Will the new Sustainable Development Goals Transform our World?

The recent agreement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, under the auspicious title ‘Transforming our World’, was greeted with a lot of fan fair and backslapping. After more than two years of being locked in intense deliberations, the exuberance of the negotiators was understandable. But the over-riding question on the minds of many people that were not part of the celebration was, ‘so what?’ How do the words of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets agreed in the in air-conditioned halls of the UN, make any difference to a small scale subsistence farmer on my home continent of Africa?

The truth is these goals won’t transform the world. Only united and motivated people can do that. And goals are one of the most powerful ways of uniting and motivating people. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals contain the agreed commitments of 193 nations to literally transform the world as we know it. It is now up to the citizens of these countries to take ownership of these goals and hold their governments to account for their delivery. The role of Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organisations in popularising the Sustainable Development Goals and mobilising citizens will be one of the most crucial success factors of this agenda.

A global agenda like none before

Never before has there been a global agenda of this nature. This agenda takes us into terra incognito of global ambition for two reasons.

Firstly, this is a universal agenda. Where the Millennium Development Goals were mainly a transactional arrangement of the global North funding the global South to tackle development issues; the 2030 Agenda takes a universal and systemic approach towards intractable problems such as poverty, inequity and environmental degradation. All nations – the global North and South - will be responsible for delivering these new goals.

Secondly, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development brings together two long time adversaries – environment and development – into an integrated global agenda for the first time. Despite a very clear understanding of the inter-related nature of the environment and development in many parts of the developing world, mainstream economic development thinking has selfishly pitted them against each other for several decades.

Too Many Goals?

Developing a truly universal and integrated agenda is complicated. We live in a very diverse world, and the people’s needs are different in different parts of the world. It is our diversity that is our strongest asset. However, this diversity has resulted in an Agenda which may be more complex than some had anticipated. In short, many have argued that 17 Goals and 169 targets are too many and that negotiators should have aimed for a sharper and more memorable outcome. In my own view, the success of this agenda will not lie in whether ordinary people can remember all the goals, but rather to what degree governments can make sense and integrate this agenda into their own development plans. No government will be able to implement all 17 goals in a neatly compartmentalised manner, as they stand in the 2030 Agenda. Governments and regional economic communities will need to meld these goals into their own development planning and policy processes. Jeff Waage, of the London International Development Centre, makes an interesting observation that the 17 goals could fall into three nested spheres: the Natural Environment (the outer sphere), Infrastructure (the middle sphere) and Well-being (the inner sphere). This approach may work for some governments; others will find different ways for integration.

Financing the Goals

An easy ‘go-to’ criticism for any cynic of the Sustainable Development Goals will be the financial viability of this Agenda. Its scale and ambition is both its strength and weakness. If costed out, it will literally take trillions of dollars each year to finance. However, herein lies the flaw in logic; this is not an Agenda of the global North funding the South. This is an integrated agenda that seeks to address the systemic issues related to sustainable development. Official Development Assistance (ODA) will still play a critical role in some least developed countries, and it is therefore important that it is maintained. However, in most developing countries today, ODA or Foreign Aid is a minor player compared to other sources of finance for development. Most funding available for development in developing countries, comes from domestic investment. The picture for inward flows of finance is no different. In Africa, more than 70% of inward financial flows are from private sources. It is therefore important that we do not take a myopic accountant’s view on financing this agenda from Foreign Aid, and rather seek to address the systemic issues related to the conditions under which finances flow into development.

Will the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Transform our World? I am not sure, but it’s the best chance we have, and more importantly, it is the last chance we have. The stage has been set, and success will depend on two critical factors: Firstly, the ability of national governments and regional economic communities to integrate these goals and targets into their own development plans and policies. Secondly, it will depend on ordinary citizens, like you and me, to own this agenda, to hold their governments accountable for their commitments, and to form partnerships with governments and the private sector that contribute to the delivery of these goals.

Africa’s Food Future: Bread Basket or Basket Case?

It is one of the strangest paradoxes of my beloved continent: Africa holds the largest tracts of unconverted arable land and yet has the highest levels of malnutrition and food insecurity in the world. The result being that Africa is a net importer of food from countries far less endowed with fertile soils. This is set against the fact that agriculture is by far the most important employer on the continent (up to 70% of jobs) and has the greatest potential to lift Africans out of poverty. How can we reconcile these heart breaking contradictions?

Let’s start with food security….
Most of us tend to think of food security as the ability to produce enough food to meet demand. However, food insecurity in fact has two main dimensions: The one is related to agricultural productivity, the other is socio-economic.

