IOM PLEDGES CONTINUED HIV PREVENTION

The International Organization for Migration (lOM) has pledged to continue partnering with government to ensure a free HIV Zambia by the year 2030.

IOM Health Officer, Nomagugu Ncube, said this during a three-day smart and targeted investment in HIV and AIDS response in border town initiative workshop held in Chirundu District.

Mrs Ncube said mobility is a driver of HIV creating conditions for multiple sexual networks.

She said the conditions surrounding the migration process increase vulnerability to HIV particularly for circular migrants like truck drivers and cross-border traders.

"People are always on the move from one point to another an d this makes it easier for the virus to cross borders, too," she said

"We need to identify the vulnerabilities and needs of the migrants," she added.

And National Aids Council (NAC) public private sector coordinator, Ellen Mubanga, observed that despite the national prevalence rate being 13.3 per cent border, areas are still recording high prevalence rates.

She noted that new HIV infections in border areas are also on the increase.

And Chirundu District Commissioner, Alfred Hamunjo, who officially opened the workshop, said government and its partners have prioritised implementation of high impact interventions to reduce new infections.

"HIV is a common enemy to everyone and it should be fought," he said.

"This enemy affects every human being as well as the economy," he noted.

The smart and targeted investment in HIV and AIDS response in Chirundu border town initiative workshop is being held from 3rd to 5th February, 2016.

ZANIS

A NEW ROAD MAP FOR POWER AFRICA

An ambitious new road map released last week lays out how Power Africa, the United States government initiative to increase power generation capacity and access to electricity in Africa, will achieve its targets by 2030. The report outlines areas of new emphasis for the initiative, including a greater focus on energy access and on renewables.

A 500 watt solar system in a rural village in Uganda powers a home, drives a public broadcasting system, a barbershop and a video hall and generates new income for the business owner.

Photo by: Sameer Halai / SunFunder / USAID

And the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday unanimously passed the Electrify Africa Act, which codifies the work of the initiative and should ensure its longevity. The U.S. Senate passed the bill, which differs a bit from Power Africa goals — it sets targets at 50 million connections and 20,000 megawatts of generation, on Dec. 18 and it now awaits approval from President Barack Obama, which should be forthcoming.

In 2013 when it announced Power Africa, the U.S. committed $7 billion to tackle the challenge that more than 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity. That initial commitment has leveraged about $43 billion dollars in pledges from public and private sector partners, according to the Power Africa Roadmap.

The initial goals were for Power Africa to increase installed power capacity by 30,000 megawatts and create 60 million new connections by 2030. To date, the 13 Power Africa projects that have reached financial close are expected to generate more than 4,300 megawatts of power, according to the road map.

It’s important to note, and Power Africa does so in the road map, that some of those projects were underway before the initiative launched. While they didn't come about under the auspices of the program, they met other criteria, including U.S. government involvement and meeting environmental and social safeguards.

Power Africa spent its first year focused on grid-scale generation deals, but leaders of the initiative are now looking ahead to ambitious connections targets — Power Africa-supported projects have the potential to lead to more than a million direct connections — and making changes based on lessons already learned.

Generation and access goals, for example, are “actually two totally different things,” Andrew Herscowitz, Power Africa coordinator, told Devex. As a result, the road map lays out specific plans for each goal, and progress will be measured in actual connections.

“We’ve learned a ton,” Herscowitz said. “We don’t just trust everything people say at conferences. We focus on analysis and data.”

The road map

That knowledge has been poured into the road map, which has three main pillars: achieving the goal around generation; increasing the number of people with access; and driving regulatory and policy changes to improve investment opportunities and speed project timelines.

Power Africa is tracking projects in the Power Africa Tracking Tool, an app built for the initiative that would total about 45,000 megawatts if the projects all came online, though the road map estimates that only between 18,000-21,000 megawatts will reach financial close by 2030.

In order to meet its 30,000 megawatt goal, Power Africa is looking for new deals, which are likely to support natural gas and utility-scale solar expansion. It will also work to improve efficiency at existing power plants.

The majority of projects in the pipeline, and certainly those that aren’t yet being tracked, are at an early stage in their development, so it seems natural that one of Power Africa’s focuses will be on early stage transaction support. Many project developers say it’s also where donors and development finance institutions are needed most.

Reaching the goal of extending access to 60 million people will take a mix of relying on old technology — expanding existing grids, and new — developing innovative off-grid solutions.

One interesting prediction in the road map is that 8 million to 10 million of the new connections will come through the currently underdeveloped micro grid segment of the market, though this raises questions about how to build the appropriate structures and frameworks for those projects to succeed.

