Intern, Janie Crocco, American specialist on Women and Child Trafficking working with ARDA at their Tbs Office,

..See interview for more information ….

Interview  & profile  re. Ms Janie Crocco

This year ARDA’s Lagos office has an intern from the USA

working alongside other members of staff: Ms. Janie Crocco.  In June of 2007, Janie was given Compton Fellowship to research and work on the phenomenon of human trafficking for sexual exploitation from Nigeria to

Italy.

Before coming to Lagos this past January, Janie spent 5 month in Turin (Italy) studying the social and political mechanisms that lead to trafficking and illegal migration in Europe, as well as the achievements and shortcomings of Italy’s Art. 18 Law, meant to address instances of trafficking specifically.

While at ARDA, she will be involved in including messages on human trafficking and prostitution in our ongoing radio drama program on HIV/AIDS and is currently working on securing funding for new radio drama programs on women’s empowerment in the context of trafficking and community-police relations in instances of gender based violence.

Human trafficking has been recorded as one of the most lucrative illicit practices today and for this reason it has received a great deal of media and political attention (ILO 2005). Despite attempts at curbing exploitative labor globally- human trafficking, smuggling and illegal migration are very prevalent world wide. In this context, Nigeria emerges as a country of origin and destination for trafficking victims and illegal migrants.

ARDA: On behalf of other members of staff welcome to Africa Ms Crocco.

Ms Crocco: “…Thanks. Great to be here.….”

ARDA: Is this you’re first working visit and how do you see Nigerians?

Ms Crocco: “Yes, this is my first time working in Nigeria . I’m weary of making generalizations about an entire population… But I can say that I have enjoyed my time and your country and have met a lot of great people.”

ARDA: Is it difficult to work in Nigeria and with Nigerians especially concerning  the   Subject of “Women and child trafficking”, how much of the work have you done, and how much of the work remains to be done ?

Ms Crocco: “Overall happy with my time spent here in Nigeria and I think I have learned a lot. However, I must say that working on trafficking specifically related to prostitution's been a bit difficult in the Nigerian context. Whether or not women engaged in prostitution are trafficked or are migrants aware of the type of work they will be expected to do upon arrival in a new place, they usually get caught up in such situations because of a lack of comparable or viable economic opportunities. Unfortunately, I find that the discourse on prostitution in Nigeria often rests on moral and ethical judgments of “fallen and greedy women”, ignoring the need to address a number of societal arrangements that are harmful towards women and contribute to the feminization of poverty and in some cases, prostitution.

While a number of institutions and NGOs have taken on the problem of “trafficking”, there is still little attention paid to the various nuances and dimensions of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, there seems to be still a lot of confusion with regards to what constitutes instances of trafficking, compared to smuggling or simply migration and how each case is dealt with at various institutional levels. A lot is certainly being done- but I think the real question is whether the policies and initiatives being developed are affective and conducive to the fulfillment of people’s basic human rights.”

ARDA: Do you board and feed in a hotel, how is the food, any favourites yet?

Ms Crocco: “I have been a guest in the lovely home of the executive director of ARDA, Allison Data Phido. I have lots of favorites! I am big fan of Nigerian food, which to the disbelief of many is not too spicy for me. Some of my favorites are Egusi soup with pounded yam or amala and fried plantains.”

ARDA: thank you Ms Crocco and we will wish you the best of times during your stay in Nigeria.

Janie Crocco can be reached at JCrocco@Clarku.edu

An Integrated Climate Risk Assessment Workshop took place recently in Nairobi, Kenya , and Nigeria was represented by the GM, climate services, of NIMET, Mrs. Juliana Ukeje, and Research and Development

Advisor of ARDA, Mr. Julian Orupabo. See below,

 their report:

        The high level workshop was co-organized by IDRC/CCAA and DFID with the main objective of providing participants with the basic methods/tools to develop policies and options to manage/adapt to climate risks as well as mainstream climate concerns into developmental practices.

            Participants  were  drawn   from over  13 African  countries with backgrounds on meteorology, hydrology,  health,   water     resources,   wetland, agriculture, environmental  impact assessment, and geographic information  system. There  were also representations from the media and the academia..     

         The opening ceremony consisted of a self introduction session followed by a welcome address by Dr. Joseph Mukabana   (Director of Kenya Meteorological Department) and opening speech

by Dr. Connie Freeman (Regional Director of IDRC). Welcoming the participants, Dr. Mukabana gave a rundown on global efforts towards addressing the problems of climate change which focus on identifying the vulnerable groups and developing adaptation strategies, and commended the organizers in taking similar steps in the continent.

