How a better understanding of the environment can impact positively on development Author: Arrey Mbongaya Ivo (Director) African Centre for Community and Development P O Box 181, Limbe, Cameroon http://www.africancentreforcommunity.com http://youtube.com/user/AfricanCentreforCom

1. How a better understanding of the environment can impact
positively on development
Author: Arrey Mbongaya Ivo (Director)
African Centre for Community and Development
P O Box 181, Limbe, Cameroon
http://www.africancentreforcommunity.com
http://youtube.com/user/AfricanCentreforCom
©2013 African Centre for Community and Development. All rights reserved.

2. Abstract:
The article explores the benefits of improving and understanding knowledge on the
environment on development. It draws examples from academic literature and on
tested examples to arrive at an analytic exploration of thematic areas like climate
change, agriculture and poverty in Africa so as justify the positive impacts of better
environmental knowledge on sustainable and holistic development in the continent.
The environment simply put is an assemblage of all the spaces and species, man-built and
natural appendages, exploited and unexploited resources, the institutions and laws,
cultures, technologies, knowledge systems, capacities, practices of various subpopulations within given areas. Therefore sub-environments exist based on climatic,
historical, political, technological, ideological, agricultural, natural etc differences or
divides that justify the need to explore various aspects related to these sub-environments
while making the necessary links to the Global environment which is the earth. The study
of the local environments is referred to as the study of contexts and in this article we are
focusing on the African context. While it will be impossible to summarize the African
sub-contexts within this article, the following points have been identified as aspects
affecting the African environment.
•
Africa despite being one of the fastest growing economic zones of the world has
high levels of poverty across sub-populations. Many of Africa’s poor like 70% of
the world’s poor live in rural areas in which agriculture is their main stay.
•
Soil productivity is vital to successful agricultural outcomes. African soils are
degraded in varying degrees in many parts of the continent. African soils are

3. affected by droughts, desertification, climate change, rudimentary farming
practices and sometimes over use of chemicals and fertilizers. Poor soils affect
crop yields which in turn affect farmer and rural family incomes thereby
embedding poverty in areas already affected by economic and sometimes political
crises.
•
African seas are also facing multiple issues including over exploitation of fish
without replenishing, unsustainable fishing methods like twin trawling destroy
fish nurseries off the West Coast of Africa while dumping of toxic wastes has also
been noted in many waters across the continent. The situation is further
compounded with oil spills and unsustainable oil drilling in many aquatic
environments including the Delta region of Nigeria leaving marine life dead while
seriously affecting negatively the livelihoods that depend on marine species to
survive. The situation is also aggravated by the destruction of mangroves for fuel
hence destroying the natural habitats and spawning grounds of sedentary oysters
and many crustacean species.
•
More over, many sub-contexts in Africa like the Congo Basin area are facing
massive loss of forests (Brown et al, 2009) from over logging. Massive
destruction of forest cover affects the natural cycles of the climate in the areas,
exposes many animal and plant species to threats including possible extinction.
The situation is further compounded by an increase in the poaching of species like
lions, rhinos and elephants across the continent for lucrative markets in Asia and
other parts of the world. Destruction of these species affects other industries like

4. tourism hence shrivelling the Gross Domestic Product of a region also affected by
high disease prevalence.
•
High prevalence of diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis in Africa have
been found to affect the productivity of sub-populations as they impact on many
active levels of society including bread winners. In such circumstances many
families end up strategising by excluding other vulnerable groups like girls from
benefiting from the remaining scarce resources. This plunges many into crimes
and other deviant behaviours including prostitution and extremism. The situation
is grave if reference is made to continuous growth of youthful population in
Africa and the corresponding lack of unemployment facilities in many subenvironments. This plus social and economic, political and sometimes religious
divides create lucrative sub-environments for extreme militant behaviours or even
terrorism.
•
Africa also faces challenges of infrastructural development. Many countries and
regions are not linked by good roads or rail systems hence reducing intra-trade
taught to be a strategic option for growth in Africa in the 21st century. Poor links
between countries makes smuggling of goods services rampant, reduces capacity
to establish inventories of goods and services moving across the continent and to
enhance monetary or economic union which has been advocated by many via
bodies like ECOWAS, African Union etc. It further affects the capacity to
exchange research-based activities between countries which are vital in the
vulgarization of development.