Starting with agricultural productivity: For the most part, Africa has completely missed the so called ‘green revolution’ that saw the modernisation of agriculture and productivity surge in places like Asia, the Americas and Europe (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Agricultural productivity by region

This, set against an Africa with the fastest population growth rates and the highest urbanisation rates in the world, has quite simply left a continent with more people to feed and less food being produced per capita. With Africa’s population set to double to 2 billion in the next 35 years, and urbanisation rates accelerating, this situation is likely to intensify. High urbanisation rates pose a further challenge as the geographic distance between where food is produced and where it is consumed increases. Business as usual is unlikely to be a viable option.

Importantly from an ecological point of view, whilst yield improvements have led to a slowing and even reduction of the spatial area under cultivation elsewhere, low yields in Sub-Saharan Africa have led to a dramatic increase in the area under cultivation and hence conversion of natural areas to agriculture (Figure 2). This conversion has a significant impact on the biodiversity and ecosystem services that these natural areas provide to the poor, such as water provisioning and fuel wood etc.

 

Figure 2: Changes in agricultural productivity vs Area under cultivation for grains in different regions.

The second dimension to food security is socio-economic. You see, food security is as much about production as it is about access. To have access, you either need to grow the food yourself (i.e. subsistence farming) or have access to cash to buy it from someone else. Subsistence farming in Africa is a high risk endeavour; the climate is erratic and crops and livestock are vulnerable to pests and diseases. In the past societies were far more nomadic and used this strategy to cope with local climatic variability. Forced into a more sedentary situation, farmers are left with very few options to mitigate these risks. Importantly, financial income levels in rural areas remain desperately low, leaving rural residents with little means to access food from other sources when crops fail. And so, food insecurity is as much about food production as it is about economic diversification and income generation in rural areas.

So what about Climate Change?

Climate change, which is largely as a result of fossil-fuel based industrialisation and wasteful over-consumption of the developed world has left the developing world most vulnerable to its impacts. Africa, is no exception and predicted climatic changes will further impair productivity levels of staple crops such as cereals (Figure 3). Climate variability and the frequency of natural disasters is also predicted to increase making ecosystem based adaptation absolutely essential for ameliorating impacts.

 

Figure 3: Predicted impacts of climate change on food production in Africa

From threat to global opportunity…

Before we get too disheartened, let’s shift our lens on this issue…

As a result of an increasing global population and more specifically the shifting global diet of a growing middle class, the world will need to produce more food in the next 40 years than it has produced in the last 8,000 years combined. Meeting future food needs seems like an impossible task, but it is actually quite achievable…at least mathematically… The solution is threefold: 1) Decreasing global food wastage - which is as high as 50% in many places; 2) Shifting the diets of the growing middle class away from commodities that have the highest ecological footprints, such as red meat; and 3) improving agricultural yields.

Now, to the last point: Africa holds the both the greatest tracts of uncultivated arable land (more than 200 million hectares) and provides the greatest opportunities for increased agricultural productivity on existing agricultural land. Despite this potential, Africa currently contributes only 2% of global food trade and overall is a net importer of food. Even those segments of society most cauterised from purview of capitalism, will recognise this as one the biggest commercial opportunities of our time. Not surprisingly, this has not gone unnoticed, with foreign investors moving swiftly to get their hands on these precious productive lands (Figure 4). Many of these land transactions occur under highly unscrupulous circumstances. This, superimposed on a weak civil society and  a community-based land tenure system that is many cases undocumented, can lead to devastating impacts on the social fabric of rural communities. 

Figure 4: Foreign investments into agricultural lands in Africa

Bread Basket or Basket case?

Right now Africa has choices, and the choices Africa makes will determine whether it becomes a bread basket for the world, or a basket case of missed opportunities and food insecurity. In my view, these choices will revolve around five main pivot points

1)     Responsible and pro-active modernisation of Africa’s agriculture sector

Africa has 33 million farms of less than 2 Hectares, accounting for 85% of all farms on the continent (Figure 5). This is very different from Europe and the Americas and more similar to Asia.

Figure 5: Farm sizes across the world

Productivity in Africa remains woefully low compared to the rest of the world, including Asia (Figure 1).  This is a result of a number of factors. Firstly, government budgetary expenditure on agriculture is around 4% in Africa compared to around 14% in Asia. This has led to low levels of modernisation, especially in relation to irrigation (only 6% of crops are irrigated compared to 40% in Asia), mechanisation (30 tractors per 100 km² compared to more than 100 in Asia and 800 for Europe) (Figure 6), extension support, and the low use of fertilisers, pesticides and modern seeds.