Work on the third pillar aimed at building capacity and driving regulatory reforms may be able to help some of those issues. A number of Power Africa programs or partner programs are working to help countries create solid, transparent regulatory and policy environments to help them attract investment and structure good projects.

That capacity building can also help citizens get a fair deal — a single negotiated deal between a company and a government not only takes a long time but is unlikely to provide the country good value for money, in part because African government officials often lack expertise, said Jamie Fergusson, the chief investment officer and global sector lead for renewables, infrastructure and natural resources at the International Finance Corp.  

South Africa sets an example

Examples of what’s working are quickly emerging. While in many ways South Africa may not be representative of the rest of the subcontinent, it has risen as an example of a success story, particularly in scaling up grid-connected solar projects.

Its Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Program developed a clear structure and transparent bid process that has led to more than 2,000 megawatts of solar between 2011 and 2014 and cheaper bids over time.

SolarReserve, global developer of utility-scale solar power projects, has won several bids and built grid-connected solar projects in South Africa. The latest, a 100 megawatt project with 12-hour storage, is set to start construction in the next two months.

The company continue to bid on projects in South Africa because the government built a program that commercially makes sense, has political support at the highest levels and a committed team that carries out the work, is transparent and keeps its word, said Kevin Smith, CEO of SolarReserve.

While South Africa has some advantages — it’s size, local expertise, a strong banking system lower currency risks —other countries can learn from their example, he said. Governments need to put together commercial documentation that makes sense, provide clarity around the off taker and how it works, needs to abide by international arbitration and devise a transparent and open bidding process that sticks to a set schedule, Smith added.

Working together

Since Power Africa was launched, a bevy of other organizations focused on electrifying the continent have emerged and the initiative has amassed some 120 partners, including the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Norwegian government and many private developers, financiers and foundations. Managing that many groups is not always easy.

Coordination amongst the donor and development finance institution community takes long, patient conversations, and some head banging, Ferguson said.

“There's politics and good intent and different organizations with their own mandates,” he said. “It is not all perfectly coordinated. Lots of sensible people, but still those conversations have to be had.”

Herscowitz said he is proud of the initiative's efforts, especially in bringing the various actors together. The level of coordination among the donor organizations is “unprecedented,” he said, citing the example of household solar, where Power Africa, the AfDB and the U.K. Department for International Development got together to discuss their work on in the space and decided to have DfID take the lead. That cooperation helped shape what U.K.’s Energy Africa initiative does, Herscowitz said.  

There are organizations stepping up to lead on other issues as well, like the World Bank and AfDB on grid rollout, organizations like the U.S. Trade Development Agency on project preparation, and the IFC on grid-level solar.

With so many players, determining how each player slots in and where donor and DFI capital should be used is important.  

The IFC’s Scaling Solar initiative, for example, emerged to fill a gap in helping to structure and simplify the process of developing grid-connected solar projects. The program developed a template process and document set to help a government run through a process determining how much solar they want on their grid, where it should go, if appropriate sites can be developed and how it could run a competitive process to identify an independent power producer.

“Scaling Solar is designed with collaboration in that donor and DFI ecosystem in mind,” Ferguson said.

Governments will need help paying for advisory work and in financing the projects themselves, which is where donors can step in. For example, in Zambia, the first country to sign on to Scaling Solar, DfID and Power Africa are helping pay for advisory costs.

Donor financing helped many of the rapidly expanding home solar companies get off the ground — one of the most exciting development to Herscowitz personally. Super-efficient fans, irons and televisions are allowing off-grid customers to “live an on-grid life,” he said, which can change the market and impact the climate change discussion.

“Donors and public money is limited and precious and, I would argue, should be targeted where you can’t attract private capital — transmission lines, distribution companies, public utilities, all of those things that you can't attract private capital for,” Ferguson said.

But every market where Power Africa is tracking deals has some role for the public sector to play — its role is to “bridge market imperfections,” test new models and get first-of-a-kind deals done, Herscowitz said.

How well Power Africa picks the places or types of projects it invests in and how that translates to achieving its goals will certainly be measured against the roadmap, which may well serve as a blueprint as the U.S. and its big coalition of partners work to push things along.

Devex

GROWING FEARS AS MORE AFGHAN JOURNALISTS AND MEDIA WORKERS COME UNDER THE GUN

The fatal shooting of senior Afghan broadcast journalist Mohammad Zubair Khaksar on Friday and the beating of freelance reporter Yahya Jawahari on Sunday further raise concerns for the safety of Afghan journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The attacks follow a suicide bombingattack on employees of the Kabul station Tolo TV that killed at least seven people.

"Afghan journalists have long been under the gun, but the pressure on them is mounting as the security situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate," said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "The government has made promises to address the situation, but it must join with media owners and Afghan journalists' organizations to find an effective method of reversing the hostile environment in which journalists and media houses are forced to operate."

