This year, we are celebrating 15 years of the Wales and Africa programme, which continues to adapt to challenges and opportunities. It has a prominent place in our international strategy launched in 2020. In this statement, I will focus on two of the biggest challenges we are facing—COVID-19 and the climate emergency—and how the Wales and Africa programme is responding.

The pandemic has left an enormous amount of devastation and loss in its wake—and it's not over yet. Many African countries are still in the eye of the storm, with COVID cases and repeated waves of infection sweeping through communities. Vaccination rates in sub-Saharan Africa average only 6 per cent. Truly none of us is safe until all of us are safe.

Vaccine inequity is the biggest obstacle stopping the world emerging from this pandemic. Although the vaccine distribution is not devolved, the First Minister has urged the UK Government to accelerate the supply of vaccines to the developing world, and, in particular, to places with strong links to Wales such as Uganda, Namibia and Lesotho. And I make that call again today, Llywydd. Here in the UK, millions of doses will be thrown away, even when with better planning they could be used in sub-Saharan Africa, as the People's Vaccine Alliance has identified. Whilst we can't send vaccines ourselves, as a Government, there is important work we can support, and this is why, over the last two years, the Welsh Government has made available an extra £2.5 million for Welsh organisations to work in partnership with many countries in Africa to fight against COVID.

Vaccine hesitancy and lack of awareness, lack of oxygen, PPE and the training to use it properly—all of these are areas of concern. This is why I am proud we have been able to support a number of different projects with this extra funding. One example is Cardiff-based United Purpose, which has been providing a rapid emergency response to COVID in Nigeria, the Gambia, Senegal and Guinea, reaching over 4 million of the poorest people in the world. Thanks to this work, clean sanitation areas are being provided, vaccine awareness is being raised, and people who have lost their entire livelihoods as a result of COVID are getting training in other ways to support themselves.

Another example is Teams4U. They've been doing excellent work in Uganda, improving sanitation and menstrual provision in health centres and schools, and ensuring hot running water is being plumbed into health centres, which is critical for treating patients effectively and safely.

The Phoenix Project is a remarkable project with Cardiff University and the University of Namibia, working in partnership to roll out a vaccination promotion programme in Namibia in the most disadvantaged communities, and then delivering the vaccination programme itself, saving many lives. The Phoenix Project was also recently awarded a grant to support Namibia to ensure better oxygen supplies are in the right places, at the right time, with training also being delivered to hundreds of nurses and doctors to manage those oxygen supplies.

Similarly, we also provided a grant to the Partnerships Overseas Networking Trust, or PONT, who are working in partnership with the Mbale Regional Referral Hospital in Uganda, to buy essential PPE, equipment and oxygen generators. Of course, it's not just by providing funding that we can demonstrate our commitment to supporting countries where it's most needed. The recent donation to Namibia of surplus equipment and lateral flow tests has helped with its third wave of COVID.

With COP26 taking place in Glasgow, I also want to highlight the ongoing work our support for tree-planting programmes plays in tackling climate change. Our partner projects work to alleviate poverty and support climate change adaptation and mitigation. I'm delighted that earlier this year we reached the milestone of planting 15 million trees this year, towards the target of distributing 25 million trees by 2025.

Linked to this work is Jenipher's Coffi, a partnership we're proud to support, which is importing top quality fair-trade and organic coffee to Wales and helping Ugandan farmers work in harmony with nature, as they face the climate crisis. Jenipher Sambazi heads up this project, leading the way for women and their communities. I look forward to meeting her when she visits Wales later this month. I was delighted we were able to support her to attend COP26. She's speaking this afternoon at a COP26 Welsh Government event in Glasgow, along with representatives from Namibia and Uganda. They will be talking about the impact of tree planting and reforestation activity that the Welsh Government has funded.

We remain committed to supporting the UN's sustainable development goals and tackling the climate emergency, and the Wales and Africa programme will continue to play its part in that. We are using our small and larger grant schemes to provide support to these global challenges. The second round of the Wales and Africa small grants scheme and the remaining £700,000 of the £2.5 million COVID emergency response funding both opened for applications last week. The small grants will continue to fund Wales-based organisations and their work with African partners to deliver projects under the four themes of lifelong learning, health, sustainable livelihoods and climate change.

As it is a gender day theme at COP26 today, I wanted to mark some of the projects across our grants and programmes supporting gender equality initiatives—projects such as our Mothers of Africa, the Chomuzangari Women's Cooperative and the Hub Cymru Africa women’s empowerment project that is looking into the experience of gender-based violence victims in Lesotho, how the reporting system needs to be assessed. Later this month, Hub Cymru Africa will launch a grant scheme for organisations to submit project proposals to work with their partners in Uganda on this gender equality activity. Can I take the opportunity to praise the Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate, who has said this week at COP26 in Glasgow:

'Some of us come from communities where women and girls are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis'? 

It's also important that we see more work with our diaspora communities in Wales. Any activity undertaken in Africa should be less about us making decisions and doing the work and more about supporting people in these communities to identify and deliver what’s needed. Every constituency in Wales has partnerships in Africa, and we will continue to support these partnerships through the Wales and Africa programme. Now, more than ever, this is needed. For the first time in over 20 years, global extreme poverty actually went up in 2020. Now is the time to boost aid to nations that need it most. We stand by our principles as a globally responsible nation, and we stand by our friends. Diolch.