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It is common knowledge that the issue of environmentally friendly sustainable development cannot be overlooked if the African continent is to meet its development objectives. One branch of development does not overpower another hence the need for balanced or round development. Education for Sustainable Development : Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a major tool that can be used to break down the obstacles to environmental sustainability in Africa. Education for Sustainable Development is a term describing the practice of teaching for sustainability. The following skills are essential to ESD: Critical Thinking, Systemic Thinking, Envisioning, Building partnerships, and participation in decision-making. By participation in decision-making, we mean empowering people. Dialogue and negotiations should be promoted, and people should learn to work together in order to build strong partnerships. Systemic Thinking involves acknowledging complexities in life and looking for...

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 agricultu...

Sustainable development in Africa has always been a call for concern. Africa is endowed with rich and diverse renewable and non-renewable natural resources, yet its people remain among the poorest in the world (Sustainable Development Report on Africa - Managing Land-Based Resources for Sustainable Development , 2012) . The lack of balanced development – where economic, social and environmental dimensions are given due consideration for sustainable development – has led the international community to consider different paradigms of development (Dione, 2012) . The National Strategies for Sustainable Development in Africa – A sixteen country Assessment, complements the available resources on the sustainable development strategic process.  It provides an assessment of the level of development and implementation of National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSSD) in African countries (Africa, 2011) . According to the aforementioned assessment, most countries are progressiv...

An Overview of Sustainable Development Sustainable development has been an issue of utmost importance in the world for the past two centuries (20 th and 21 st centuries). We define sustainable development as follows: “a process for improving the range of opportunities that will enable individual human beings and communities to achieve their aspirations and full potential over a sustained period of time, while maintaining the resilience of economic, social and environmental systems” (Munasinghe, 1992) . Experts in sustainable development have agreed on a focal issue regarding sustainable development; and that is the optimal model for sustainable development . This concept shall be henceforth referred to as the ‘ Sustainable Development Triangle and Balanced viewpoint’.  Sustainable development requires balanced and integrated analysis from three main perspectives: social, economic and environmental (Mohan Munasinghe, 2009) .          ...