Figure 6: Tractors per 100km² of arable land

Clearly modernisation brings with it substantial social and ecological risks to rural areas.  However, this needs to be balanced against the impacts of uncontrolled conversion of natural areas to agriculture due to existing low yields and/or uncontrolled ‘land-grab’ style commercialisation that pits large-scale agribusiness interests against disempowered small-scale farmers. Proactive management of the modernisation of Africa’s agriculture sector that is able to find the balance between large scale agribusiness and modernised small-scale producers, will minimise these risks. Furthermore, being a late-bloomer has its advantages, and Africa has the benefit of learning from others that have been down this path. If the transition is managed proactively, Africa should be in a far better position to avoid these impacts.

2)     Empowered Rural Civil Societies

Global agribusiness is dominated by large powerful forces, almost all of which have considerable interest in Africa as the ‘last frontier’ of agricultural expansion. Rural communities in Africa are currently ill-equipped to deal with such forces. Land tenure is often very poorly documented, and communities are not aware of their rights, or how to engage in development planning and impact assessment processes. This will need to change if we are to positively shape Africa’s food revolution.

3)     Creating investor confidence in an African vision for agriculture in Africa.

Modernisation of Africa’s agriculture sector will require a significant and broad-based investment. This investment will only come with investor confidence in a vision for agriculture in Africa that is fit for purpose on the African continent. Current investment climate is seen as either being too risky on the one hand or driven largely by opportunism and self-interest (i.e. the ‘land-grab’ scenario).

Luring the needed broad-based investment into Africa’s agriculture sector will require the development of a vision that is able to: 1) Find the delicate mix of large scale commercial agriculture (which helps to secure lucrative global value chains) blended with small-scale production (which provide employment, poverty relief and social upliftment in rural areas); 2) Effectively deal with land ownership and tenure, and 3) Blend public sector investment into infrastructure with private sector investment in production and supply chains.

4)     Integrated land-use planning and optimisation of the ‘spatial economy’

As competing pressures on finite land resources increase, the importance of solid land-use planning that seeks to optimise Africa’s ‘spatial economy’ escalates. Simply put, not all land is equal. Land is spatially heterogeneous and has inherent assets and values. Some areas have very productive soils, others are critical for their biodiversity, others are important for water provisioning. In South Africa, WWF has found that just 8% of national land surface provides more than 50% of South Africa’s water, and that water supports over 75% of the economy. Clearly the that 8% of South Africa’s land surface should be managed as a national asset of great value. Optimisation of the spatial economy therefore requires land-use planning system that cognizant of the diversity and spatial heterogeneity of values and assets in landscapes.

5)     Building socio-economic and climate resilience in rural areas

As mentioned earlier, food insecurity is as much about food production as it is about socio-economic resilience. This includes access to capital as well as insurance. Only 6% of Africa’s farmers carry any form of insurance against weather or crop failure, making them extremely vulnerable to the increased climate volatility. Micro-finance and index-based insurance will play an important role in building this resilience.

 

Finally, healthy ecosystems will play a critical role in reducing the impacts of climate change. Managing and rehabilitating these ecosystems can both create jobs and financial income in rural areas as well as reduce climate risks – a double whammy for rural resilience in the face of climate change. The successful ‘Working for Water’ programme in South Africa is testament to this, creating over 30,000 jobs whilst at the same time rehabilitating catchments and releasing much-needed water for sustaining ecosystems and economic activities in rural areas.



Reflections from a Vezo Village, Southern Madagascar

The Vezo people of south western Madagascar lead a simple life. Standing on a beach in Anakao, it is perhaps easy to be seduced - by the turquoise ocean and bright sailing pirogues - into thinking that this is an idyllic lifestyle.

But make no mistake, life here is very hard and survival is fragile. Consider the three fundamentals of life: Food, Energy and Water…

The Vezo people rely almost entirely on the ocean for their food. As if trapped in time, fishermen rely exclusively on the wind and paddle-power to reach their fishing grounds. Early mornings the fishermen will set out on the light offshore breeze, and as the wind freshens from the South during the day they are able to run downwind for home with their catch. For now, healthy fish stocks have managed to sustain these traditional fishing methods. But things are changing… Political instability at a national level has led to a proliferation of zebu (cattle) thieving bandits in the interior of southern Madagascar, forcing more people to abandon their pastoral lifestyles and move to the coast, placing more pressure on finite fish stocks. These land-lubbers from the interior, not skilled in the art of traditional fishing methods honed over generations, are turning to more destructive fishing methods.

