Ajima Farms Energy Division is an exciting, young social enterprise located in Nigeria that seeks to promote energy access in rural off-grid communities. Their Waste-2-Watt project uses biogas to generate electricity. Through targeting energy access to productive activities, Fatima, the founder of Waste-2-Watt, seeks to ‘transform off-grid communities by expanding energy access for socio-economic development.’ We asked Fatima and Sabrina, from the finance advisory team at BfE, for some more insights into the journey that Ajima Farms has taken so far.
Uganda Environment Education Foundation (UEEF) is an indigenous non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 1997 by a group of professional environmentalists and is currently registered by the National NGO Board. UEEF has worked with more than 130,000 diverse and dedicated beneficiaries for the last 13 years and these include schools, farmers, local governments, other Non Governmental Organizations and grass root community individuals throughout Mukono District and other parts of Uganda. UEEF has embarked on a number of research projects in collaboration with other NGOs whose results substantially contributed to major policy decisions made by the country, regarding environmental protection/conservation. UEEF head offices are currently located in Mukono town.
UEEF uses a range of proven methodologies and practical tools, based on indigenous knowledge and participatory approaches. UEEF provides its services across a large scope of environmental subject matter including, renewable energy, water & sanitation, agriculture and rural development.
Kampala
Ecotourism Kenya promotes responsible tourism practices within the tourism industry. This entails encouraging the adoption of best practices in the use of tourism resources, working with local communities and managing wastes and emissions.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger.
Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide. We believe that everyone can play a part in ending hunger.
CYNESA’s Mission is to help young Catholics in sub-Saharan Africa – their movements and communities, individually and with their colleagues – to respond to the twin challenges of environmental degradation and climate change in an effective, coordinated and evangelical manner, culturally sensitive and spiritually grounded. Its mission is to link young Catholics together with colleagues in mutual encouragement and support.
1. Effective : CYNESA aims to create core teams of young Catholic leaders in each country, appreciating what Catholic youth are doing and making these efforts known, strengthening initiatives already underway, and helping potential programs to get off the ground.
“Today the ecological crisis has assumed such proportions as to be the responsibility of everyone…. Its various aspects demonstrate the need for concerted efforts aimed at establishing uties and obligations that belong to individuals, peoples, states, and the international community.” –Pope John Paul II
2. Coordinated in mutual encouragement and support, working not individualistically but as a body, taking advantage of social media to communicate and give shape to this initiative. As in any network, communications is CYNESA’s nervous system and its blood supply too. With Catholic youth scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, communications are vital capillary and nervous systems which help bind us into one body. CYNESA encourages those involved and links them together step-by-step in an active continental network with its own voice and capacity to act and advocate in coordination.
3. Evangelical: As God’s children, we have a special responsibility toward each other and the rest of Creation. Nature is our sister. As responsible stewards and co-workers with Christ, we are part of Creation, not separate from it. We must demonstrate the meaning of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection in our treatment of Creation. We are to begin the process of properly conserving, developing, and restoring Creation, a process that will be completed by God – the Creator (Father), Redeemer (Son), and Sanctifier (Holy Spirit) of the whole Universe.
“For the mystery of the Incarnation of God is the salvation of the whole of Creation.” ~ St. Ambrose (about 339-397).
4. Culturally sensitive: Globalized culture is obviously imposing itself on Africa with irresistible orce, manifesting itself through consumerism and individualism. African indigenous knowledge on the environment has guided communities over many generations in making environmentally sound choices. This knowledge needs to be integrated in current responses, and must not be allowed to erode in the face of globalization. CYNESA aims to make its contribution by engineering its responses in a way which is sensitive to local culture, faith and spirituality, and which works side by side with other agencies in the field, especially within the Church.
5. Spiritually grounded: An ongoing formation of moral conscience and discernment for making difficult choices according to Gospel and Church teaching, is a main pillar in CYNESA’s approach to the environmental crisis. Our relationship with Christ is fundamental in walking the path of social responsibility and responsibility for creation. Such fidelity is the “guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development.”
The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is a training arm of the United Nations System, serving some 25,000 beneficiaries annually by conducting more than 400 capacity development and research activities around the world. The Mission of UNITAR is to develop capacities of individuals, organizations and institutions to enhance global decision-making and to support country-level action for shaping a better future.
To find out why we focus on education visit Why Education?
We believe that at the heart of any education system are teachers and schools, and we work directly with them and operate within the school system. Our relationships with teachers and school administrators helps us to build support for the changes that need to take place in schools in order for quality education to be accessible for all. This makes us ideally placed to support the concrete changes necessary if Ethiopian schools are to provide quality, learner-centred education to all children in their community.
