Where are drinkers out of control?

By DOREEN NAWA
ZAMBIAN women rank NUMBER 1 in Africa as the highest binge drinkers, beating Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Congo and Chad. Citing data compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO), The Washington Post says Zambia and South Africa, which both sit at the top, have 41.2% women who binge drink, while Burkina Faso with 36.8% and Mozambique with 32.9% are ranked third and fourth respectively. Nigeria takes up the fifth spot with 24.7pecent.
The Washington Post also says binge drinking plays a part in world events. The paper uses Britain, as an example, where cases of violence fell by about 12percent (or 235 000) over the past year because of booze or lack of it.
Though the decrease mirrors trends across the Western world, the paper says tough economic times have meant fewer pints.
“Binge drinking has become less frequent, and the proportion of youth who don’t drink alcohol at all has risen sharply,” explained lead researcher Jonathan Shepherd. “For people most prone to involvement in violence … falls in disposable income are probably an important factor.
Findings involving alcohol are one of the few things that are translatable across the world. Alcohol — with the clear exception of some Muslim countries — spans class, culture and profession. But between every country, there are differences. And there are surprises.
For instance, according to data compiled by the WHO, no nation has harder-drinking women than Zambia, where 41% binge drink at least once a week. In the United States, only three percent of women on average do the same. But, as you can see from the chart, Zambia isn’t the only country that’s deep in its cups.
Strange Facts
• Living on an island appears to exacerbate one’s tendency to drink. The Cook Islands, Samoa, Ireland and Sri Lanka are all near the top.
• If you are Zambian, you are probably drunk at least once per week – and in very good company.
• Pakistan, despite the fact that it is a Muslim country, has a pretty sizable drinking problem. The penalty if you are caught is 80 lashes, but the punishment is rarely enforced, and alcohol addiction clinics are flourishing.

• Who knew European countries were so safe about their booze?
• The WHO found in 2011 that the people of Moldova are the hardest drinkers in the world.
They drink three times the global average, putting back 18 litres of pure alcohol per year.
• The “riskiest” drinkers in the world are found in Russia and Ukraine.
• In Denmark, there’s something called hygge — an idea of warmth in a climate that has little of it. And yes, wine comes into play.
• Alcohol is mostly banned in Yemen, but if it is to be found, the WHO says it is going to be beer. • Haitians almost exclusively drink spirits. Evidently, WHO researchers never heard of the Haitian beer, Prestige. It is kind of a big deal in the Caribbean nation.
• When you are measuring the amount you drink in gallons, you know you are in trouble.
• Though Mali is predominantly Muslim, alcohol isn’t prohibited. Our Africa says the drink of choice is millet beer, which looks to be consumed in large quantities.
• Portuguese women apparently give a lot of conflicting accounts of how often they drink. According to this 2008 Wall Street Journal article, 72% of women in Portugal say they don’t drink.

Zambia reviews policy to address small-scale farmers needs

By DOREEN NAWA
ZAMBIA is reviewing the 2004-2015 national agriculture policy to address the needs of small-scale farmers countrywide, Zambia's minister of Agriculture and Livestock Wylbur Simuusa has said.

The minister was speaking in Lusaka during a round-table workshop organised by Government in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
“The review of the Agriculture Policy 2004-2015 is being done in order to address the needs of the small-scale farmers, taking into account the emerging trends in the sector such as environment and climate change, decentralisation, globalisation and changes in the legal environment,” Mr Simuusa said.
He also said there is need for credible investment to operationalise the national agriculture policy and to reduce poverty in rural areas.
And Mr Simuusa said Government has prioritised agriculture on its agenda despite the challenges that the sector is facing.
He said there is need to address shortcomings in the agriculture sector to make it viable.
“There are several challenges that have constrained the performance of the agriculture sector and its contribution to poverty reduction but I wish to say that Government and several other cooperating partners have made efforts aimed at transforming the sector,” Mr Simuusa said.

Like many other developing countries, Zambia too faces several challenges in the agriculture sector such as poor infrastructure, storage facilities especially in rural areas where agriculture is the mainstay of most communities.

Other challenges include Low investment, lack of access to affordable credit and limited access to labour saving technologies by small scale farmers.

Earlier, Brian Baldwin, senior advisor at IFAD said lack of capital investment had continued affecting the growth of the small scale farmers in the country.

“The objective of the workshop is to have an opportunity to discuss the main findings and recommendations from Zambia country programme evaluation and reflect on their implications,” Mr Baldwin said.

