REPUBLIC OF THE SUDAN THE PRESIDENCY The New Partnership for Africas Development NEPAD

1
REPUBLIC OF THE SUDANTHE PRESIDENCY The
New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD)
Presentation on Growth and Environmental
Degradation By Badr Eddin Sulieman Africa
Partnership Forum Special Session on Climate
Change Hosted by UN Economic Commission for
Africa Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 3rd September 2009
2
Growth and Environmental Degradation

• Mahatma Gandi was once asked would you like
  free India to be as developed as the country of
  its colonial masters Britain ? .. his reply was a
  stunning NO if it took Britain to rape half
  of the world to be where it is, how many worlds
  would India need ?. Indeed this question and
  answer confront humanity today.
• Today it is more clear than before how the
  western model of growth is intrinsically toxic.

3

• It squandered the resources of our planet
  materials and energy and it generated enormous
  waste. The model could not has been possible had
  it not been accompanied by the immorality of
  imperialism, colonization and capture of the weak
  world's resource and markets.
• The toxic emissions from the so called
  civilized world have put the entire world's
  climate system at risk, externalizing the illicit
  consequence of their attained prosperity to the
  less fortunate and less able to deal with its
  implications.

4

• This is not the Model of Growth for the new
  world to emulate and the culprits must come to
  terms with a new world where rape of resource and
  markets is no longer feasible.

5
Biological Base of the Economic System

• After all we should not loose sight of the
  biological under- pinning of our economic
  systems.
• Today the economic signs of ecological stress
  are visible everywhere soil erosion of the
  croplands, grasslands, and deforestation,
  declining fisheries , destroyed wetlands and
  floods and droughts.

6

• The stresses would at the next level manifest
  themselves in economic terms , social distress
  and eventual civil strife and political unrest.
• Darfur is a case in-point of the complex impact
  of environmental change manifesting themselves in
  economic and social stress and eventual civil
  strife.

7
Climate change is partly to blame for the
conflict in Sudans Darfur region, where droughts
have provoked fighting over water sources, UN.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in an
editorial published Saturday, June 13th
2009. For sometime the economic signs of
ecological stress are visible everywhere soil
erosion of the croplands, grasslands, and
droughts. The stresses typically manifested
themselves in the next level in economic and
social distress and eventual civil strife and
political unrest.
8
As a result of extended drought from the
mid-1970s through the early 1980s, there were
large population movements of pastoralists from
Northern Darfur and Chad into the central farming
belt in Darfur. Demographic changes coincided
in the 1970s with sharp decline in rainfall,
localized famines and a rise in political
violence across the international border with
Chad.
9
Consequently, conflicts developed between the
immigrants and the settled population reflecting
conflicting interests of sedentary agricultural
groups and other semi-nomadic pastoralists. We
admit that partisan politics and foreign
interference from neighboring countries sharpened
the conflict, as the region became awash in
give-away arms and ammunition. The outbreak of
regional wars during1986-1987 spilled into the
region and the racial salience led to intensified
confrontations.
10
The history of strife in Darfur focused on
land, with migrants and pastoralists deprived
of their traditional livelihood, trying to carve
out home territories from land previously
occupied by sedentary communities.
11
New Model of Development

• Humanity has no choice but to reinvent a new
  human development model friendly to the
  environment.
• The strong and rich must restrain their
  excessive demand on our planet resources
  Humanity should wisely seek to harness energy and
  material supply from our universe, together with
  renewable resources of our planet.

12

• The New Model of Human Development entails
  low-cost engineering and lean production
  processes, focusing on material and energy
  productivity, and restraining wasteful
  consumption and greed. (The Economist No.
  dated ).
• The core of the New Model would enhance "global
  environment justice" This notion of justice
  demands in the first place outright enforcement
  of prohibition of dumping of toxic waste in the
  poor world.

13

• Global environment justice , demands
  secondly, adhering forcefully to the principle
  of Polluters Pay the Price PPP so as
  to support the helpless victims in Africa and
  elsewhere by comprehensive remedial and
  medicating measures capacity enhancement to deal
  with the adverse consequences of environmental
  degradation , revival of crop lands , grass lands
  and aforestation, enhancing rainfed farming,
  organic pastures and rural water harvest.

14

• Yet in the midst of gloom a ray of hope shine
  for the distant future of Africa USA Energy
  Minister while he was at Berkeley Institute
  conceived the idea of a global glucose economy,
  to supplant mankind dependence on oil.
  Fast-growing crops would be planted in the
  tropics, where sunlight is abundant. They
  would be converted into glucose (of which
  cellulose, which makes up much of the dry weight
  of a plant, is a polymer) and the glucose would
  be shipped around much as oil is today, for
  eventual conversion into biofuels and
  bioplastics.

15

• The Economist July 2, 2009
• Africa the continent of the tropics is destined
  to save the world by transforming its largest
  industry energy.
• In Conclusion, I recall the African Union 2007
  commitment to integrate climate change and
  climate change adaptation strategies into
  national and sub-regional development policies.
• Thank You,,,,

16
(No Transcript)