COMMUNITY LED EDUCATION
Many organisations take top down approaches to reforming the education system, working at Addis Ministry level without any insight on the every-day experience of schools and teachers. This often results in seemingly progressive education policies that have little impact on the ground. By working directly with teachers, schools, students and parents we are well placed to identify the specific challenges faced by individual schools as well as broader cross-cutting issues within the regional and national education systems. This defines our community-led approach to education, where schools, teachers, students and parents identify their needs, and Link Ethiopia helps them to meet them.
Our presence in the schools also allows us to effectively monitor the results of our activities. We are able to get direct feedback from teachers and students on the effectiveness and challenges of different programmes and projects. Through our work we wish to promote the fact that strong education systems require input and participation of teachers, schools and students in the design and realisation of education reform.
OUR PRINCIPLES
At Link Ethiopia we are guided by three main principles that inform our work. We believe in access to education, ensuring that all groups of Ethiopian society receive an education; quality of education, by improving skills and resources in schools; and global learning through promoting cultural exchange in education. To deliver these outcomes to we run a range of complementary programmes so that all Ethiopian children receive the education that they deserve. Whilst all our work encapsulates these principles, some of programmes are more focussed on 1 or 2 of these areas.
A nationwide network dedicated
to protecting our planet
For more than 30 years, EarthShare has worked across industries and issues to protect the health of our planet by engaging workplaces and people as active participants in that mission. With the power of a 500-member strong network of America’s most respected environmental and conservation organizations behind us, we provide impact and engagement opportunities that forge strong community connections, improve our environment, and ensure a sustainable future for all.
ATE’s research arm, the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, has made many important contributions to elephant research over the years. The knowledge gained from the AERP team has profoundly altered the way we think about, conserve and manage elephant populations. Our research has highlighted the ethical implications of dealing with sentient, long-lived, intelligent and social complex animals and our knowledge base provides powerful and authoritative support to elephant conservation and advocacy campaigns worldwide. For more than four decades AERP’s presence has helped ensure the survival of the elephants as well as the Amboseli ecosystem.
AERP research covers many areas including: social organization, behavior, demography, ecological dynamics, spatial analyses and mapping, communication, genetics, human-elephant interactions and cognition. Our long-term datasets underpin all these research topics.
CORE RESEARCH
Our team of Kenyan research assistants and visiting scientists are in the field at least six days a week. We record all demographic events in the population; births and deaths, musth, oestrus and mating. Our routine daily observations note associations between family units and independent males, geographic location, group size, composition, activity and habitat type. Within families we monitor female affiliation and the dispersal of young males from their family to analyze family dynamics. We have systematically monitored the size and growth of over 600 individuals from 1976 to the present. Since 1999 we have collected dung samples for genetic analyses of population origins, paternity and within- and between-family relatedness. We are constantly maintaining and updating our individual records, and we also carry out basic ecological monitoring through vegetation plots, water table measurements and rainfall.
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH
ATE hosts visiting researchers who contribute to the growing understanding of African elephants in general, and the knowledge base for the sustained future of the Amboseli population in particular.
Researchers interested in collaborating with ATE should address their enquiries to our Director of Science, Prof. Phyllis Lee (phyllis.lee@stir.ac.uk). ATE has always enjoyed a dynamic collaboration network and we welcome the opportunity for new partnerships to continue that tradition. Our collaborations extend across many subject areas:
Communication
Communication is the glue that binds the social network of an intelligent species. Joyce Poole and Petter Granli recorded and analyzed Amboseli elephant vocalizations as part of the work of their NGO ElephantVoices. Their aim is to build our scientific understanding of the intelligence and social complexity of elephants and enhance the toolbox for their conservation and management. At the same time they act as a voice for elephants in a strong advocacy component. You can follow some of their work and activities on the ElephantVoices Facebook page. Other communication studies have focused on elephants’ capacity for individual recognition: Karen McComb pioneered the playback approach and demonstrated that each female elephant recognizes around 100 other females from voice alone.
Elephant Life Histories and Reproduction
Ongoing studies provide vital information on how elephants grow, mature and learn to cope with their physical and social environments. This work, guided by Phyllis Lee asks how longevity and developmental processes contribute to fitness and reproductive success. The four-decade-long Amboseli dataset is now yielding exciting insights into these questions; Phyllis’ work has recently demonstrated that early life experiences have survival and fitness consequences across individual lifetimes. The role of old, experienced females in guiding family decisions has become apparent: families with older matriarchs have improved calf survival and shorter inter-birth intervals for all females in the family. An extreme drought event in 2009 caused the death of many of these important leaders. Vicki Fishlock’s work, supported by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, aims to assess the social and reproductive effects of these losses. As a result of Vicki’s work, we are developing further studies into what leadership and negotiation means for elephant families.
