent Makosso, seated beneath a giant banana tree.

“My parents and grandparents had a better quality of life when it [Republic of Congo] was French Equatorial Africa.”

Makosso lives in Tchicanou, a small village 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Pointe-Noire — the energy hub of the Republic of Congo.

The former French colony gained complete independence in 1960 and became a major oil producer some two decades later.

It notched up sales last year averaging 344,000 barrels a day, making it the third-biggest exporter south of the Sahara after Angola and Nigeria.

The country is sitting on 100 billion cubic meters (3,500 billion cubic feet) of natural gas — more than the entire annual consumption of Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy.

But little of this wealth has translated into prosperity for the country’s 5.5 million people. About half live in extreme poverty, according to World Bank figures.

Tchicanou is emblematic of a community that suffers the downsides of fossil fuels but gets few of its benefits.

Surrounded by fruit trees, the village of 700 straddles Highway 1, the lifeline between the Atlantic port of Pointe-Noire and the capital, Brazzaville.

Tchicanou and the neighboring village Bondi host pipelines and pylons for carrying oil products and electricity.

But they find themselves in the same situation as communities in the remotest parts of the country: They are still not hooked up to the national grid.

The village has no streetlights, and the biggest source of illumination comes from the flare tower at a nearby 487-megawatt gas-fired power plant, the country’s largest.

“It’s an ordeal living here,” Makosso said.

“We have to buy generators, which are expensive, and running them is a challenge in itself.”

Without power, “television and the other electrical appliances are just decoration,” he said, pointing to the simple challenge of keeping food refrigerated.

A fellow resident, Flodem Tchicaya, said Tchicanou “is in a good location. But the only use of the gas that they burn here is to cause pollution and make us sick.”

Inequality

Roger Dimina, 57, said that access to electricity in Republic of Congo was “unfair.”

“Instead of it starting at the bottom and heading to the top, it starts at the top and the bottom has nothing,” he said.

Across the country, electrification in urban areas reaches less than 40% of homes, while in rural zones, it is less than 1 home in 10.

In a recent interview in the Depeches de Brazzaville, the capital’s sole daily newspaper, Energy Minister Emile Ouosso said the goal was to reach 50% by 2030.

A group close to the Catholic church, the Justice and Peace Commission, has been running an “electricity for all” campaign, focusing especially on villages in the orbit of Pointe-Noire.

The group’s deputy coordinator, Brice Makosso, said the government has declared a budget surplus of 700 billion CFA francs (more than $1 billion dollars) for 2022.

Just a small amount of this could hook villages up to the grid, he said, pointing to duties that oil companies in the area paid to the government.

 

 

 

Source: Voice of America