Officer-in-charge, independence office of evaluation of IFAD, Kees Tuinenburg said even though IFAD was a relatively small financial partner in Zambia ,the country programme had made an important contribution to the development of agriculture and rural development.

Since 1981 IFAD had provided financing to the tune of US$188.5 million to support farmers across the country.

Mr Tuinenburg said cooperation between IFAD and government plays a central role for a more effective and efficient use of the government systems.

Mwaba starts Berlin residence

Stary Mwaba and part of his works

By DOREEN NAWA
STARY Mwaba, renowned Zambian painter, on Tuesday left for Berlin, Germany to start a one-year residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien.
Mwaba  was the only artist selected by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW)  from all scholarship applications in Africa on the basis of works which later translated into his inspiring exhibition, ‘We’re still going to the Moon’, which officially opened on March 20, 2014 at the Lusaka National Museum.

The theme of his exhibition is based on the story of Mukuka Nkoloso, who planned and hoped to send a person from Zambia into space in the early 1960s and is the background of the exhibition, which focuses on inspiration, dreams and encouragement.
This is according to a statement issued by Marcel Grella, the public relations/micro-projects officer at the German Embassy in Lusaka.
Chingola-born Mwaba, was raised within a rich traditional background and intellectually stimulated environment surrounded by traditional craftsman and performers.
He decided to move to Northern Province where he fostered his love to the arts, but also became a peer counsellor for Family Life Education.
Starting in 1985, he attended a two-year apprentice programme under Lutanda Mwaba and built on his self-taught skills through various programmes of the Zambia National Visual Arts Council Academy.
Although, most of his works are paintings, Mwaba has also created art works in public spaces in form of wall murals in an inquiring, investigative, experimental and research-minded way on universal themes such as human rights and politics.
Mwaba’s solo projects include the exhibitions; ‘Crossing over Caribbean Contemporary Arts’ in Port-of-Spain in 2005, ‘Freedom in Transition’ at Lusaka National Museum in 2008 and ‘Solace of a Migrant’ in Johannesburg in 2009, while he has also exhibited in New York, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago in recent years.
Mwaba is a recipient of the Commonwealth Arts and Crafts Award and the Zambia National Arts Council Award. It will be his first visit to Germany.

