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Climate change, migration, genetics and the "African Century" are just a few of the hot topics dominating the discussions at this year's Southern Africa International Ecosystem Management for the 21st Century Conference, a three-day event that takes place Dec. 3-5 in Limpopo Province, South Africa.
"The 21st century will be the African century," South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Edna Molewa, said at the opening of the conference. "We are now at the cusp of the African century with South Africa as the catalyst."
The conference, co-sponsored by The World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, will feature 105 speakers and over 40 posters and presentations.
African migration is a topic that has often been discussed at South African conferences, such as a World Bank conference on water, sanitation and agriculture in 2011. So many of the speakers and participants have worked on the migration of people from Africa to Europe and the Middle East, said the World Bank's Lee McHenry, who gave the opening remarks of the conference.
During the opening ceremony, Helen Frater, regional director for policy at the International Organization for Migration, used a video of her visit to a home for Somali refugees in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. With the ability to communicate in 13 languages, Frater told the story of her visit.
With the refugee crisis in Europe still fresh, Frater told of how she visited the camp while on her way to Rwanda to discuss how to better respond to the refugee crisis in the region. The need to strengthen migration management and policy was on the minds of the participants, Frater said.
"The biggest challenge is that we keep receiving new waves of people and people don't see anything about themselves in this story," Frater said. "They think: 'Why are they coming to us?' or 'Why are we going to them?'"
The migrants that Frater met in Kakuma face challenges such as a lack of health care and education for their children. But there are programs and organizations trying to address the needs of these people, Frater said.
The World Bank is working with many partners to help alleviate some of these challenges, such as providing technical assistance to Somalia's National Agency for Migration and Population, helping to improve the condition of school buildings in be359ba680
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