Keynote Speech. Natural Resource Governance in Africa. Context and Call for Action

Transcription

1 Keynote Speech Natural Resource Governance in Africa Context and Call for Action International Conference November 18-19, 2014, New York The Church Center for the United Nations, 2 nd floor 777 First Avenue at 44th Street, New York, N.Y Organized by FES New York Keynote Speech by H.E. Mr. Jean-Francis R. ZINSOU, Ambassador Permanent Representative to Benin to the United Nations held on November 18, Can the Post-2015 SDG agenda square resource-led development strategies with the sustainable use of natural resources? The post 2015 development Agenda is an attempt to reconcile the development patterns with the pursuit of sustainability at a global scale so as to halt and if possible inverse the negative trends observe in the evolution of our planet extending from the depletion of scarce resources, the pollution of the environment and the climate change caused by human activity. These represent a real threat to survival of life on earth in the long run. At the Rio +20 Summit one of the major challenges considered in this respect is the need to decouple growth from the use of resources. Consumption of natural resources is still rising rapidly. Decoupling at its simplest is reducing the amount of resources such as water or fossil fuels used to produce economic growth and delinking economic development from environmental deterioration. The increased use of resources has favored inequalities. The four categories of resources identified are fossil fuel, Biomass, construction minerals, industrial ozone minerals. We have 8 fold uses of resources for 25 fold increase in GDP.

2 In the last 25 years we have increased our non-renewable resources use by 35 %. This trend cannot be sustained in the long run even if we can enhance our ability to access new resources in unexplored geographical areas and devise new technologies. In this sense the Istanbul Programme of Action encourages the LDCs to activate their national endowment in national resources in order to increase the contribution of their domestic resources mobilization in the financing of their development programmes. My country for instance following this advice is preparing to exploit newly discovered minerals. We hope that those resources will enhance the funding available for development financing. As you know, 34 of 48 LDCs are African Countries and are making great strides to access their minerals for acceleration of their development. They will surely follow strategies consistent with the ROI + 20 vision. Experts calculated that we are now using 60 Billion tons of resources. But we extract double of that. In US has 25tons per capita per annum, France 16 tons, South Africa 10, Brazil 8 tons per annum. Some of the advanced countries are managing the problem of high resource intensity by exporting it elsewhere. The Report observes that trade not surprisingly is generally enhancing energy use and resource flows and thus, overall, impeding rather than promoting decoupling. Relative decoupling can be achieved through modernization of the economy and explicit policies to reduce resource intensity. Some of the major challenges of decoupling that remain to be addressed include: How can the understanding of global resource flows and their associated environmental impacts be coupled to related challenges, such as climate change and the role that ecosystem services play? How can policymakers (and the general public) be convinced about the absolute physical limits to the quantity of non-renewable natural resources available for human use under current economic conditions? How can the decoupling that has already started to happen at least in some countries lead to rapid escalations in investments in innovations and technologies to accelerate decoupling more generally? How can appropriate market signals be developed to help resource productivity increases become a higher priority?

3 How can cities best become the spaces where ingenuity, resources, and communities come together to generate practical decoupling in the ways cities produce and consume? How can decoupling come to be accepted as a necessary precondition for reducing the levels of global inequality and eventually help eradicate poverty? Among the positive prospects are technologies that deliver more and better services using much less energy, water, or minerals. Opportunities for effective decoupling offer not only lifelines for the survival of human civilization but also serve as preconditions for reducing poverty and social inequalities. In his second report of the Decoupling Working Group of the International Resource Panel (IRP) has presented its second report on Decoupling technologies, opportunities and policy options (2014). Improvements of % in energy and water efficiency are technically possible and commercially viable in sectors such as construction, agriculture, hospitality, industry and transport. Overall, the working group estimates that decoupling technologies give an opportunity for resource savings of US$2.9 to $3.7 trillion each year until So, since decoupling technologies and policies are available and viable only the legacy of past policy decisions and technological, behavioral, organizational and institutional biases against innovation in resource productivity is what is holding back their realization. The working group recommends the use of taxation or subsidy reduction to gradually move the price of a chosen resource upwards in line with documented increases of energy or resource productivity. As regards African perspective of the issue of decoupling, we have to take advantage of the call for all relevant actors to support developing countries in capacity-building for developing resource-efficient and inclusive economies. In this respect, ECA and partners should support the revision of the AU-NEPAD Capacity Development Strategic Framework, informed by regional priorities and Rio+20, in order to ensure the coordination of various capacity development initiatives at all levels and the elaboration of national capacity development strategies, including the revision of School curricula to incorporate knowledge and skills for sustainable development.

