A video about the successes and lessons learned during the Nile basin project is available on-line. The twelve-minute video includes interviews about this important transboundary water project with Minister Plenipotentiary Pier Francesco Zazo, Chief UTC, Directorate General for Development Cooperation, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Wael Khairy, Executive Director of the Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat, Alexander Müller, Assistant Director-General of FAO’s Natural Resources Management and Environment Department and Pasquale Steduto, Deputy Director of FAO’s Land and Water Division.

An interdisciplinary approach is necessary to ensure that food, energy and climate are jointly addressed, trade-offs considered, and appropriate safeguards are put in place. These issues will not be addressed through a single initiative. Because of its importance, scope and complexity, this challenge must be met through participation of a broad constituency of interested parties. This demands a multi partner international effort to implement energy-smart solutions in a non fragmented and cost effective way. Within this context, FAO proposes setting up an “Energy Smart Food for People and Climate”Multi-Partner Programme to be launched in 2012. The aim of the Programme is to address the energy dimension in relation to food security and energy poverty and should be seen as an essential component to climate-smart agriculture.

In this last issue of the newsletter for 2011, we introduce a new study on corruption in the land sector. The study was carried out by FAO and the Berlin-based Transparency International and it illustrates that the land sector is one of the main public sector areas where corruption exists. In climate change news, the world’s attention is focused on Durban, South Africa where the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – including FAO - are meeting this month. And finally, we take a look at a new publication that examines the need to better link climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and programmes to genetic resources objectives.

Accra, Ghana. 25-27 November 2008. This conference focused on Africa’s contribution to the global carbon cycle and climate system through an overview of the carbon related studies in sub- Saharan Africa carried out both by the project CarboAfrica and other African and international initiatives. The Conference illustrated the high number of initiatives currently ongoing in Africa, related to the study of all the component of the carbon cycle, from science to socio-economic issues, and considering all natural components, from soil to the atmosphere, through terrestrial ecosystems. In spite of the high number of efforts and of the important results already achieved, it was evident that there is still a strong need for continued and enhanced observations of Africa's carbon stocks and fluxes.

In this issue, we look at the launch of the new Global Soil Partnership and examine the next steps. We also look report on FAO’s collaboration with NASA to create an international fire-reporting system, the Global Fire Information Management System, which delivers key data to remote regions of developing countries. Finally, we introduce FAO-MOSAICC, an integrated package of models to carry out climate change impact assessment at the national level.