Sixty-seven-year old Sarudzai Msipa heavily blows air in and out of her mouth, seated in the open-air on a goat skin mat outside her hut as she battles to revive a dying fire on her cooking place set up in the middle of her yard at her remote home in Mwenezi district in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province.

 

Just three sticks are in the fire to keep it alive and there is no sign of leftover firewood nearby. To Msipa, this means times are tough for her and many other villagers as the energy hunger takes a knock on them in this part of Southern Africa.

 

Brussels, 26 April 2018/ ACP:  The Prime Minister of Samoa, the Honourable Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi met with Ambassadors of African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries in Brussels on Monday, urging ACP countries to work together towards building genuine and durable partnership in combating climate change.

 

Indeed, under his leadership Samoa has become an international point of reference in terms of combating climate change thereby making the Prime Minister one of the most visible and influential spokespersons on the latter in the Pacific region. 

 

Brussels, 26 April 2018/ ACP:  Experts from all the 6 ACP regions Cariforum, Pacific, Southern Africa, West Africa, Central Africa and Eastern Africa gathered on 24-25 April 2018 in Brussels to discuss natural risk management and climate change challenges in ACP countries.

 

As the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States include some of the most disaster-prone and climate-vulnerable nations in the world, the meeting served as a solid framework to guide the ACP group’s follow up strategy for Disaster Risk Management for the next 5-year period 2018-2023.

Brussels, 26 April 2018/ ACP: The Secretary General of African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, H.E. Dr. Patrick I. Gomes received the Honourable Alamine Ousmane Mey, Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Development of the Republic of Cameroon during a courtesy call to the ACP House on Wednesday 25 April 2018.

 

Brussels, 17 April 2018 / ACP: The Most Honourable Andrew Holness, Prime Minister of Jamaica addressed the ACP committee of Ambassadors on Monday 16 April 2018 on the relations between the 79-member ACP Group of States and the EU post-2020. The current partnership framework, known as the Cotonou Agreement, is a legally-binding treaty that lays out parameters for trade, development cooperation, and political dialogue between the two blocs. The Agreement expires in February 2020 and talks for a follow-up accord are set to begin in August this year.

 

Brussels, 16 April 2018 /ACP/EU: The 68th meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Committee of Ambassadors took place on Friday 13 April 2018 in Brussels, under the chairmanship of H.E. Mrs. Sheila Sealy Monteith Ambassador of Jamaica and Chairman of the ACP Committee of Ambassadors. 

 

The meeting was co-chaired for the European Union by H.E Mr. Dimiter Tzantchev Ambassador of Bulgaria and Chair of the Permanent Representatives Committee of the European Union.

 

Brussels, 12 April 2018 /ACP: The ACP Secretariat and the ACP Group had the pleasure to welcome back to Brussels, the new Ambassador of Barbados, Her Excellency Ms. Joy-Ann Skinner. Ambassador Skinner served at her Embassy in Brussels from 2000 to 2005 as First Secretary. In this capacity, she chaired the ACP States Rum Working Party, and successfully defended Caribbean rum interests at the World Customs Organisation.

 

While preparing for talks on future relations with the European Union (EU) after the Cotonou Agreement expires in February 2020, the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) is engaged in concerted efforts to reshape itself into "an effective global player" serving as a catalyst and an advocate for defending, protecting and advancing multilateralism, within the overarching framework of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development including 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).