A call on Africa to transform agriculture to end poverty

Dr Nkosazana  Dlamini-Zuma with Dr Ibrahim Mayaki                                     

By DOREEN NAWA
A CALL to transform Africa’s agriculture in a bid to win the war on poverty, hunger and indignity was the main theme in all the deliberations at the African Union Commission (AUC) Comprehensive Agriculture sector Development Programme (CAADP) 10th Partnership Platform meeting held in Durban, South Africa recently.
The key message was coined around the need to take action in priority areas to accelerate increased investment and broad-based transformation in support of smallholder farmers, including rural youth and women.
“Africa needs to come up with its own solutions to problems rather than depend on the United Nations (UN) to spearhead the process,” AUC chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said.
“The agenda of agricultural transformation is strategically positioned to provide enormous opportunities for inclusive and sustainable development in Africa.
“Agriculture has been and will continue to be at the centre of economic and also political stability in Africa. If this were not to be the case, hungry stomachs, unemployed youths and poor citizens would end up influencing hungry  and poverty-induced anger and thus fuel more political conflicts in our countries,” Dr  Dlamini-Zuma said.
Despite important economic progress and agricultural successes, Africa remains the world’s most food insecure continent, with relatively low levels of agricultural productivity, low rural incomes, and high rates of malnutrition.
Statistics by various organs including International Monetary Fund (IMF) have shown that Africa has recorded continuous economic growth since 1999, accompanied by improved governance and human development indicators. Currently, seven out of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world are situated in Africa, and IMF estimates that economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa will be 6.1 percent by the end of 2014.
Africa’s annual total GDP grew on average by 4.8 percent in 2000-2010, up from 2.1 percent in the previous decade, and the agriculture sector’s growth rates in the same time period were 3.2 percent and three percent respectively.
Dr Dlamini-Zuma said the continent has achieved a series of agricultural successes in major areas, including the intensification of staple food production, improved varieties of bananas in Eastern and Central Africa, high-yielding varieties of maize in East and southern Africa, and productivity gains in cotton production in Burkina Faso and Mali and in tea and floriculture in East Africa.
“The question is how African leaders can build on this progress by providing stable agricultural and fiscal policies that encourage investment, as committed 10 years ago in the Maputo Declaration, and strengthen governance and accountability mechanisms that contribute to more systemic implementation of policies and programmes,” she said.
Dr Dlamini-Zuma said these actions were critical to trigger a transformation in the capacity of countries to deliver sustained and broad-based agricultural growth and development.
Furthermore, concerted efforts were needed to assist a broader set of asset-poor family farms gain access to agricultural inputs, affordable credit, rural services and extension information that allows them to take advantage of the growing market. Innovative social protection and risk management programmes were also required to address the particular constraints of smallholder farmers.
Chief executive officer of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Ibrahim Mayaki said the agenda of agricultural transformation is strategically positioned to provide enormous opportunities for inclusive and sustainable development in Africa.
Dr Mayaki said ¬ “agriculture is everyone’s business that is why national independence depends on its development as it is enables countries to escape the scourge of food insecurity that undermines the sovereignty and fosters sedition.
“Agriculture is the driver of growth whose leverage is now acknowledged by economists and politicians. It is a sector offering potential for poverty and inequality reduction. Agriculture constitutes the development battlefield where Africa can win the war on poverty, hunger and indignity.
 “Agriculture has been and will continue to be at the centre of economic and also political stability in Africa.  It is therefore imperative to invest in agriculture in order to overcome the food insecurity in the continent,” Dr Mayaki said.
Trends in per capita food production have been generally positive over recent decades. On average, agricultural production in Africa has increased slightly less than 1 percent per year, compared with about 2 percent in developing countries.
While Africa experienced high instability in food price levels, per capita food production was more stable over time and variability was relatively low compared to other regions, such as Asia or Latin America.
But despite the overall progress made on hunger and malnutrition in Africa over the past decades, absolute levels of hunger and undernourishment remain worrying in sub-Saharan Africa including Zambia
It is estimated that poverty rates in Africa declined marginally from 56 percent in 1990 to 49 percent in 2010, leaving 388 million in extreme poverty and approximately 239 million chronically undernourished.  The food security situation in Africa continues to be of particular concern.
With a view to transforming agriculture in Africa, research is also an important element.
Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) said African countries need to invest more on research in agriculture if meaningful transformation was to be realised.
FARA executive director Dr Yemi Akinbamijo said Africa cannot grow without the use of research and science in the agriculture sector.
Dr Akinbamijo also said there was need for political will by government leaders to endorse science into agriculture which will be translated into economic development.
 “FARA has taken the mandate of the science agenda and we are keen to deliver it to African farmers as we embark on reducing hunger.
“Science will also enable farmers use better methods of farming as modern technology increases efficiency and productivity,” Dr Akinbamijo said.
The 10th CAADP partnership platform (PP) meeting was being held under the theme, “Transforming Africa’s agriculture for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods, through harnessing opportunities for inclusive growth and sustainable development.”
The five-day conference attracted over 5,000 delegates from across Africa and beyond.
The 10th CAADP PP was being held at a historical moment when the AUC was celebrating 10 years of CAADPP and the year of African agriculture and food security. 
 

Green energy from water hyacinth launched

ALBERTINA Mwanakampwe prepares a meal for her family on a biogas stove at her home in Dambwa Site and Service in Livingstone.

By DOREEN NAWA

NOTHING clicked in the mind of Albertina Mwanakampwe, 37, that one day the walls of the Livingstone sewage ponds would expand due to rapid population growth.
Living just over 500 metres away from the sewage ponds in Dambwa Site and Service was normal for Ms Mwanakampwe until five years ago when she noticed that the sewage ponds were expanding in size.
“It was not by choice that we found ourselves here. We had nowhere to settle and the only option was here, where there is less or no demand at all for land. We came here some time back and we had no problem until five years ago when we noticed that the ponds were becoming bigger,” she said.
But now the story is different following the establishment of a biogas project. Ms Mwanakampwe does not need to worry about expansion of sewage ponds as they are being controlled through the harvest of water weeds for biogas production.
But more beneficial is that she does not need to worry about charcoal or firewood to cook for her husband and five children. All thanks to the Living Falls BioPower project.
Ms Mwanakampwe can now have a pleasant sleep following the commencement of biogas production from the ponds.
“We can now stay here safely knowing that something is being done to control the [expansion of]ponds following the initiation of the biogas project. The project is a relief not only in terms of the sewage bother, but because we don’t need to buy charcoal. I am now using biogas energy for cooking, which is clean and environmentally friendly,” Ms Mwanakampwe said.

Living Falls BioPower project managing Director Chisco Simweena, Energy Regulation Board (ERB) head of human resources Juliet Bungoni, ERB executive director Langiwe Lungu, acting director of finance and administration  Buumba Simweemba and ERB Southern regional manager Allen Polito during the tour of the BioPower project in Livingstone.

