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Challenges to Sustainable Environmental Development in Africa

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, indicators of overall sustainability—encompassing economic, environmental and institutional dimensions—show that African economies are less sustainable today than they were 25 years ago.[i] At the end of 2000, more than half the population of the 38 countries assessed lived in economies with low overall sustainability. Some of the reasons for this low level of sustainability for Africa are as follows: extreme poverty, rapid population growth, deforestation, the environmental impact of extractive industries, rapid urbanization, climatic variability, and natural environment hazards.
Extreme poverty: Poverty remains the foremost development challenge confronting Africa. Poverty in Africa is linked to the environment in complex ways, particularly in natural resource-based African economies. Approximately two-thirds of the populations in African countries live in rural areas, deriving their main income from agriculture.
Rapid population growth: The sub-Saharan population is growing at the rate of 2.5 percent per year as compared to 1.2 percent in Latin America and Asia (World Bank Report). At that rate, Africa's population will double in 30 years. Rapid population growth has put a lot of stress on Africa’s ecosystems. Problems such as food insecurity, land tenure, environmental degradation, and the lack of water supply are often related to high rates of population growth in the African continent.
Deforestation: According to the African Forest Forum (AFF), Africa has about 650 million hectares of forests and woodlands, covering 28 percent of its total land area (FAO 2001). The Congo Basin, which covers 45 percent of Central Africa, is the world’s largest area of contiguous forest. Sadly, the legacy of vast forest resources that could have been passed to future generations is being rapidly lost through deforestation and degradation. Between 1990 and 2000 Africa lost about 53 million hectares of its forests, which is about 56 percent of the global forest loss in that period. This is estimated to a 0.8 percent annual loss of forest cover -- the highest in the world! Another negative consequence of the disappearance of the forest is that the protection it normally provides to soils, nutrient recycling, and the regulation of the quality and flow of water is lost as well.
Environmental impact of extractive industries:  For a continent that is dependent on its natural resources to achieve growth, the challenge of ecologically-friendly sustainable development is daunting. Current patterns of extraction of non-renewable resources such as gold, diamonds and crude oil have had an untold impact on the environment. In Nigeria, oil spills and gas flares have polluted the environment significantly for more than 50 years. In Southern Africa, abandoned mine sites constitute an environmental menace. The loss of productive land, surface and groundwater pollution, and soil contamination are part of the legacies of oil and mineral exploitation. Africa cannot afford the current approach to resource extraction. If the trend of unsustainable oil and mineral extraction is allowed to continue, environmentally sustainable development in Africa will continue to be a great challenge.
Climatic variability and natural environmental hazards: Studies made by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest Africa will suffer greater effects of climate change than any other region of the world.  Projections include the decrease in rainfall in the already arid areas of Eastern and Southern Africa, and increasing drought and desertification in the north of Central Africa. In West Africa, the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria all face water scarcity by 2025.  Africa needs to step up its anti-climate change actions, as a legacy to future generations.
Rapid urbanization: The majority of Africa’s population growth is expected to take place in urban areas, largely due to rural-urban migration. Rapid urbanization in Africa has been accompanied by new and challenging environmental problems. A sizeable proportion of urban dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa live in slum conditions, without durable housing or legal rights to their land. At least one-quarter of African city dwellers do not have access to electricity. A 2000 World Health Organization report estimated that only 43 percent of urban dwellers had access to piped water. 
It is clear that Africa’s current urbanization patterns are not consistent with the desire and need to have ecologically friendly sustainable development in Africa.




[i] Africare Speech, 2008

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