In 2015, then African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma offered a vision of Africa in 2063.
It
was a vision of high-speed inter-country railways, diplomatic clout in
the international arena, cutting-edge fashion, leadership, and
leadership in space exploration.
Progress on Agenda
2063 seems to have stalled, and speaking in the Ethiopian capital Addis
Ababa on January 27, on the sidelines of the high-level Ending Hunger in
Africa event of the 30th African Union summit, UN Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres noted that Africa has the highest rate of hunger in the
world.
Guterres said that Africa needs to eradicate conflict and climate change to end hunger.
When
African leaders attended the summit on January 29, they focused on Open
Skies, fighting corruption and the continent’s security crises.
These
events all feed into each other, so looking ahead to the next 11
months, here are key trends and developments to watch out for since they
sum up the continent’s future challenges and we would do well to begin
preparing for them.
The mayor of Cape Town Patricia de
Lille, has said April 21 could be “Day Zero” for the South African
coastal city and tourist magnet, when taps could run dry.
Cape
Town has been affected by its worst drought in over 100 years, caused
by the El Nino in the wider southern Africa and made worse when too much
water was allocated to agriculture in the Western Cape.
Other
cities in Africa — Nairobi, Kenya’s capital is a good example — are
awaiting a similar fate either as a result of broken or aged
infrastructure, increased demand, unreliable rainfall, encroachment on
water sources or lakes drying up.
Cape Town’s water crisis
is a warning that we need to take urgent action to safeguard protected
areas which are key sources of water. If rainfall is the Plan A for our
drinking water, the past three years have taught us that it is fragile.
Without forests, we need a Plan B.
Population explosion
We’ve
all heard the numbers. The current population of Africa is 1.2 billion,
and it’s likely to nearly double by 2045, meaning that around 20 per
cent of the world’s total population could live on the continent.
Over
the next 20 years, it is estimated that city populations in Africa are
likely to grow 45 per cent faster than in rural areas, with 60 per cent
of people in Africa likely to live in cities by 2050.
As
climate change cripples agriculture and pastoral economies in the
countrysides, more people are seeking livelihoods in cities and towns.
Urban areas are facing rising food prices, and increasing joblessness,
which are all feeding social tension.
Tunisia and Sudan have already been hit by protests related to food prices this year. Could there be more?
The
population explosion is putting pressure on the infrastructure in many
African cities and it is buckling, resulting in mountains of garbage
affecting the environment and polluting waters.
In September 2018, the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) Summit returns to Beijing.
In
2009 China overtook the US as Africa’s largest trading partner. In
2000, China-Africa trade was worth $10 billion. By 2014, this had grown
20-fold to $220 billion according to the China Africa Research
Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in
Washington, though it has since fallen because of lower commodity
prices.
Less noticed, have been Chinese efforts in
addressing environmental concerns through its China-Africa Environmental
Co-operation Centre, funded by the China Trust Fund, which supports
some UN Environment projects.
While China is the
world’s largest emitter and remains heavily dependent on coal, it is now
the largest investor in global clean energy development.
As
it shifts toward clean energy, it presents the possibility for African
countries to campaign for greater funding to develop renewable energy
sources and build sustainable practices into China’s growing industrial
footprint on the continent.
Intra-trade
This
year, the AU is scheduled to adopt a draft agreement on the Continental
Free Trade Area (CFTA), aimed at boosting free movement of goods,
people and services to spur growth and development among member states.
However,
the CFTA is also a hidden conservation bonus. Africa has more rivers
and national parks shared by three or more countries than any other
continent.
Progress on CFTA, potentially then also
makes it easier to co-operate on sustainable and better use of shared
rivers, parks, and security.
On a vast continent that
is still developing much of its infrastructure, drones present a
solution. Some projections see drones accounting for 10 per cent to 15
per cent of Africa’s transport sector in the next decade.
In
the next few months, Tanzania will begin using drones to deliver
medical supplies such as blood and vaccines to remote areas.
Rwanda,
working with Silicon Valley firm Zip Line opened a droneport and has
already done over 1,400 similar deliveries since October 2016. Tanzania
will also work with Zip Line, to provide more than 100 drones and 2,000
flights a day. The drone deliveries in Tanzania — being nearly 36 times
bigger than Rwanda — will offer useful insights on how to use them on a
larger scale.
Going into 2018, over half a billion
people in Africa were subscribed to mobile services, and there more than
150 million smartphones in use across the continent.
Internet use rose to over 300 million in 2017 and Africa is expected to become the largest consumer of mobile devices by 2020.
This
digital boom has played out in the mobile money explosion, political
and social mobilisation, improved market access for farmers,
interactions in health and other socio-economic areas, but not yet in
conservation or the environment.
This is the year that
conservationists should push to get the millions of Africans with mobile
phones, and access to the internet to use them to document, tell
stories, record significant events about their environment, build apps
for them, and find creative ways to bring all these efforts together.
Some of the best partners for this are Africa’s telco firms, many of which have found incredible business success.
With
the promise of a more open Africa, a youth engaged on the big issues of
our day, we could create one of the greatest social movements of the
21st Century.
Kaddu Sebunya is president of the African Wildlife Foundation.
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