The project concept is to turn the weeds growing in the wastewater ponds of Livingstone into biogas energy and fertilizer, thereby improving the water treatment capacity of the ponds. In a way this also protects the Zambezi River and mighty Victoria Falls from sewage pollution . The water weed is called water hyacinth.
Living Falls BioPower, an energy firm, has partnered with Energy and Environment Partnership (EEP) and Southern Water and Sewerage Company (SWASCO) in an 180,000 Euros worth project to set up a bio-gas power plant in Livingstone. The plant will produce fertilizer and biogas (for cooking) using water hyacinth and human excreta. 
The Energy Regulation Board (ERB) says the Living Falls BioPower project is a commendable entry point for renewable energy in Zambia.
“In order to redeem the diminishing trees due to massive charcoal production, renewable energy projects are the answer. This is a perfect and amazing project that uses an unwanted weed to produce gas that can be used for cooking, thereby replacing charcoal and other sources of energy,” ERB executive director Langiwe Lungu said during the tour of the project recently.
Ms Lungu has since called on the Livingstone community, especially hotels to support the project and ensure that they use biogas generated from the project.
“While most of the hotels currently use electricity [mainly from hydropower]and propane gas for cooking, a substantial part of the cooking and grilling is done on charcoal; biogas can be their alternative  [energy]during power cuts.
“If the country is to address deforestation, projects like the Living Falls BioPower ought to be supported,” Ms Lungu said.
The use of wood fuel in charcoal and firewood form in Zambia is the major contributing factor to rapid deforestation, making the country one of the six biggest global emitters of greenhouse gases.
Explaining the genesis of the project, Living Falls BioPower project managing director Chisco Simweena said the biogas venture was implemented in February last year,  and was specifically designed for biogas production based on a modern waste management system.
“Our target is to support between 30 and 50 households by mid-year under the pilot project, after which we will decide to connect more households and entities to the project. The contract with SWASCO was for seven years, and thereafter, the water utility firm would decide whether to renew the contract or not,” Mr Simweena said.

PROJECT managing Director Chisco Simweena (left) with his workmate Gilbert Mweempe harvesting water hyacinth from sewage ponds.

Situated in Livingstone’s Dambwa Site and Service, the project, which uses water hyacinth from SWASCO sewer ponds as raw materials for producing bio-as energy, is targeting to reach about 50 households before the end of this year.
Currently, the project has only 12 gas customers since December last year when it started producing bio-as.
The project is the first of its kind in Zambia in terms of producing biogas from sewage water weeds and supplying people with biogas as cooking energy. The gas is distributed through a gas pipe network and users pay for energy through pre-paid meters.
Water hyacinth biogas projects have been implemented in a number of countries, including Sudan, India, and Niger, and now in Zambia. The process of producing biogas is labour-intensive. It starts with the removal of water weeds from its sewage environment; then follows transportation and disposing of unwanted material. The weed is allowed to dry and compress, and later put in digesters after mixing the dried weed with cow dung. Then fermentation takes 20-40 days, after  which biogas will start filtering through pipes connected to digesters into the main biogas receivers.
The idea is to harvest the weeds from one pond and put them in a biogas reactor for anaerobic (without oxygen) digestion. The remains from this process can be used as affordable organic fertilizer for small-scale farmers.
“All the six ponds are heavily infested with water weeds. While these weeds fulfil at least a partial water purification function, they grow vigorously in nutritious water, providing a very fertile habitat for mosquitos and crocodiles. Dead plants contribute to a rapid sedimentation of the ponds which are already by now at the limit of their capacity.
“And because of this, the overflow into the Zambezi River, just upstream of the world heritage site Victoria Falls, is not in conformity with health and environmental standards, and threatens to spread the hyacinth pest into the Zambezi River,” Mr Simweena said.
Excessive water hyacinth growth is not only a problem at the sewage ponds in Livingstone, it is also common in wastewater ponds in Monze and Mazabuka in Southern Province, and Ndola on the Copperbelt.
Water hyacinth has been known to reduce water intake of hydropower plants such as Kafue Gorge and Kariba Power Station 
Despite being an unwanted plant in water bodies, water hyacinth is recommended for biogas production because the product is relatively cheaper and environmentally friendly compared to other energy sources.
Zambia has the capacity to up its biogas production using water hyacinth, specific energy-generating crops, agriculture industry wastes and food wastes in general.
With the pilot project being launched in Livingstone, this may just be the beginning of biogas production in Zambia.