31 July: AfDB: Housing: The African Development Bank (AfDB) has committed more than US$38 million to Shelter Afrique in support of sustainable housing solutions in Africa. AfDB and Shelter Afrique signed a package of three financial agreements, consisting of a US$30 million line of credit, US$ 7.5 million for equity investments, and US$.95 million for technical assistance from the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance. This line of credit will provide long-term funds for on-lending to private real estate developers and housing finance institutions in Shelter Afrique member countries. [More information]
31 July: AU: Regional Integration: Parliamentarians and civil society organizations met for a two-day event on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) at the African Union Commission Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The participants of the workshop underscored the need for African countries to focus on the regional integration process of the continent. They outlined that EPAs are expected to create opportunities for building regional markets, stimulate investments, integrate the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) into the world economy and help in poverty reduction. [Download press release]
31 July: FAO: World Summit on Food Security: The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Jacques Diouf has invited governments around the world to participate in negotiations to agree on a declaration for adoption by the World Summit of Heads of State and Government on Food Security, to take place from 16-18 November 2009 in Rome, Italy. The decision to convene the summit was taken by the FAO Council in June 2009. [More information]
31 July: AfDB/Zambia: Zambia’s Finance and National Planning Minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane has commended the African Development Bank for its continued effort of updating African Governments about economic social development progress on the continent. He said this in a speech read on his behalf by his Deputy, Chileshe Kapwepwe at the launch of the 2009 African Economic Outlook (AEO) and the 2009 Africa Competitiveness Reports in Lusaka, Zambia. The Minister observed that the current economic management challenges facing the continent as highlighted in the reports that are largely attributed to the on-going economic crisis require appropriate policy response and a joint effort between government’s and their cooperating partners. [More information]
2 August: UNEP: Climate Change: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) was involved in two festivals in Nairobi, Kenya, namely the Storymoja Hay Festival, held from 31 July-1 August, and Kenya’s first green music festival, held on 2 August, that considered climate change. The Storymoja Hay Festival hosted talks on critical topics facing East Africa, including a keynote discussion on climate change and the upcoming climate meeting in Copenhagen by Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director. Modeled on Britain’s annual Hay Festival, the event was designed to be a meeting of minds to brainstorm for solutions on climate change, the environment, education, finance, fair trade and business. On 2 August, UNEP was also involved in Kenya’s first green music festival, titled Blankets & Wine presents Seal the Deal! The event aimed to help raise environmental awareness on the road to an effective global agreement on climate change in Copenhagen this December. The audience and performers at the music festival made their voices heard by signing the online Climate Petition to encourage their leaders to seal a fair, balanced and effective climate deal when they meet in Copenhagen this December. [UNEP press release]
4 August: World Bank/DRC: The first Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (ERPA) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was signed with a local Congolese firm, NOVACEL, at the World Bank office in Kinshasa. Through this agreement, the World Bank-administered BioCarbon Fund is purchasing half a million carbon credits from an initiative to reforest 4200 hectares of degraded land on the Plateau Bateke, 150 kilometers from the DRC capital of Kinshasa. The project is using carbon finance to generate resources for health, education, and agro-forestry activities while also trapping an estimated 2.4 million tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. [Press release]
6 August: UN/US: A senior United Nations official welcomed United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s recent statements in Kenya as a clear signal that Washington is committed to boost sustainable agricultural development in the world’s poorer countries as a way to root out global hunger and poverty. Clinton’s comments, in which she called for more agricultural aid money to be spent in poorer countries, show a clear US resolve to act upon the $20-billion pledge for sustainable agricultural development made at last month’s G8 summit of industrialized nations in L’Aquila, Italy, UN Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) President Kanayo F. Nwanze said in a news release. [More information]

11-13 August: Eleventh East Africa Power Industry Convention, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. [More information]
11-13 August: Workshop on the EC-ACP Capacity Building Project on MEAs, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[Concept Note and UNEP project document]
16-22 August: Twenty Eighth International Conference for Agricultural Economists, Beijing, China. [More information]
16-22 August: World Water Week, Stockholm, Sweden. [More information]
17-23 August: 2009 UNEP Tunza International Children and Youth Conference, Daejeon, Republic of Korea. [More information]
21-22 August: Third East Africa Media Summit, Kampala, Uganda. [Download the press release here]
23-28 August: Second Congress on World Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya. [More information] 
24 August - 4 September: Sustainable Global Technologies Programme, Nairobi, Kenya. [More information]
26-27 August: Thirteenth Southern Africa Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF-13), in Harare, Zimbabwe. [More information]
31 August - 4 September: Third World Climate Conference, Geneva, Switzerland. [More information] 
31 August - 4 September: The 2009 Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) High Level Regional Policy Dialogue, Maputo, Mozambique. [More information]

The Africa Weekly Sustainable Development Guidance Document is a publication of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) <info@iisd.ca>, publishers of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin © <enb@iisd.org>. This issue was compiled and edited by Tallash Kantai and Richard Sherman. The Guidance Document is part of IISD Reporting Service’s African Regional Coverage (ARC) Project in partnership with South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), the UN Environment Programme’s Regional Office for Africa (UNEP ROA) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Director of IISD Reporting Services is Langston James “Kimo” Goree VI <kimo@iisd.org>. The Programme Manager of the African Regional Coverage Project is Richard Sherman <rsherman@iisd.org>. Funding for the Africa Weekly Sustainable Development Guidance Document has been provided by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Development Research Centre, Canada, through the African Regional Coverage Project for IISD Reporting Service’s coverage of African regional meetings. IISD can be contacted at 161 Portage Avenue East, 6th Floor, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 0Y4, Canada; tel: +1-204-958-7700; fax: +1-204-958-7710. The opinions expressed in the Guidance Document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IISD. Electronic versions of the Guidance Document are sent to the electronic distribution list (in HTML format) and can be found on the Linkages WWW-server at <http://enb.iisd.org/africa/>. For information on the ARC, including requests to provide reporting services, contact the Director of IISD Reporting Services at <kimo@iisd.org>, +1-646-536-7556 or 300 East 56th St., 11A, New York, New York 10022, US.