4 The Post 2015 development agenda should also allow for the development of a Green Economy as one of the important tools, bearing in mind the need to: respect national sovereignty; strengthen international cooperation, including Means of Implementation; avoid unwarranted conditionalities on ODA, finance and trade; and promote sustainable consumption and production. The target is well inspired stressing the need to respect each country s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development. Africa has developed a Common Position on the Post 2015 Agenda. It includes a point on Improving natural resource and biodiversity management. It is written that achieving this objective will require: i. Promoting sustainable utilization of the continent s natural resources and biodiversity, including land and water for the continent s economic and social transformation. This can be achieved by combating the depletion and degradation of Africa s natural resource base and fostering the conservation and recovery of African biodiversity, which represents an inestimable heritage, through improved control of access to the genetic resources of the continent; ii. Ensuring that the use of the natural resources and biodiversity will financially and economically benefit the countries that possess them and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from their use, with consideration for both present and future generations. iii. Promoting value addition, pertinent R&D, and technological innovations for sustainably harnessing the natural resource base and biodiversity by developing joint ventures and private- public- partnerships to facilitate the establishment of industries in Africa. (b) Enhancing access to Safe Water for All 55. To this end, we will ensure universal and reliable access to safe water in a sustainable manner, especially access to safe drinking water in urban and rural areas by: enhancing the protection and judicious management of water resources to safeguard water quality, and assurance of access to these resources for all uses; ensuring effective conservation and management of catchments areas; minimizing wastewater discharges; and improving wastewater and water quality management systems as well as sanitation and hygiene services in rural and urban areas. (c) Responding effectively to climate change

5 56. While Africa is not responsible for the pollution and the factors causing climate change, it stands to suffer the most, the African leadership is poised to cooperate fully along the lines of the Rio+20 outcome. 57. We will reduce deforestation, desertification and pollution, promote reforestation and reduce soil erosion; improve land management; promote renewable energies; promote efficiency of energy production, consumption and recycle; and effectively implement the Kyoto Protocol. 58. Recognizing that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our times, we emphasize our deep concern with the vulnerability of developing countries, in particular in Africa, to the adverse impacts of climate change, and also recognize that adaptation to the phenomenon represents an immediate and urgent global priority. Taking into account these parameters, we should work out a Post 2015 development Agenda that aims at ensuring decoupling. We need a Programme that effects transformative changes worldwide. There are specific instruments that can leverage systemic transformations in order to achieve environmental sustainability. In target 8.4 of the report on the SDG adopted by the General Assembly it was stressed the need to improve progressively through 2030 global resource efficiency in consumption and production, and endeavor to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation in accordance with the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production with developed countries taking the lead. Analyzing the report of the Open Working Group on SDGs, we can see a clear gravity center in the Decoupling. Goals 5 through 15 are clearly aiming at inducing that model change that we need to put things right on Earth. Having stressed this, we need all actors to change their patterns of behavior to be able to fit in the new canvas of sustainable development. Individual behavioral change matters as well as corporate purpose. Corporates should get back to their basic social aim which is to provide services at the best cost, on all counts and to contribute to the welfare of Humanity. Multistakeholder support and cooperation, from member states, the private sector and civil society, will allow for a systemic transformation in order to achieve environmental sustainability and ultimately human wellbeing and happiness in the future we want, where no one is left behind. We need to shift from the economy of scarcity to the economy of abundance. The post-2015 development agenda should recognize that the purpose of business has to go beyond mere profit maximization and that the value system of business needs to include social and environ-

6 mental values. This will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy. The post-2015 development agenda should recognize that current metrics centered on GDP are accurate, particularly in not accounting for environmental assets (natural capital) and costs (externalities). We have a specific call for metrics change in target 17.19by 2030, that stressed the need to build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement GDP, and support statistical capacity building in developing countries. We need a real change in the field of technology 17.6 enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation, and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, particularly at UN level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism when agreed promote development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favorable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed fully operationalize the Technology Bank and STI (Science, Technology and Innovation) capacity building mechanism for LDCs by 2017, and enhance the use of enabling technologies in particular ICT. With all this in mind, I think we can answer with affirmatively our initial question saying that the Post-2015 SDG agenda square resource-led development strategies with the sustainable use of natural resources.