Declaring the workshop open, Dr Freeman noted that the cost of dealing with climate change is much less than the consequences of inaction, and advised that now is the best time to act as there are no more controversies from the USA; a situation which she added, is further enhanced by ‘the Obama factor’: yes we can. She also highlighted opportunities presented by climate change which include new technologies for farming, better use of water, saving our forest via provision of alternate energy sources and increased partnership/collaboration, which came out clearly during the self-introduction session. Finally, noting the high caliber of participants, she expressed high expectations in the realizations of the objectives of the workshop and increased networking/partnerships among the participants.

The technical/plenary sessions of the workshop were coordinated by Dr. Jabavu Nkomo of IDRC, Prof. Laban Ogallo of ICPAC, Kenya and Prof. Amadou Gaye of

UCAD, Senegal , with occasional interpretations by Prof. Gaye for the francophone participants. Notable topics covered include; Outcome Mapping, Climate Change  Mitigation,   Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation   Concepts, Climate Risks Evaluation Methods/Tools, and Mainstreaming Climate Risk Reduction   in   Development.  In addition to presentations at plenary sessions, a few parallel sessions (for the two language groups; francophone and Anglophone African countries) were held.

Participants were later separated into break-out/discussions groups to deliberate on climate change adaptation strategies to address climate change impacts on some key socio-economic sectors like Agriculture, Water, Coastal Zone Management, Health, and Energy.

         There was also Journaling Diary, i.e.  daily evaluations of all the sessions by each participant. This consisted of writing individual’s expectations, new knowledge gained, level of understanding and challenges from the workshop. A summary of the collated comments was employed in monitoring the effectiveness of the various sessions of the workshop.

The workshop also featured a field trip to an arid land project to avail participants first-hand experience on the coping strategies of the vulnerable community to drought problems in Kenya.

 In the course of the plenary discussions on the field trip, participants were requested to make written submissions on their respective countries’ experiences and adaptation strategies employed. According to the organizers, these are expected to be published and duly acknowledged.

The training programme was rounded up with presentations on IDRC-funded projects at each of the participating country, which focused on the objectives and achievements of the projects, lessons learnt from the workshop and applications of this to the project. A total of 18 of such presentations were made.

Notable issues arising from the workshop include;

• The invaluable role of early warning services on climate change related hazards in the development of climate change adaptation strategies, and concerns on the  limitations of such services in the continent,
• The need to keeping the available weather and climate change information short and simple  for more effective communication with the media professionals and the users,
• Usefulness of indigenous knowledge to climate change adaptation,
• The effectiveness of multi-disciplinary participation at such workshops, and 
• The need to put a budget on data/information gathering or make the data/information-issuing Agency a partner in the project.
• Need to develop “GIS” database to integrate climate data, Land use and Land  tenure data. It’ll provide integrated  database that’ll help develop holistic solutions for climate change
• Modeling and Scenarios will be important for ‘Reference’ and for ‘Policy’ in the future for Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessments.
• Some Taboos and their enhancement- the Kaya (mahogany spp) along the coastal zones of Kenya can not be felled (Prof. Odingo) because they are revered like West Africans do the ‘baobab’, ‘silk cotton.’, and the ‘ebony’ tree. This can be relevant in future in terms of “soil stability along the littoral zones and as desert-check in the sahel”.
• DMCN (2002-2003) states that 70% of natural disasters in the world are caused by climatic factors mainly floods & droughts.

• Women and children are the bulk of rural population hardest hit for they are disadvantaged in natural resources’ access, control and ownership (Madulu, 2003).

• While men are busy deliberating on important political and developmental issues, women fall back to their invisible reproductive and productive roles UNESCO (1998).

• The marginalization of these women in rural Africa has resulted in ecological destruction due to lack on conservation information.

• Moreover culture and tradition bar the  women from getting fully involved in meteorology and hydrology

•  hence continued (UNICEF, 1989).reliance on IK or traditional weather related early warning signs some of which may work

          The closing ceremony was conducted thereafter with Simon Carter the Program Manager, IDRC, as the guest of honour. The ceremony witnessed evaluation of the entire programme and presentation of certificates to the participants.  The IDRC Program Manager expressed great satisfaction over participants’ visible enthusiasm as expressed in their comments and individual projects’ presentations. He commended the organizers and administrative staffs, for putting together such a successful workshop, which he added constitutes a basis for establishment of collaborative workshops for sustainable policies and problem solving in Africa .