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In 2017, the African Development Bank reported Africa to be the world’s second-fastest growing economy, with average growth rates approaching four percent per annum.
Growth has been present throughout the continent, with over one-third of African countries posting 6% or higher growth rates, and another 40% growing between 4% to 6% per year.
Africa’s rich resource base and human capital endowments coupled with the significant entrepreneurial spirit of our people, mean our continent has indeed the potential to achieve the African Union’s Agenda 2063 of “a high standard of living, quality of life and well-being for all citizens”.
The recent African Continental Free Trade Area sets the scene for further infrastructure and industrial development on the continent.
Just yesterday, at the Africa Investment Summit in Johannesburg, $40billion was pledged for investment on the continent, much of it in infrastructure projects.
In addition to the continent’s rich resource and human capital endowments, the continent also has significant biodiversity resources.
Eight of Conservation International’s 34 biodiversity hotspots are in Africa.
Megafauna like giraffe, zebra, gorilla, hippopotamus, chimpanzee and wildebeest are unique to the continent and only found here.
Lake Malawi has more fish species than any other freshwater system on earth.
Our continent also boasts over 25% of the world’s bird species.
We have over 3 000 protected areas in Africa.
These include 198 Marine Protected Areas, 50 Biosphere Reserves, 129 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and 80 RAMSAR “Wetlands of International Importance”.
While we celebrate our rich biodiversity and our significant environmental heritage, we know that the combined effects of environmental degradation and climate change are already taking a toll on our natural resources.
Africa is the world’s second driest continent and the world’s hottest continent with deserts and drylands covering 60% of land surface area.
Water scarcity impacts the lives of over 300 million Africans, of whom approximately 75% rely on groundwater as their primary source of drinking water.
Productivity of much of our continent’s agricultural lands has declined significantly.
Vast tracts of land have been degraded by erosion, poor land management practices, mining and pollution over the last 50 years.
Over 30% of our pastural land and almost 20% of all forests and woodlands are classified as moderately- or heavily-degraded.
While dire warnings of loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation are cause for concern, it is not too late to act.
For the first time, the world has agreed on a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have turned the often misused term of “sustainable development” into a real and practical vision for the future.
This practical vision is clearly reflected in the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the collective commitment we have made as a continent to implement the SDGs.
We are living in a time of new and exciting technological advances in the green economy space.
There is increasing recognition of the important contribution the Biodiversity and Oceans Economies can make to our gross domestic products.
Renewable energy technology is becoming both more effective and cheaper by the day.
This is an era when a circular economy is a practical and affordable alternative to the unsustainable take-make-use-dispose model that is the root of many of our current problems.
Now is the best time for us to take stock and consider how we will build environmentally sustainable and climate resilient economies and communities on our continent.
The main objectives of this 17th session are therefore to facilitate discussions on priority sub-themes derived from previous ordinary sessions.
We will focus on turning environmental policies into action, and investing in innovative solutions to accelerate implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The sub themes include: Promoting a Circular Economy in Africa; the Biodiversity Economy and Natural Capital Accounting; Advancing the Blue/Ocean Economy; and Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
We all know that Africa is regarded as the continent most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
We are already witnessing more severe, more frequent and more unpredictable extreme weather events – heat waves, droughts, intense storms and floods.
Rising global temperatures are driving sea level rise, changes in the incidence and prevalence of vector-borne diseases, changes in rainfall patterns, dramatic increases in devastating wild fires, changes in the ranges and yields of food and non-food crops, the bleaching of our corals and changes in our biodiversity wealth.
Complicated by existing significant development deficits, the current cost of adapting to these impacts is estimated to be over $50 billion a year with a new report showing estimates five time higher than previous projections.
In preparation for COP25, this forum must therefore deliver a common and coherent approach to the negotiations.
We need to ensure credible outcomes that advance the continent’s concerns regarding scaling up finances for delivering on adaptation and mitigation commitments.
Africa also faces a massive financial shortfall in meeting the SDGs.
In a context of declining levels of official development assistance this poses another significant challenge for the continent.
As leaders on our continent, our people are looking to this forum to implement concrete programmes and projects that will provide answers to the challenges we face.
They want inclusive solutions and meaningful action at the grassroots level. Our people want action now.
To achieve this we must nurture a vision of a prosperous and equitable Africa living in harmony with its natural resources.
We must have the courage to discard the destructive practices of the past and to chart and implement a new sustainable path that will make this truly “the African Century”.
We must take advantage of the opportunities presented to us by our enviable renewable resources, including our vast, largely untapped, solar, wind and hydro energy sources.
In doing this we must realise the potential of our youthful populations who are desperate to get working.
We must use our entrepreneurial spirit and creativity to find new and improved solutions.
This is how we who are here today will make our contribution to the realisation of the African Union Vision for Africa contained in Agenda 2063: The Future We Want.
This document speaks of “…an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, an Africa driven and managed by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena”.
Fellow Africans we have no time to waste. Let us start building the future we all want now!
Barbara Creecy is minister and this is edited extract of a speeh delivered at the 17th Ordinary Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in Durban
