AfDB and WWF urge leaders to invest in Africa’s natural capital

By AGENCIES

THE African Development Bank (AfDB) and nongovernmental organisation World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have called on public and private sector leaders to invest in Africa’s natural capital.

“Africa must rally around this aim, not just because donors demand it, but because it is our responsibility to protect our ecosystems,” the organisations said in a report on the state of the environment in Africa.

Titled ‘Africa Ecological Footprint Report – Green Infrastructure for Africa’s Ecological Security’, the report is intended to catalyse decision-makers to invest in Africa’s sustainable development.

“Over the next decade, important decisions would be made in terms of large-scale infrastructure, resource planning and economic development. Investing in natural capital now would ensure ecological, and financial security in the future,” the report stated.

The AfDB and the WWF called on world leaders to act decisively on a green growth agenda. The agenda included enhancing ecological resilience and the capacity of natural systems, living within planetary limits and promoting measures of social progress that integrate the value of ecosystems.

The report also takes a look at the health of Africa’s natural systems, as well as its footprint - the surface of land and sea needed to sustain a particular group.

“Trends in both areas are worrying. Africa’s natural systems are under great strain as biodiversity has declined by 40% in 40 years. At the same time, increases in population and consumption patterns are projected to double Africa’s footprint by 2040.

“If Africa continues on a business-as-usual scenario, these two pressures, the reduction of nature’s capacity to sustain life, and a more voracious consumption of resource, will impede its ability to sustain necessary and equitable development in the long run, including the provisioning of life’s most basic necessities: food, water and fuel,” the report warned.

However, it noted that Africa is well placed to act on this. “Many African countries still have a low footprint, allowing them to take on board resource-efficient technologies and lifestyles, circumventing inefficient development pathways taken by other countries. This means finding solutions that both promote social development and preserve nature,” it said.

While the report underlines some worrying trends, it also offers examples of initiatives across Africa, where natural capital is being preserved while social and economic development benefits rural populations.

For example, the Lake Naivasha region produces 70% of Kenya’s cut flower exports and 20% of its vegetable exports, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the national economy. Through a payment for environment services scheme, the horticultural industry pays upstream farmers to preserve the water resources on which the horticultural industry depends. This scheme not only helps to preserve valuable freshwater ecosystems, but also benefits small-scale farmers by increasing their yields and income, and ensures a clean, sustainable water supply for commercial farms.