No one has claimed responsibility for fatally shooting Khaksar, a reporter for Afghanistan's national television and radio broadcaster who also worked as a cultural adviser to the provincial governor in Nangahar, as he returned from a friend's house on the evening of January 29, according to press reports. The "Voice of the Caliphate," an unregistered radio station operated by a group claiming fealty to the Islamic State group, had threatened attacks on journalists in Nangahar and neighboring regions, The Associated Press reported.

In a separate attack on Sunday night, unidentified armed men sacked the house of freelance reporter Yahya Jawahari in Mazr-i-Sharif, according to a local media report.Jawahari was severely beaten. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, and the motive remains unclear, according to Afghanistan's Khaama Press news agency.

While CPJ research shows that it is rare for those responsible for killing Afghan journalists to be punished, on January 22 Afghan forces said they had arrested eight members of a Taliban-related group on suspicion of out the January 20 suicide attackin Kabul that killed at least seven employees from the independent station Tolo TV. The victims were part of Tolo's entertainment division, not its news team. The Taliban had openly threatened to target the station after it reported allegations of summary executions, rape, and kidnappings by Taliban fighters during the battle for the northern city of Kunduz in October
cpj

UN HEALTH AGENCY CONVENES EMERGENCY MEETING TO ADDRESS 'DRAMATIC' SPREAD OF ZIKA VIRUS

The World Health Organization (WHO) today called an emergency meeting for Monday on the “dramatic” rise in Zika virus infection – strongly suspected of causing birth malformations – warning that its “explosive” spread could eventually infect up to four million people before it is brought under control.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. Photo: World Bank/Steven Shapiro

“The level of alarm is extremely high,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told her Executive Board in Geneva, noting that for decades the disease, transmitted by the Aedes genus of mosquito, “slumbered,” affecting mainly monkeys and occasionally causing a mild disease of low concern in humans.

“The situation today is dramatically different. Last year, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it is now spreading explosively. As of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region,” she added in convening an Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations on the epidemic.

The virus, first reported by Brazil in May, is expected to spread to other parts of the world where dengue, spread by the same mosquito, is also present, said Marcos Espinal, Director of the Department of Communicable Diseases and Health Analysis at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), WHO's regional branch.

He told the Board he expects the outbreak, already linked to some 4,000 births of babies with abnormally small heads, a condition known as microcephaly, to grow from current estimates of one million cases to possibly three million to four million before it can be brought under control.

“We should not panic,” he stressed. “We should not be afraid, but we need to try and have aggressive vector control in the affected countries,” he stressed.

Dr. Chan noted that there is a high level of uncertainty. “Questions abound,” she said. “We need to get some answers quickly. I am asking the Committee for advice on the appropriate level of international concern and for recommended measures that should be undertaken in affected countries and elsewhere. I will also ask the Committee to prioritize areas where research is most urgently needed.”

In some places the virus has been associated with a steep increase in microcephaly and with the sometimes fatal Guillain-Barre syndrome, but a causal relationship with Zika has not yet been established although it is strongly suspected, she added.

“The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika, from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions. The increased incidence of microcephaly is particularly alarming, as it places a heart-breaking burden on families and communities. WHO is deeply concerned about this rapidly evolving situation.”

She also warned of the potential for Zika to spread even further internationally given the wide geographical distribution of the mosquito vector, and cited the lack of population immunity in newly affected areas and the absence of vaccines, specific treatments, and rapid diagnostic tests.

Moreover, conditions associated with this year's El Niño weather pattern, which causes droughts in parts of the world and floods in others, are expected to increase mosquito populations greatly in many areas.

 WHO

CHINESE JOURNALIST HELD ON EXTORTION CHARGES

Chinese authorities should immediately release Zhang Yongsheng, a reporter for the state-owned Lanzhou Morning Herald, who has been imprisoned since January 7, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On Monday, authorities accused Zhang of extortion.  

The announcement, published on the website of the Liangzhou district government of Wuwei Municipality, said Zhang "used his position as a journalist and in the name of public opinion supervision, to repeatedly extort money and goods from others." According to Zhang's newspaper, which is based in Lanzhou, Gansu province, police initially said the journalist had been arrested for prostitution but later changed the charge to extortion.

The day after Zhang's arrest, Luo Huansu, a reporter from the Lanzhou Evening Herald, (a separate outlet to Zhang's), and Zhang Zhenguo, a reporter from theWestern Business Herald, were detained by Wuwei police and accused of being his accomplices, according to news reports. Luo was charged with extortion and Zhang Zhenguo is still under investigation, authorities said. Both journalists were released on bail on Monday. Neither of those two journalists nor their newspapers have commented on the case publicly.