The south west of Madagascar is a very dry and barren place. The combination of this harsh climate and Madagascar’s isolation from the African continent over the last 160 million years, has led to species adapting in strange and wonderful ways. The result is a highly unique ecological region with high levels of endemism. Whilst interesting to ecologists and lovers of biodiversity, the nett outcome for the Vezo villager is a landscape with very slow replenishment rates of fuel wood. Energy is major challenge. Urban and coastward migration is placing ever increasing pressure on fuel wood in the close surrounds of towns and villages, threatening this unique ecosystem. The thriving charcoal trade that has risen in recent years compounds the problem. Wood, harvested from nearby nature reserves, is burnt into charcoal in rural kilns at unsustainable rates.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is access to Water. The only local source of water is the highly saline groundwater. The Vezo dig their wells deep into the sand, but reliance on this foul-tasting water leads to a number of health issues, including intestinal, teeth and skin problems, especially among children. Alternatively people have to walk up to 6 km to buy clean water at $0.30 for 20 Litres – a substantial cost for people who in financial terms are some of the poorest in the world.

Protecting these distinctive ecosystems and the fragile livelihoods of the Vezo people requires a different approach and a team that is willing to work beyond the traditional realms of conservation. Domoima Rakotomalala is WWF’s landscape leader in the Mahafaly region. She leads a team that crosses the traditional divides between the social and ecological domains, as if these divisions never existed.  Solar powered desalination plants harness the unlimited renewable energy of the sun in this region to deliver clean drinking water to community.

A solar and wind powered desalination plant erected with help of WWF

Social liaison officers support communities in monitoring their fish stocks and negotiate voluntary closed areas for long term protection of their vital marine resources. In the interior, WWF supports the controlled development of plantations of faster growing tees that can supplement and eventually replace the demand on indigenous tree species for charcoal. WWF also supports infrastructure and tourism development in the nearby Tsimanampesotse National Park. Home to thousands of flamingos, ‘blind fish’ living in massive limestone caves and underground tunnels, lemurs, endemic birds, and ancient baobab trees; the park has a diversity of attractions that have the potential to contribute substantially to the income and wellbeing of the region.

An ancient baobab tree in the Tsimanampesotse National Park

 

There is good reason to be very positive about the work being done here. We are making good incremental progress in building greater social and ecological resilience in the Mahafaly landscape. But as I sit in the scruffy airport in Toliara, I am still uneasy…. Over the past days we have heard talk of the development of a large coal mine in the area, accompanied by a large deep water port to facilitate its export, to be located very close to Anakao. These are, in the words of Nassim Taleb,  ‘Black Swans’ - those single large events that have a disproportionate effect on the course of history. Preparing for, and dealing with, ‘Black Swan’ events is very difficult. They are so large and when they happen, play out so suddenly, that they do not allow one to scale up to the required level to be able to respond effectively. I am left wondering how the Vezo villagers will be able to organise themselves to respond to a threat of this nature and the well-practiced public relations wiles of mining and large infrastructure companies.

With global markets becoming ever more aggressive in seeking out diminishing global resources, competing pressures on these landscape will increase dramatically. The answer lies in a solid rational land-use planning in which the consequences of different development choices are well understood by all, combined with powerful civil society groups that are able to mobilise and influence development decisions.

As is so often in the work of conservation, progress is good and the taste of success so sweet, but there is so much more to be done to meet the exponentially increasing challenges of the future…

Africa's Ecological Future: Divided Continent or Common Destiny?

In 1885 Africa’s colonial masters gathered in a ballroom in Berlin.  One can almost picture the scene as cigar smoke billowed in anticipation, omnipresent moustaches – those waxed and pointy types -  bristling with excitement and self importance. The mission of this pompous gathering was very clear: to agree on how the colonisers could carve up Africa so that they could exploit its valuable resources in a structured and ‘gentlemanly’ manner.

Figure 1: An artist’s depiction of the Berlin Conference, 1885 (from Wikipedia)

 To say that Africa was a unified entity prior to its colonisation, or the Berlin conference, would be incorrect. Africa, the birthplace of modern humans, has always been a rich and diverse place. However, I would argue that this brazen act of slicing up the continent for its exploitation, served to seal a common destiny for Africa. Indeed from a resource point of view, Africa’s story is a case of ‘the same old story with a different name’. From the unthinkable cruelty of the African slave-trade at its height in the 18^th century, through the gluttonous plunder of Africa’s wildlife in the 19^th century, to modern-day lopsided access agreements for exploitation of fisheries, land, mineral and fossil-fuel reserves; it is a story of the worth of Africa’s high-value resources being stripped and siphoned off to benefit primarily offshore interests and a handful of African ‘elites’, at the expense of the majority of Africans. This common history has relegated African states to the backbenches of the development standings. Of the 50 African States assessed, 35 are ranked in the lowest human development index category.

