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Showing posts with the label Democratizing the Nile

GERD: Reducing Indoor Air Pollution

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Energy is a crucial component of health systems. Clean energy is essential for human health and wellbeing, and it minimises air pollution. In so doing, the number of people admitted to hospitals due to respiratory infection will reduce sharply decongesting our already saturated health systems. The process of diagnosis and treatment also demand a reliable source of energy, preferably clean energy. Simply, vaccines and medicines need to be refrigerated; equipment needs sterilisation and light are needed for operations and emergencies at night . Therefore, clean energy can be regarded as a crucial tool for both prevention and cure. Sustainable access to basic electricity and transition to environmentally harmful energy sources reduce air pollution, making people less vulnerable to disease. About   4.2 million   deaths every year are linked to air pollution and exposure, while a   recent Harvard analysis   showed that people living in contaminated cities were more li...

GERD: Ending Child Undernourishment and Hunger

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The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Sustainable Development Goals On the 25 th September 2015 at the United Nations summit on sustainable development, the world adopted a historical document titled “ Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development .” The agenda is a plan of action for people , planet and prosperity and consists of 17 sustainable development goals of most urgent priority to the international community. Amongst the SDGs, Goal 7 on Energy has been recognised as an enabler for achieving almost all of the Sustainable Development Goals, “ from the eradication of poverty through advancements in health, education, water supply and industrialisation, to combating climate change .” Thus, failure to avail reliable, sustainable, and affordable energy supply means that sustainable development grinds to a halt - and subsistence itself becomes uncertain. This part of GERD-SDG series attempts to show how the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam enables Ethi...

GERD: Powering Up Poverty Eradication

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Sustainable Development Goals On the 25 th September 2015 at the United Nations summit on sustainable development, the world adopted a historical document titled “ Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development .” The agenda is a plan of action for people , planet and prosperity and consists of 17 sustainable development goals of most urgent priority to the international community. Goal 1: End Poverty in all its Forms, the Energy Factor Amongst the SDGs, Goal 7 on Energy has been recognised as an enabler for achieving almost all of the Sustainable Development Goals, “ from the eradication of poverty through advancements in health, education, water supply and industrialisation, to combating climate change . ” Thus, failure to avail reliable, sustainable, and affordable energy supply means that sustainable development grinds to a halt - and subsistence itself becomes uncertain. The note attempts to show how the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam enables countries i...

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Democratizing the Nile River

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The Nile River is a lifeline to close to three hundred million inhabitants from which half of them lives under the poverty line. Underdevelopment hinders the Nile River from playing a leading role in poverty eradication attempts across the Basin. Riparian states seem resolute to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals by democratizing the Nile River, and it seems inevitable. Colonizing the Nile Ensuring the continuous flow of the Nile River has been the guiding national security objective of successive administrations in Egypt, be it the Ottoman, the British, or successive Egyptian presidents, often at all but ill-advised costs. Whoever ruled Egypt followed a legal, political, or diplomatic endeavours to pursue the national security objective. Waters of the Nile should reach the land of the pharaohs disregarding the needs of millions of people living in the entire river basin. Countries beyond the Lake Nasser, most of them under the British colonial rule, were forced to ...