" It's critical for African journalists to cover global climate summits such as this one. They are helping to shape public opinion, as audiences back home benefit from daily updates on the negotiations, and at the end of the day, that informed debate leads to better climate policies," said veteran journalist and media trainer David Akana, who is supporting the journalists to cover proceedings on the ground in Egypt.
Cameroon has been hit hard by both floods and droughts. Killian Ngala, a Cameroonian CCMP Fellow who reports formagazine, shared that floods across the country's Far North region have destroyed over 20,000 homes, inundated farmlands and rendered thousands homeless."Drought is also a huge problem. Last year for instance, people were killed in the region when farmers and grazers fought over dwindling water resources," he added.
Ngala shared that the overall feeling is that Africa, which was rooting for a loss and damage facility to materialise, seems to be going back empty-handed, and could have made a better case for its position at the COP."It's a shame that Cameroon's voice is chronically missing at gatherings of world leaders - especially given the urgency of preserving the Earth's"second lung", the Congo Basin," he said.