“Congratulations Madam President! Women do make a difference. We are proud of you!” That was the excited message from María Fernanda Espinosa Garces, president of the United Nations General Assembly, to a U.N. colleague selected to be the first woman president in Ethiopia.
In a unanimous vote, Ethiopian lawmakers this week approved Sahle-Work Zewde for the presidency, replacing Mulatu Teshome, who resigned unexpectedly a day earlier.
Her appointment has raised hopes among advocates for gender equality in the conservative country.
Although the position of president is largely ceremonial, it carries important symbolic weight and social influence. It also comes as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, just days before, approved a gender-balanced cabinet and filled half of the slots with women.
A veteran technocrat, 68-year-old Zewde has worked in diplomacy for more than three decades.
Born in the capital Addis Ababa, Zewde attended university in France. After graduating, she served as Ethiopia’s ambassador to France, Djibouti and Senegal and in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional trade bloc in East Africa.
Before her appointment as president, she was the U.N.’s top official at the African Union. She is fluent in English and French as well as Amharic, Ethiopia’s official working language.
Abebe Aynete, a senior researcher at the Ethiopian Foreign Relations Strategic Studies think-tank, told Al Jazeera, “As a person who knows the Ethiopian system inside out, Zewde, as president, will offer more continuity in terms of policy but will have her own priorities, including female empowerment.”
Aynete added. “I consider it as a sort of a glass ceiling being broken down, showing females can also reach positions of high profile.”
The administration of reformer Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, which assumed office in April, has appointed numerous women to influential positions that have been traditionally reserved for men, including Ethiopia’s first female defense minister, Aisha Mohammed.
Madam Muferiat Kamil was appointed to lead the newly created Ministry of Peace, responsible for the police and domestic intelligence agencies.
SOUTH AFRICA MUST ADDRESS AIR POLLUTION HOT SPOTS NOW!
(GIN)—The world’s largest air pollution hot spot is not where you might think.
No, it’s not in New Jersey. But if you said South Africa, you’d be right, according to a newly released study by the environmental group Greenpeace.
With coal and transport as the two principle sources of air pollution, Eastern Mpumalanga Province in South Africa has the most polluting cluster of coal-fired power stations in the world, producing record levels of nitrogen dioxide, according to the Greenpeace report.
Mpumalanga borders Mozambique and is the hub of South Africa’s coal industry, with 12 coal-fired plants that supply the grid with 32 gigawatts.
“The most up-to-date satellite imagery from June to August this year clearly shows that when you look at just one pollutant, which is nitrogen dioxide, Mpumalanga is the worst hot spot in the world,” Melita Steele, senior climate and energy campaign manager for Greenpeace Africa, said in a statement.
Nitrogen oxides—including NO2—are estimated to cause many thousands of premature deaths worldwide every year.
Although South Africa adopted tough climate targets with the National Climate Change Response White Paper in 2011 and is a signatory to the Paris Climate Change agreement, implementation has been slow.
The study found that plumes of dangerous NO2 pollution also regularly cover nearby Johannesburg and Pretoria because of their close proximity and regular headwinds.
“We found that there are nearly 2,200 premature deaths [annually] that come from this air pollution,” the study said. “You are looking at respiratory problems … heart diseases [and] lung cancer—it’s a very scary outline.”
Now, environmental groups are attempting to block another coal mining project imposed by state officials in a protected area in Mpumalanga.
The case has been brought by the Center for Environmental Rights representing eight groups looking to set aside the permission granted in 2016 by former Mines Minister Mosebenzi Zwane and the late Environment Minister Edna Molewa to allow coal mining in a protected area
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization, under the newly appointed Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is holding its first Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health. The conference will take place from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 in WHO headquarters in Switzerland.
“Polluted air is poisoning millions of children and ruining their lives,” said WHO Director General Tedcros Adhanom.