Figure 2: Global Human Development Index scores showing the majority of African States in the lowest category (United Nations Development Programme)

And yet, despite this inglorious past, Africa now finally stands on the launch pad of its economic development. Six of the top 10 fastest growing economies are located in Africa, and Africa will soon overtake Asia as the fastest growing global region. The critical question, however, is whether this economic growth will remain in the hands of the few (as it has in the past) or whether it will be converted into a broader improvement in the well-being of African societies. The current picture appears to be quite varied, as can be seen from the Boston Consulting Group Analysis (Figure 3). For instance: Off a similar base of a 3% GDP growth rate, Kenya is far more successful than South Africa in converting economic growth into an improvement in social wellbeing. Zambia, on the other hand, with a GDP growth rate of around 6% is even less successful in converting GDP growth into improved social wellbeing.

Figure 3: Boston Consulting Group analysis of  economic growth versus the change in social development for African states (From The Economist)

As can be expected, Africa's recent economic growth is coming at the expense of its rich and diverse ecosystems. Although Africa’s ecological footprint is still relatively modest in global terms, it has more than trebled since 1961 (Figure 4). Most concerning is the question whether this increased impact on ecological systems is effectively being translated into improved human development. This on a continent where many rural communities still rely directly of ecosystems and the services they provide. For instance, many Africans still rely on water taken directly from rivers or wells, that has not been purified by any government funded infrastructure. In other words, this increased impact on ecological systems, rather than being converted to improved human well-being, may actually contribute to human deprivation.

Figure 4: Africa’s Ecological Footprint (1961-2008) (From Africa Ecological Footprint Report)

 Africa has choices 

 

“Africa has choices. Embracing a more sustainable approach to development can generate benefits in terms of environmental security, human well-being and competitiveness. The choices made today about infrastructure, energy and food production will shape our opportunities and options far into the future.”

Donald Kaberuka, President, African Development Bank

Jim Leape, Director General, WWF

 In The Africa Ecological Footprint Report

 Being at such an early stage of its development, choices made now by African states will have a disproportionately large influence on their future development trajectory.  Several potential future development scenarios therefore exist for African economies (Figure 5). It is plausible that, (1) The promising economic growth does not materialise and African States continue to languish in the low human development category, or, (2) African states develop their economies at the expense of their ecological systems, but this new wealth is captured by the few ‘elites’ and is not converted to improved social and human development, or, (3) African states follow the path of the ‘global North’, by increasing their human  development index at the expense of their environment, or, (4) African States find ways to embark on a new development trajectory that stimulates an improvement in the human development, whilst maintaining the health and integrity of the ecosystems that sustain their societies and economies.



Figure 5: The Ecological Footprint of nations vs their Human Development Index, showing potential development trajectories for African nations (in pink). From the Living Planet Report (2012)

Shaping a new African development path together

When considering the potential of African States shaping a new development path with lower ecological impacts (Scenario 4 above), it is extremely unlikely that one or two States will be able to walk this path alone. The reasons for this are twofold: Firstly, Africa’s natural resources are spread broadly across a number of different states. Secondly, the capital and/or technology needed to develop these resources will initially have to come from elsewhere (i.e. more developed nations), and will come with access conditions! So if one State tries to negotiate stricter access conditions on its own, the capital and technology simply flows to another State. Money, like water, follows the path of least resistance...

African States will therefore need to stand together if they are to shape a new development path. Institutions such as the African Union and development finance institutions such as the African Development Bank, will play a key role in creating a level playing field for investment into Africa’s development.

Too Big to Fail…

To use a phrase that was coined during the financial crisis of 2008, Africa is simply “too big to fail…”. Purely from a point of view of size, Africa is larger than the US, Europe, China and India combined. If Africa were to follow the same ecologically destructive development path that most current developed nations have followed, the planet will move into a disastrously volatile state.

Taking the positive perspective; in a modern globalised world, with unprecedented pressure on diminishing natural resources, and where Africa holds a substantial proportion of these resources, the world needs Africa to succeed. The world and Africa need to manage these resources in a sustainable manner.

Ironically, Africa, the birth place of humans that has been so abused over the course of modern history, now holds the keys to humanity's future.