Equity, Economic Growth and Social Justice in Africa

Social justice refers to the fair and proper administration of laws conforming to the natural law that all persons, irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race, religion, etc., are to be treated equally and without prejudice. Equity as defined by The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English is a formal situation in which all people are treated equally and no one has an unfair advantage.

Economic growth can be defined as an increase in a country’s productive potential, which generally leads to betterment in a country’s living standards.

Sustainability as defined in the 1987 Brundtland Commission in its report titled ‘Our Common Future’ is development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own goals” (United Nations, 1987). According to BusinessDictionary.com, Environmental sustainability is defined as maintaining the factors and practices that contribute to the quality of environment on a long-term basis.

Closely linked to the measurement of sustainable environmental development is the Environmental Impact Assessment tool. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the possible positive or negative impacts that a proposed project may have on the environment, consisting of the environmental, social and economic aspects. Green politics embodies the concept of environmental sustainable development. Green politics is a political ideology that aims to grassroots create an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and democracy.^{^[i]}

The desire of the Africans to achieve their development objectives through major dependence on natural resources is a matter that calls for concern. The implications this might have on the environment could potentially leave adverse footprints for coming generations. As such, the need to prevent this situation is more critical than ever. The time is ripe to renew the call for development that is both sustainable and ecologically friendly for the African continent as a whole in order to reverse some of the negative environmental and social trends the African continent is facing of late.

[i] ^ A b Wall 2010. p. 12-13

Comments

Princess Qajar - The Revolutionary Persian Princess

Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh commonly referred to as Princess Qajar was a princess and memoirist of the Qajar Dynasty. Princess Tadj was one of the best known daughters of the Persian king, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar who ruled Persia from 1848 to May 1896. The Persian princess was born on February 4, 1883 and died on January 25, 1936, in Tehran, at the age of 52. Princess Qajar revolutionized beauty standards with her full look and ragged unibrow, and her unmistakably evident mustache. She was a true epitome of beauty at her time. Princess Qajar was declared a symbol of beauty in Persia and was coveted by many men. Thousands of men wanted to marry her, 13 of whom committed suicide upon being rejected by the princess. Princess Qajar eventually married Amir Hussein Khan Shoja'-al Saltaneh and had they had four children - two boys and two girls. They later got divorced in 1907 after enduring an unloving arranged marriage - she married Khan when she was 13. The princess argued f...

The Lehman Brothers Scandal (2008)

Company Background : Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a firm specialized in the provision of global financial services. It was founded in Montgomery, Alabama, in the United States of America. The company had headquarters in New York City, New York, in the U.S. It ceased operations in 2008. The founders were: Henry Lehman, Emmanuel Lehman and Mayer Lehman. What Happened? Lehman Brothers hid over $50 billion in loans disguised as sales. They allegedly sold toxic assets [1] to Cayman Island Banks with the understanding that they would eventually be rebought. How they were caught : Their bankruptcy led to the discovery of the fraud. They filed for bankruptcy in 2008, which is the largest bankruptcy ever recorded. Their case was larger than that of Enron, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and GM combined. On September 15, 2008, Lehman brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (Montgomery, n.d.) . Their bankruptcy filing came in as a blow to the financial indu...

The finger-cutting tradition of Indonesia's Dani tribe

The death of a loved one is always an extremely painful thing to bear, and people of different cultures grieve in diverse ways, some more unique than others. A typically unique way of grieving is that of the Dani (an Indonesian tribe). Finger-cutting is a fundamental part of grieving for women of the Dani tribe, and pertains to their women only. According to The Globe and Mail, an estimated 250,000 Dani tribe members live in a town named Wamena, in the extremely remote central highland area of Papua Province. Wamena is only accessible by plane. Upon the death of a loved one, the top joint of one of a woman's fingers would be amputated, and smear ashes and clay across their faces. Prior to amputation, a string would be firmly tied to the upper half of the woman's finger for 30 minutes, to cause numbness. This was to reduce the pain from amputating the tip. In most cases, the responsibility of cutting off the top joint of the finger is assigned to one of the woman's...

Raissa's Blog - Best of Sports, Culture, and Entertainment

Search This Blog