Human-elephant conflict and co-existence
ATE is bringing its specialized knowledge of elephant behavior and society to bear on developing conflict-reduction strategies that are consistent with rural agriculture and Maasai livestock husbandry (see also Community Outreach). Work by Kadzo Kangwana, Christy Browne-Nunez, Patrick Chiyo and Winnie Kiiru has guided and developed our approach to conflict and coexistence.
Genetic analysis
Scientists from Duke University have mapped DNA profiles in order to define family relationships and origins of the Amboseli population. Cross-referenced to behavioral observations, the DNA analysis by Beth Archie examined survival strategies based on relatedness. Beth’s student Patrick Chiyo studied the socio-ecology of crop-raiding elephants using genetic techniques. Patrick’s work expanded to examine male association patterns and the impact of these on high risk activities such a crop-raiding.
Cognition
Dick Byrne and Lucy Bates have examined elephants’ formidable reputation for memory and intelligence by investigating specific cognitive skills designed to probe elephants’ ability to manipulate and respond to their world and each other. Karen McComb and Graeme Shannon have expanded Karen’s early work on elephant communication and vocal recognition into the cognitive sphere by presenting elephants with a series of acoustic “threats” via playback experiments. Their studies show that elephants and discriminate and appropriately respond to varying levels of threats from lions and from humans, and that these abilities are strongest amongst experienced (older) elephants.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
The long-term survival of elephants can only be assured by creating a niche for free-living elephants that is compatible with the needs and aspirations of the surrounding human communities. Elephants and humans have shared the Amboseli landscape for approximately 500 years. With the expansion of settlement, agriculture and livestock numbers inevitably encounters between people and elephants are increasing. ATE’s approach is aimed at maintaining the conservation ethos which has been part of Maasai tradition, but which is increasingly threatened by the pressures of 21st century human society.
Community Relations
Our field staff maintains daily contact with the surrounding Maasai community. This friendly interaction is essential to ensure that landowners maintain a tolerant attitude to the presence and passage of elephants on their group ranch land. We estimate that at any one time 80% of the wildlife in Amboseli is using community lands; without community participation there is simply no future for wildlife. Our approach is to allow a two-way exchange of understanding with communities. Concerns are aired in constructive dialogue, not in retaliatory killing of wildlife. We had proof of the value of this approach in 2012, when a local Maasai man waited for five hours beside an elephant calf trapped in a well. He patiently protected the little calf until he could reach ATE staff via an unreliable mobile phone network, and we then rescued the calf with the help of DSWT staff. Without this man’s care and respect, the calf, who we called Lemoyian, would certainly have died.
Consolation
ATE has an innovative and successful consolation scheme to assist members of the community who lose livestock to elephants. Started in 1997 the program pays an owner of a cow, sheep or goat a set amount when an elephant kills any livestock on community lands. Previously, Maasai custom dictated an elephant had to be speared and killed in retribution for livestock deaths. The number of elephants speared dropped by more than half after the initiation of the consolation scheme. This scheme has since become a model in other areas and for other species.
Maasai Elephant Scouts
ATE operations outside the park include employing fifteen Maasai elephant scouts who patrol the ecosystem on foot, reporting elephant presence and signs, injured elephants and conflicts, as well as signs of poaching and the bushmeat trade. Their work is coordinated with that of the Amboseli-Tsavo Game Scouts Association (ATGSA) and the Big Life Foundation. The ATE scouts support our monitoring work by augmenting our elephant sightings data, especially during the wet season when elephants range widely. Scouts also assist in verification of consolation claims. Support to the scouts contributes to improved community participation and understanding of human-wildlife interaction as well as providing employment in a depressed rural area. We are also beginning a collaboration with the Lion Guardians programme to fund the work of two conflict mitigation scouts, at the request of the Kaputei community.
Environmental Rights Action (ERA) is a Nigerian advocacy non-governmental organisation founded on January 11, 1993 to deal with environmental human rights issues in Nigeria. ERA is the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI). ERA is the co-ordinating NGO in Africa for Oilwatch International, the global South network of groups concerned about the effects of oil on the environment of people who live in oil-bearing regions. Oilwatch was founded in 1995 (in Ecuador), in the aftermath of local struggles against oil companies such as Shell (in Nigeria) and Texaco (now Chevron) in Ecuador. Both cases have given rise to well-known court cases where damages in the billions of euros are being claimed at present. ERA has been the winner of the Sophie Prize.