5. •
More so Africa needs to improve on its research environment. Many more
institutions with necessary capacities to innovate and solve African problems
based on research on African realities must be created and supported in their
arduous tasks of training youths into professionals. This is vital especially in the
agricultural sector which is facing many threats from diseases engineered by stem
borers, climate change and sometimes the uncontrollable movements of
genetically modified organisms within the continent.
Low productivity by
farmers affects access to quality food, reduces food security and shrinks incomes
from farming activities across various levels of society.
However, despite the many challenges and issues affecting the African environment, a
better understanding of the environment can greatly reduce some of the problems faced
across sub-levels. Understanding is vital to healthy policy and intervention outcomes or
designs hence could impact positively on African sub-populations in the following ways:
•
Firstly a better understanding of poverty will help in the design of interventions
that will tackle the root causes of poverty. Preventing marginalities by improving
on knowledge systems and capacities will help ways of tackling the impacts of
poverty on wellbeing, growth, productivity, peace etc. It will also create a policy
urgency to act against poverty across sub-levels in order that it doest not translate
into embedded or chronic poverty. This in turn reduces public spending on social
services while it increases possibility to divert public activities into other needed
areas like infrastructural development, education and industrialization.
•
More so, improving on African soils will definitely affect agricultural
productivity especially in rural areas where the bulk of farmers and poor people

6. reside. More healthy food production increases farmer incomes and also increases
amount of food sent to urban centres which are increasingly affected by sprawling
informal economies and ghettoes which are inhabited by landless vulnerable subpopulations with high propensity for extreme militancy and social unrests.
Improving on food distribution is vital for a healthy population which can also
build on its resilience to diseases. Improving food access in Africa will also lead
to food security and reduce the impacts of speculation on food like maize
seriously affecting farmers and many communities now.
•
More understanding the African environment will lead to more innovative
solutions based on needs. Africa will be able to harness its natural powers like
water, wind, solar etc to provide the necessary energy needed for one of the
fastest growing continents today.
•
Besides a better understanding of African marine systems will help in establishing
inventories on rare, endangered or over exploited species which can also help in
shaping better policies to increase monitoring, evaluation and also increasing
production when it is necessary. This will help communities to develop better
ways of handling wastes and may help create a more lucrative working
relationship between industrial trawlers and countries which in many ways now
are affected by unsustainable methods like twin trawling and the over harvesting
of juvenile fish in spawning grounds. A more healthy marine policy in Africa
will increase fish yields, improve on access to proteins vital in stepping up
resilience against diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, reduce movements into
livelihoods options like forest animal exploitation etc. This can only work if

7. dumping of waste is curbed along with unsustainable drilling of oil as has been
noticed in the Delta region of Nigeria for instance. Sustainable fishing replenishes
the seas and rejuvenates species including coral reefs vital for marine eco-tourism
which is a huge foreign currency earner.
•
More so, conservation of biodiversity in Africa can be more effective if various
areas under threat are mapped while trajectories are established between states to
resolve the issues (FAOHOM, B. 2001). Many species are transboundary in nature
and the borders between many states in Africa are only political or a legacy of
colonialism hence exploring tools that can effectively reduce suspicions on
biodiversity use, increase cooperation among countries will help in increasing
benefits to communities and countries. It might incidentally affect positively
tourism across countries and build peace between neighbours. Arguably this point
is the raison d’etre on joint conservation zones in Central Africa and East Africa
lately. Conserving the forests will also reduce the rate of exposure to climate
change and its fallouts such as sporadic rainfall, floods, droughts, climate
variability etc which have been seen to affect even more seriously the poor and
most vulnerable. This can only work if development interventions make use of
links between climate, forests, watery holes, destruction of fish, mangroves,
conservation, livelihoods etc in order to establish holistic accountable instruments
that can affect more stakeholders and improve on the lives millions presently
living in poverty across the continent.
•
Besides, high disease prevalence can be curbed with research based studies on the
nature, cycle, mode of transmission, impacts etc of diseases in Africa. Local

