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Dubai: Expo 2020 Calls on Participants to Join its Vaccination Drive

The latest Expo 2020 Dubai Steering Committee meeting. WAM
The latest Expo 2020 Dubai Steering Committee meeting. WAM
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Dubai: Expo 2020 Calls on Participants to Join its Vaccination Drive

The latest Expo 2020 Dubai Steering Committee meeting. WAM
The latest Expo 2020 Dubai Steering Committee meeting. WAM

The Expo 2020 Dubai Steering Committee has urged all of Expo’s 200-plus participants to join Expo 2020’s vaccination drive, praising the decision of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai, to offer free vaccinations to all official participants and their staff.

During its latest meeting, held on Thursday, the Steering Committee expressed appreciation for his offer and urged all official participants to take measures to ensure the safety of their staff and visitors.
The recommendation was made as the Committee, representing the 190-plus participating nations and comprising Commissioner Generals from 34 countries, discussed the robust measures being implemented at Expo 2020 to safeguard all participants, workforce, suppliers, contractors and visitors, reflecting the UAE’s wider efforts against the ongoing global pandemic.

Manuel Salchli, Chair of the Expo 2020 Steering Committee and Commissioner General for Switzerland at Expo 2020, said: "Health and safety is a pivotal part of the planning and operations for all World Expos and the ongoing global pandemic has put this more sharply into focus. It is very important that all official participants should benefit from the UAE’s generous offer to vaccinate their delegations and it is the collective responsibility of all the countries to support this initiative to ensure an enjoyable and safe Expo for all participants."

The Steering Committee met after the sixth and final International Participants Meeting (IPM), which took place earlier this week. The IPM saw more than 370 senior representatives from 173 countries gather in Dubai to discuss final preparations ahead of the mega-event’s opening on October 1, and experience first-hand the robust health and safety measures that have already been rolled out.

“Expo 2020 and the UAE have worked diligently to implement a far-reaching program of precautionary measures, in close collaboration with the relevant local authorities and following the guidance of the world’s leading medical experts. The UAE should be applauded for bringing 173 participating nations to Dubai for this important meeting, ensuring the safety and well-being of all attendees,” Salchli added.

Dmitri S Kerkentzes, Secretary General, Bureau International des Expositions, said: "More than any other crisis, COVID-19 has shown us that global challenges require an extraordinary common effort. With the UAE consistently demonstrating its commitment to health and global solidarity, we are confident that – through close partnership and determined cooperation – Expo 2020 Dubai will be an inspiring and enlightening event offering safe and meaningful experiences to each and every visitor.

"The successful and safe organization of the International Participants Meeting this week and the offer of vaccines to all staff and international participants reinforces this strong commitment from the host of the first World Expo in the MEASA region."

Clayton Kimpton, Commissioner General for New Zealand at Expo 2020, said: "Over the recent IPM, we have heard, and experienced first-hand, how Expo 2020 remains committed to delivering an exceptional – and above all, safe – Expo for everyone, and we commend the organizers and the country’s leadership for their exemplary efforts.

"From the installation of thermal cameras and sanitization stations across the site, to mandatory face-mask wearing and the implementation of social-distancing regulations, we have been reassured to see the measures that have been put in place and hear how they will continue to be monitored and adjusted, in line with the latest information and guidance from the World Health Organization."

Tony Joudi, Commissioner General for the Bahamas at Expo 2020, said: "We applaud Expo 2020 for their prudent and responsible approach to COVID-19 and the challenges it continues to present for us all. Just as the pandemic requires a unified response, so does the delivery of what we believe will be a truly historic World Expo, and we pledge our continued commitment and support."

At the beginning of the year, Expo 2020 launched an extensive COVID-19 vaccination drive for all Expo 2020 employees and their households. More widely, the UAE has overseen one of the world’s fastest vaccination programs, already administering more than 10 million doses since the program began a few months ago.

Dr Amer Sharif, Head of Dubai's COVID-19 Command and Control Centre (CCC), said: "Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UAE has followed a clear strategy in managing COVID-19. Dubai’s COVID-19 Command and Control Centre has, since its establishment, developed protocols, guidelines and precautionary measures that are science-based and data-driven. The guiding principle in managing the pandemic has always been to strike a balance between lives and livelihoods."

