By Mandla Mbongeni Hadebe

The World Bank Group on April 9, 2010 approved a US$3.75billion loan for the construction of South Africa’s 4800MW coal-fired power station, Medupi, which will have an estimated emission of 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per annum. The Medupi project consists of six 800MW units due to be commissioned progressively between 2012 and 2016. The station is already under construction and orders for most of the major components have already been placed. The World Bank’s contributions of US$3b is essential to complete the US$15.4 b project to this timetable, increasing Eskom’s total generating capacity by about 12%. This additional capacity is urgently needed to meet recent power shortfall and expected power demand in South Africa and throughout the Southern Africa region.

By Simon Vilakazi

Food insecurity has been deepened by; high food prices, climate change and the recent economic crisis. It is continuing to affect the world’s poor people in developing countries despite many attempts to address it. The United Nation’s Chief Executives Board established a High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF) under the leadership of the UN’s Secretary General. The HLTF brought together the Heads of the UN specialized agencies, funds and programmes, and relevant parts of the UN Secretariat, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Trade Organization[1]. This task team was mandated “to promote a comprehensive and unified response to the challenge of achieving global food security, including by facilitating the creation of a prioritized plan of action and coordinating its implementation[2]”.  It was established to speed-up global interventions to address the food insecurity challenge.

The Economic Justice Network (EJN) of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (FOCCISA) together with the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in partnership with the South African Faith Communities Environmental Institute (SAFCEI) organised the  Post-Copenhagen Climate Justice Conference in Johannesburg (5^th–6^th May 2010). The conference was attended by representatives of FOCCISA national Christian councils (NCCs), PACJA members, SAFCEI members, environmental journalists, funding organisations and other climate change activists. The delegates created a statement opposing the construction of coal-fired power stations in Africa. Read more to see the statement.