The organisation is dedicated to the defence of human ecosystems in terms of human rights, and to the promotion of environmentally responsible governmental, commercial, community and individual practice in Nigeria through the empowerment of local people. ERA will mainly provide its great knowledge of oil extraction conflicts and gas flaring to Work Package 2 on the database of environmenal conflicts and to Work Package 4 on oil and gas extraction and climate justice, as well as giving input in many other parts of the EJOLT project. ERA is also the coordinating NGO for the Nigerian Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA).
The Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) provides holistic, country-driven support to accelerate the development, deployment and transfer of locally relevant climate and clean energy technologies. The KCIC provides incubation, capacity building services and financing to Kenyan entrepreneurs and new ventures that are developing innovative solutions in energy, water and agribusiness to address climate change challenges. The Kenya CIC is an initiative supported by the World Bank’s infoDev and is the first in a global network of CICs being launched by infoDev’s Climate Technology Program (CTP). The Kenya CIC is funded by the United Kingdom’s UKaid and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
FRIENDS OF THE ENVIRONMENT NIGERIA
Centre for Sustainable Development and Action on Climate Change (CSDACC), is a brain child of the youth of Kilifi County. The organization was founded by development minded youth who came together to Marshall the locally available resources to improve environmental quality, reduce poverty and improve the livelihood of the Kilifi County Community. Centre for Sustainable Development and Action on Climate Change was registered as a youth organization with the Department of Gender, Children and Social Services, with a mandate to work in the whole of Kilifi County.
Centre for Sustainable Development and Action on Climate Change still operates within Pwani University premise due to the fact that it is still its initial stages but soon will find itself an office within Kilifi Area after a strong foundation is established.
Centre for Sustainable Development and Action on Climate Change is a non-profit making Youth Organization committed to build, nurture restore and preserves the socio-economic and cultural environment of Kilifi County to make Kilifi County an epitome of development. Centre for Sustainable Development and Action on Climate Change is a local Youth Organization and our target beneficiary is the general communities around Kilifi County who plays a pivotal role in instilling and challenging sustainable development in the County.
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.5+ million members and supporters to defend everyone’s right to a healthy world.
The Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme (EWCP) is a partnership between the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and the Born Free Foundation, which provides an ideal platform from which to address wildlife conservation. The EWCP operates under the auspices of the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group, and additionally collaborates with the University of Addis Ababa, Bahir Dar, Debre Zeit, Gonder, and Wondo Genet in Ethiopia, and Universities of Glasgow, Leiden, South Bohemia and the Zoological Society of London, among others.
EWCP operates in Ethiopia under Memoranda of Understanding agreements between the WildCRU and the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA) at a federal level, and the Oromia Forest and Wildlife Enterprise (OFWE) and Amhara Culture, Tourism and Parks Development Bureau at a regional level. In addition, EWCP works closely with the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and the Born Free Foundation Ethiopia (BFFE). EWCP has long established and excellent working relationships with all these organisations. In addition, the Programme seeks the support and cooperation of local authorities for all field activities in all areas.
Our Vision
We envision a people-centered globalization that values the rights of workers and the health of the planet; that prioritizes international collaboration as central to ensuring peace; and that aims to create a local, green economy designed to embrace the diversity of our communities.
In a world where the economics of quantity fuels corporate power and political greed, the elite are reaping profits while working people and the planet are left to pay the price. In response to worldwide degradation caused by this system of elite globalization, Global Exchange envisions an alternative economics of quality centered upon protecting international human rights to ensure that the cost of globalization does not come at the expense of us all.
Our Mission
Global Exchange is an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. We take a holistic approach to creating change and as an education and action resource center, we advance our vision by working to ensure our members and constituents are empowered locally and connected globally to create a just and sustainable world.
We realize that in order to advance social, environmental and economic justice we must transform the global economy from profit-centered to people-centered, from currency to community.
Our Work
Global Exchange is tackling some of the most critical issues of our time— from limiting corporate power and greed to oil addiction and global climate change, from the exploitation of the current global economy to the creation of the local green economy. Our campaigns inspire people across the U.S. and around the world to resist injustice, envision alternatives, and take action. Click here to learn more.
Global Exchange was founded 30 years ago to promote human rights, justice and sustainability around the world. We envisioned building a robust U.S. movement capable of creating change from the grassroots, powered by people-to-people ties. To change the world, we started making change at home.
