To ensure our Sustainable Development, the climate crisis cannot be tackled alone.
Youth4Climate[1]. Climate crisis & Africa. Ms. Nakate talks about funds to fight the climate crisis, but how many other problems are there to be solved?
#Poverty and #food are the first sustainable development goals, and certainly, climate change is causing problems to the procurement of food and healthy food for humans and animals, not to talk about the preservation of #biodiversity. However, according to the FAO also conflicts and population growth impact food insecurity[2] .
In 2007, I had the opportunity to travel 6000KM in Mali, one of the 25 poorest countries in the world[3] (source IMF 2021). I found no sewage infrastructure, nor waste management, and #plastics everywhere. In Mali I often heard people say “Le Plastique c’est Magnifique”, but plastic bags and waste are the football fields of children in Timbuktu and the food of few animals. Together with oil pipeline leaks, the very few aquifers are polluted, and the waste causes hazardous air and soil quality to ensure human and animal #life.
Access to #cleanwater causes terrible disease[4] , and more than 2 billion people in the world do not have access to clean water, causing over 830 million deaths.
Not to mention #children as soldiers and the absence of #infrastructures, which cannot be an answer for our sustainable development. Over the last 20 years, international #cooperation has evolved towards a #knowledge transfer system and with #microcredit, new agricultural enterprises are born and thanks to the internet #women have access to learning about #market prices for their primary resources and not only. The latest data shows how women are leapfrogging into digital agriculture[5] (UN link below), which is very encouraging.
Last but not the least, access to #education persists, only 30 to 50% of secondary-school-aged children are attending school, while only 7 to 23% of tertiary-school-aged youth are enrolled[6]
Female genital mutilation (#MFG) is a big issue, with 91.5 million girls over 9 years of age victims of this practice, in Sudan ’88% of women aged between 15 and 49 years old have experienced some MFG[7].
Africa is picking up all the challenges, an amazing continent, with also so many natural resources[8] and amazing cultures which still today respect Mother Earth, yet another problem is corruption[9]. Not only money is powerful, but also religion, food and politics drive many of the population in a direction which is not where the continent could be.
What would Africa be if it hadn’t experienced colonialism? How much has our Western world learned from 54 African countries and over 3000 tribes?
The climate crisis is not the only objective we need to mitigate to achieve sustainable development.
#SDGs #stakeholder #listening #weareinthisalltogether #sustainabledevelopment #socialbehaviour #changemanagement #economy #demandandsupply #awareness
- https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-business-science-summits-africa-aa79d1c9b8e056c3eea04bd8d93381b2 ↑
- https://www.fao.org/3/x8406e/X8406e01.htm ↑
- https://www.infodata.ilsole24ore.com/2021/05/03/quali-sono-i-25-paesi-piu-poveri-del-mondo-infographic/ ↑
- https://www.unicef.it/media/oltre-220-milioni-di-bambini-in-africa-in-condizioni-di-insicurezza-idrica/ and https://www.repubblica.it/solidarieta/cooperazione/2019/03/04/news/acqua_pulita_piu_di_una_persona_su_quattro_nel_mondo_non_ne_ha_accesso-220717312/ ↑
- https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/africa-leapfrogging-digital-agriculture ↑
- https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2017-march-2018/africa-grapples-huge-disparities-education#:~:text=It%20is%20widely%20accepted%20that,still%20remain%20out%20of%20school. ↑
- https://www.africarivista.it/africa-ferita-la-lotta-contro-le-mutilazioni-genitali-femminili/180268/ ↑
- Africa is home to some 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves, eight per cent of the world’s natural Gas and 12 per cent of the world’s oil reserves. The continent has 40 percent of the world’s gold and up to 90 percent of its chromium and platinum. The largest reserves of cobalt, diamonds, platinum and uranium in the world are in Africa. It holds 65 per cent of the world’s arable land and ten percent of the planet’s internal renewable fresh water source. https://www.unep.org/regions/africa/our-work-africa ↑
- https://www.economist.com/leaders/2011/02/10/spread-the-wealth ↑