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Nigerian Farms Battle Traffic, Developers in Downtown Abuja

Developers fill in farmland despite regulations protecting these areas as rare green spaces in Abuja. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP
Developers fill in farmland despite regulations protecting these areas as rare green spaces in Abuja. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP
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Nigerian Farms Battle Traffic, Developers in Downtown Abuja

Developers fill in farmland despite regulations protecting these areas as rare green spaces in Abuja. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP
Developers fill in farmland despite regulations protecting these areas as rare green spaces in Abuja. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP

Under the din of traffic from the highway bridge that cuts over his fields, Bala Haruna inspects corn, cassava and okra on his family farm.

A pump pulls up water from a nearby stream and is diverted through trenches dug through cropland wedged between four-lane roads -- fields which were here long before the nearby hotel, the imposing national mosque or any of the high-rises that make up downtown Abuja were even dreamed up.

"There were no buildings here," Haruna, 42, told AFP, reminiscing over his childhood as birds chirped and frogs croaked.

The urban farms dotting Nigeria's capital show the limits of the top-down management the planned city is known for -- oases scattered around pockmarked downtown that has long expanded outward faster than it has filled in.

They owe much of their existence to the fact that they lie in hard-to-develop gulches along creek beds. Even roads built through them over the years tended to be elevated highway overpasses.

That fragile balancing act, however, is increasingly under threat, as developers fill in farmland despite regulations protecting these areas as rare green spaces in a city known for concrete sprawl.

On the other side of the overpass, the future has arrived: the vegetation abruptly stops and temperatures suddenly rise over flattened fields razed by construction crews.

Local farmers said the people who took the land three years ago provided no documentation and only gave the eight of them 300,000 naira to split -- a sum worth only $190 today after years of rampant inflation.

Much of the farmland in and around downtown is supposed to be a municipal green space, with neither farms nor buildings on it.

But enforcement of the decades-old Abuja master plan is ripe with abuse and lack of enforcement, said Ismail Nuhu, urban governance researcher who did his PhD on the capital's urban planning.

Adding to the sense of precarity is that the land, on paper, belongs to the government.

"Politicians still use it to grab lands, just to say, 'Oh, according to the master plan, this is not to be here'," no matter what the document actually says, he told AFP, adding that, technically, even the presidential villa is not located where it is supposed to be.

Nyesom Wike, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, which includes Abuja, recently told reporters he would "enforce" the 70s-era master plan by building roads and compensating and evicting settlements that stand in the way.

FCT officials including Wike's spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

Urbanizing country, not enough jobs

The farms have provided steady employment -- a lifeline for some as the rapidly urbanizing country fails to produce enough jobs. A recent opening for 10,000 government jobs saw 450,000 applicants, according to local media.

"Having a green space... in a very thick, populated city like Abuja does a lot of good," said retiree Malik Kuje Guni, who started farming three years ago to supplement his pension.

While tens of thousands of residents pass by the farms each day without second thought, Guni, when he was working as a civil servant, would often come down to visit, enjoying the shade and fresh air.

Now tilling a potato plot of his own, "I can come down, work, sweat," the 63-year-old said. "I have hope something will come out of it."

A few blocks over, squat, informal houses made of wood and sheet metal give way to a field of sugarcane, corn and banana trees. Glass-paneled highrises, half-finished construction and the imposing Bank of Industry tower above.

The crops give way to land cleared by developers a few months ago, some of whom pushed into Godwin Iwok's field and destroyed his banana trees.

Iwok, who quit his security job 22 years ago to make more money as a farmer, has had parts of his fields destroyed twice in the past two years, neither time with compensation.

To Guni, the farms represent the city's rural heritage. Despite decades of government promises to relocate Nigeria's capital from the crowded, congested mega-city of Lagos, the move only occurred in 1991.

But neither Iwok, 65, nor Haruna want their children to continue their increasingly precarious line of work.

"I wouldn't want my children to stand under the sun as I did," Iwok told AFP.

"I only use what I'm getting here... to make sure my children go to school."