8. adaptable technologies, laboratories and skill base must be developed to step up
reaction time to plaques, diseases including HIV/AIDS, malaria, malnutrition etc.
A more informed mechanism to tackle outbreaks and with local solutions will
reduce overhead costs from foreign expertise, drugs, technologies etc which are
currently high and affecting a favourable balance of payment deficit for Africa.
Links thus must be established between diseases studies, unemployment, poverty,
crimes, wellbeing etc in order to arrive at more inclusive, participatory and
flexible approaches towards sustainable development in the continent.
•
More participation and inclusion in Africa can only be enabled with better
infrastructural links between urban and rural areas, various policy areas, between
countries and between sub-populations. This entails the transformation of
governances into accountable systems, reduction of the power of line ministries,
curbing the excesses of patrimonialism, fighting corruption etc in order that
investments into educational, transport, industrial infrastructures will not be
diverted and will be based on informed data rather than political rhetoric. This
will only work if conflict resolution and tolerance are enabled so that all
stakeholders are involved in governances for development. This must be
supported by more urgent precise and effective mechanisms for growth and
integration across sub-regions and sub-populations in the continent.
Effecting the necessary actions for a better understanding of the African continent is not
without challenges. Some of the challenges that must be overcome include the following:
•
Putting natural resource management and exploitation within the general popular
debates and parliamentary scrutiny. This reduces unsustainable deals between

9. powerful line ministries, individuals and trans-national corporations which have
not benefited the bulk of the sub-populations in many key areas including mining.
This can work with more representative governments and democratic institutions.
•
Ending conflicts between and within countries. Conflict situations exist between
South Sudan and Sudan, Somalia and Kenya, between insurgents and the Nigerian
government, between insurgents and the government of Chad etc. Conflicts affect
the flow of goods and services between regions and undermine integration and
union across the continent. Social and economic gaps must be narrowed in order
that an emerging middleclass can sprout which will be able to guarantee domestic
spending within the continent. Domestic consumption is vital for growth,
wellbeing and development. Reducing conflicts can also help in joint
management of natural resources in areas where resources cut across boundaries
such as the Lake Chad Basin area (Coe and Foley, 2001)
However, despite the challenges listed above, this article has successfully demonstrated
that a better understanding of the African environment will lead to cost saving advantages
for Africa. It will lead to a better understanding of the root causes of poverty and may
lead to better interventions to fight poverty. It will lead to the establishment of more
lucrative links across sectors and sub-contexts which are important in vulgarizing
development in the continent. It will lead to better infrastructures, a more dynamic skill
base and to better management of resources. It will lead to more effective devices to fight
against the fallouts of climate change including drought, desertification, diminishing
rangelands, sporadic rainfalls, floods, low crop yields, food insecurity, malnutrition,
embedded and chronic poverty etc. It will lead to an enabling environment for both

10. tourism and foreign direct investments. The need to establish more accountable
governances across sectors and sub-populations will be the driver to achieving such
advantages for sustainable development. Africa can get there with a better understanding
of its environment.
Bibliography and References
AMELUNG, T., and DIEHL, M. 1992. Deforestation of tropical rain forests: Economic
causes and impact on development, J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen.
Brown, P.C.H., NKEM, N.J., SONWA, D.J. and BELE, Y. 2009. Institutional dynamics and
climate change in the Congo Basin forests of Cameroon. Paper Presented at the XIII
World Forestry Congress, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 18 – 23 October 2009.
Coe M. T and Foley J. A, 2001. Human and natural impacts on the water resources of Lake
Chad basin, Journal of Geophysical Research 106(D4) 3349–3356.
FAOHOM, B. 2001.Integration of biodiversity into the forestry sector. Cameroon case study.
Paper presented for the international workshop on integration of biodiversity into
national forestry planning program. Bogor Indonesia. 13-16 August 2001.
UNDP 2012 Human Development Report, Towards a Food Secure Future
eISBN: 978-92-1-055606-4
©2013 African Centre for Community and Development. All rights reserved.