"The allegations of extortion against Zhang Yongsheng appear to be a punishment for his critical reporting, and the legal process seems to be highly irregular," said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "We call on Chinese authorities to immediately release Zhang on bail while they complete their investigation."

Zhang's lawyers toldreporters they filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office onJanuary 20 after police repeatedly denied them access to the jailed journalist. When the lawyers were finally allowed to meet with Zhang on January 22, he denied the charges, the lawyers told the Chinese media. One of the lawyers told Caixin, a Beijing-based business magazine, that he was ordered by authorities not to speak to the media.

The police allowed Zhang's wife to visit him in prison, which is in violation of Chinese law, according to the Lanzhou Morning Herald. During the meeting, Zhang asked his wife to replace the current lawyers with a new one. Zhang's wife told the paper she believes Zhang said this under pressure. 

In an open letter published by the Lanzhou Morning Herald on Monday, the newspaper denied Zhang was involved in extortion. It said he had been repeatedly threatened for his critical reporting and that people mentioned in Zhang's articles had tried to influence his reporting by offering him cash and other goods. Zhang had told his employer that an official from the Liangzhou Public Security Bureau had called him to demand that an article on the corruption trial of the deputy head of the district be deleted. According to the open letter, Zhang told the official he could not delete it. In another instance, after Zhang refused to stop an article being published about a suicide, Liangzhou police threatened him and said, "Young man, you are from Wuwei. You do this [to us], you wait [and see.]" Before his arrest, Zhang had frequently told one of his colleagues "the Wuwei police are after me," the open letter said.

Corrupt practices among journalists are pervasive in China, according to experts on Chinese media. Dozens of journalists, from both the commercial media and state media, have been charged with bribery or extortion-related crimes in the past couple of years. Given the lack of transparent due process and the scarcity of independent investigative reporting in China, it is difficult to determine whether there is any validity to the authorities' claims. 

With at least 49 journalists in jail, China is the leading jailer of journalists in the world, according to CPJ's annual prison census.

 CPJ

AS ZIKA VIRUS RISES, VACCINE DEVELOPMENT GETS ATTENTION

With fears of Zika virus reaching new heights — women in some countries, for example, are being advised not to get pregnant for years — all eyes are turning toward prevention.

And experts say that developing a vaccine will be one of the best ways to fight this virus.

"If a vaccine is feasible, it would be one of the best ways to combat [Zika virus]," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist and a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Health Security. 

Zika causes an infection that is usually mild, but officials are concerned that infections in pregnant women may lead to microencephaly in their children, a condition that affects the brain and severely affects a child's cognitive development. The virus was originally seen in Africa and Asia, but has spread in the last decade to Central and South America, and some Caribbean and Pacific islands. In recent weeks, health officials in El Salvador, Ecuador, Colombia and Jamaica have suggested to women that they avoid getting pregnant until more is known about the risk of microencephaly.

Because Zika virus hadn't previously been considered a public health threat, there hasn't been much research done on the virus, Adalja told Live Science.

However, that doesn't mean that a vaccine is unattainable.

Although Zika virus is relatively new to the Americas, it's part of a family of viruses called flaviviruses, which includes more well-known viruses such as dengue, yellow fever and the West Nile virus.

And there's a lot of existing research on other flaviviruses, Adalja said. For example, scientists have found ways to replicate human infections with these other flaviviruses in animal models, so that researchers can study how the infection progresses and test out possible drugs, he said.

Not only that, but scientists have a track record of success in making vaccines for such flaviviruses, which indicates that this family of viruses isn't completely impervious to vaccination, he said. There are currently vaccines against the flaviviruses that cause yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, and these have paved the way for future vaccines against other flaviviruses, he said.

Still, as with any new vaccine, the first step for researchers is to devise a vaccine that triggers a response from the human immune system that can protect people from future infections, Adalja said. Then developers can move on to questions of side effects, cost and how long immunity lasts, he said.

And although the mutations that can occur in viruses over time can pose a problem, the goal of vaccine developers is to try and target a part of the virus that tends to not change, he said.

"All viruses mutate … so it's not a question of whether it mutates" but how stable Zika virus is in Brazil, for example, Adalja said. In other words, does it look like the virus is mutating quickly? Some clues to this might be found by sequencing the genetic material of a virus strain in Central America, and comparing it to the sequences of strains in other outbreaks in Asia and Africa, he said.

Adalja said that, for the time being, research on a vaccine would likely take priority over looking for drugs that can treat people infected with the virus. 

Once a woman is infected with Zika virus, and the virus is in the blood, it can cross the placenta and affect the fetus, he said. It would be very hard to make an antiviral drug that could be administered fast enough to prevent the virus's effects, he said.

DEVEX