PORT Elizabeth can lead the way in showing Africa how to tackle the challenges of population and climate change, the regional director of the UN Population Fund (UNPF) said yesterday.

Interviewed at the Port Elizabeth City Hall prior to the launch of the State of the World Population 2009 report, UNPF Africa director Bumi Makinwa said the Friendly City’s potential lay in the fact that it was an industrial city on the one hand, but also rich with still healthy natural resources on the other.

“You can go into a negative cycle or into a positive one, depending on what development path you take. Industrial development is okay but, we argue, to make it sustainable, with long- term benefits for communities, it must be climate-friendly in terms of its carbon emissions. Balance must be sought.

“Port Elizabeth is not only a beautiful city – you can become a model for South Africa and even Africa because you have the potential to achieve that balance.”

The report has been compiled and disseminated by the UNPF for the past 13 years. It is presented simultaneously across the world each year by the government of each country, and noon GMT (2pm SA time) yesterday was set as the global embargo.

The presentation is sometimes done in partnership with the regional or continental UNPF director, as happened here yesterday.

The SA Social Development Department has until now always presented the report in Gauteng. This is the first time it has been presented in another part of the country, and also the first time that it has coincided with the pan-African launch of the report.

A Nigerian by birth, with 25 years’ experience in international government, Makinwa started his speech by explaining the theme of this year’s report, which is “Facing a changing world: women, population and climate change”.

The crux, he noted, was that the spike in population since the 1950s had led to a spike in emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide which drive climate change.

“Slower population growth and changes in harmful patterns of production and consumption will reduce future emissions and the impact of climate change.

“People cause climate change. People are affected by it. People need to adapt to it. And only people can stop it.”

Africa is already feeling the early effects of climate change with the ice-cap on Mount Kilimanjaro melting and once-mighty Lake Chad reduced to half the size it was 35 years ago, he said.

“With the full onset of climate change, the Nile in Egypt would dry up.

“This would be devastating, as 10 other countries also depend on its water.”

Women were important cogs in any community and they were for this reason key potential agents for tackling climate change, he said.

Women, he said, were at the sharp end of the climate change sword which would hurt the poorest communities the most, although they were least responsible for causing the problem.

They were usually the ones who had to secure water and they were the worst educated, yet they were the ones who had to cook for and take care of the children. So they had a unique opportunity to guide their communities, he said.

“This report calls for empowering women to unleash their full potential, so they can strengthen the resilience of communities and societies to deal with the causes and consequences of climate change.”

In line with Makinwa’s vision for PE as a role model, a programme has been launched with the UNPF and Social Development to train Nelson Mandela Bay municipal officials in a series of subjects around climate change and achieving sustainable livelihoods.

The programme is set to culminate in November next year with an international indaba here.

Mandela Bay public health committee chairman Nancy Sihlwayi, who represented Mayor Nomdumiso Maphazi at the launch, said the programme was “very, very significant”.