Somalia is one of the countries on the frontline of climate change. Only last year, about 43.000 citizens died because of drought. A country where conflict and instability meet the hazards of natural disasters caused by a rapidly changing climate.
From the climate crisis and the global pandemic to food insecurity, humanity faces unprecedented challenges that require resilient and sustainable solutions. In Somalia, in particular South West State, faces food security as a direct consequence of climate change.
Droughts and floods
Perennial droughts over the past years and increasingly severe floods, have displaced thousands of people and put more households at risk of food insecurity. The drought has wiped out crop harvests and thousands of livestock have died due to a lack of water and pasture, depriving many pastoralist communities of their only source of income.
Indigenous trees that can withstand drought have offered feedstock to pastoralists and strengthened their resilience to drought. However, a booming illicit trade in charcoal is decimating those trees rapidly.
Against this background, the Somalian Bay University will organize the ‘Media Café’ event on climate change, droughts, food security, and deforestation.
Farming Africa
Marc van der Sterren, Founder of Farming Africa, will speak about the role of journalism and communication. He is the only agricultural journalist in The Netherlands who is specialized in Africa.
His country is famous for its agricultural standards. For Wageningen University, for the technologies and the most efficient intensive farming systems. This helped this tiny country in Western Europe to become the second exporter of agricultural products in the world.
These intensive farming systems, for a long time, have been an example for Africa and other developing regions to expand their production. However, in those times, this intensive approach reaches the ecological borders. Air and water become more and more polluted, the number of insects, necessary for pollination, decreases, and many smallholder farmers stop, while only a few very big farmers are left. This makes the system very capital-intensive and risky.
Farming becomes more and more difficult, because of climate change. At the same time, farming is one of the big contributors of climate change. On developing a farming system for a country, one needs to put ecology at the centre, Marc van der Sterren will tell.
Bay University
Bay University
Bay University will organize this event in cooperation with Somali Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (SOMESHA), the African Network of Environmental Journalists, (ANEJ), and the Federation of Somalia Universities (FESU).
Participants will be United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) World Vision, IFAJ, WOFEJ, Farming Africa, and other organisations.
Bay University is a private University that was established on the 5th of April 2013 as a higher learning institution to foster academic excellence and natural talents. The university aims to strengthen equal opportunity to education for all regardless of their political affiliation, clan, race, nationality, and colour.
Sign in
The event will take place on June 5, 2023 at Bay University Central Administration Center, as well as online. You can sign in here.
More information can be found here.