Our Successes
Over the last 30 years, we have won victories big and small on behalf of workers, small farmers, the environment and vulnerable communities around the world. We helped build a thriving Fair Trade movement. We championed campaigns to stop and end wars, challenge corporate power and bring attention to the exploitation of the current global economy. We monitored elections in Colombia, Mexico, and in the U.S. We built the largest sustainability event (Green Festival) in the country from the ground up and trained young adults in green careers. We have organized social conscious travel around the globe on our Reality Tours. See more from our 30 years. And we are still going strong!
Join us
By joining Global Exchange today, you will support an unstoppable movement for change.
The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) was established by the National Biosafety Management Agency Act 2015, to provide regulatory framework to adequately safe guard human health and the environment from potential adverse effects of modern biotechnology and genetically modified organisms, while harnessing the potentials of modern biotechnology and its derivatives, for the benefit of Nigerians. The Act came into force in April 2015, with the appointment of a Director General and Chief Executive Officer. The UN international agreement known as Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which Nigeria signed is an environment protocol and it requires members to domesticate the agreement through a law. The Biosafety Act is therefore to domesticate the Protocol and address our National Biosafety requirements.
The National Biotechnology Development Agency has currently a biotechnology bill before the NASS. Its mandate is to promote biotechnology development in all sectors of the Nigeria economy. It is to promote indigenous acquisition and development of easy and affordable requisite biotechnology in Nigeria and Indigenous R & D to generate copious innovations in biotechnology as well as for the sustenance and growth of the biotech industry.
The National Biosafety Management Agency regulates modern biotechnology activities and the release into the environment, handling and use of genetically modified organisms which are products of modern biotechnology to prevent adverse impact on the environment and human health. On the other hand the National Biotechnology development Agency promotes modern biotechnology activities and GMOs.
The Biosafety protocol which Nigeria signed, requires a biosafety management and Regulatory Agency separate from biotechnology promoting Agency for transparency and to avoid biosafety being compromised and to also avoid the promoter being a judge in its case. This is the situation in other countries where there are biosafety laws and agencies.
The National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) is an action organization committed to sustainable solutions to Uganda,s most challenging environmental and economic growth problems. We monitor government actions, conduct research, provide educational materials, develop science-based strategies, organize affected communities, make common cause with other civil society organisations and international organizations, and engage government officials at all levels.
It is an ambitious undertaking, but as lifelong Ugandans we cannot ignore what is happening to our precious homeland. While we stand ready to work with anyone committed to the public interest, we also will not allow powerful political or special interests to intimidate or silence us. We have done so since our founding in 1997.
We choose our actions carefully to use our skills and resources most effectively, addressing our most urgent challenges first, and expand our impact by involving like-minded organizations and individuals, and communities in need.
Vision
We make a sustained, effective contribution towards the reduction of economic disparities in an increasingly complex, globalized world.
Mission
We promote economic, social, and environmental development by helping people integrate into local economic life. We thus make it possible for them to improve their living conditions through their own initiatives.
Our Values
Our commitment
- We are recognised as the reference for private sector development in Switzerland and worldwide.
- We believe that market mechanisms and a strong private sector create jobs and generate income, thereby reducing poverty.
- We are personally dedicated to our cause and loyal to our organisation.
- We strive for professionalism and quality in project implementation and adhere to ethical principles to carry out our mission.
- We are a politically independent and non-denominational development organisation.
- We are dedicated to equal rights and opportunities.
Our responsibility
- We respect our beneficiaries and all people with whom we work.
- We respect the environment in which we operate.
- We understand our work as a common effort, working as a team with our donors, partners, and beneficiaries.
- We are committed to safeguarding our Code of Conduct (CoC) and feel personally accountable for our actions.
- We meet our contractual and legal obligations.
- We deliver evidence-based results.
How we work
- We understand our role to be that of a facilitator in project implementation, fostering a sustainable environment for entrepreneurship, access to information, skills, and markets, while meeting the employment and income objectives.
- We deliver practical, market-oriented solutions adapted to local realities to meet the challenges of economic development.
- We strive for sustainability in all our activities, efforts, and resources.
The objective of the Society is to generally promote public health, conserve natural resources and protect the environment through the following:
- Ensure that members or organizations working or associated with Waste Management conduct their operations in accordance with good standards of practice and ethics of the Industry.
- Providing expert opinion on waste management to Nigerian public, develop technical guidance and promote competition through the spread of best practice, exchange of knowledge and experience in planning, investigation, collection, treatment, recycling and disposal of all streams of wastes
- Build public consciousness and develop members on Waste Management through industrial training scheme, professional publications, conferences, seminars and exhibitions.
- Promote scientific research and development in matters in or related to waste management with the desired coordination between our country and others.