Ensure environmental sustainability

 

By 2020, the urban population of Africa is expected to be 646 million, in 2000 it was 302 million (FAO 2003). While insufficient data exists to accurately ascertain the magnitude of urbanization, available statistics indicate a current rate of urbanization in Africa of around 3.5 percent per year (UNCHS 2001). By 2030, the proportion of Africa’s urbanized population is expected to reach 53.5 percent, compared to 39 percent in 2005. This fast rate of urbanization places strain on infrastructure and other services.

This calls for integrated approaches to environmental planning and management. In the absence of alternative livelihood opportunities and strategic management of the environment, the rapid population growth and urbanization has resulted in environmental degradation and resource depletion. Between 1990 and 2000, Africa lost 52 million hectares of forests: amounting to a decrease of 0.8 percent per year and 56 percent of the global total (FAO 2003). It is estimated that 60 percent of the tropical forest areas cleared in Africa as a whole between 1990 and 2000 were converted to permanent agricultural smallholdings.

Although Africa has some of the lowest per capita emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, it carries the greatest burden of climate sensitive diseases. Environmental degradation can affect access to education as children will spend more time collecting firewood and fetching water instead of attending school. In Malawi, where more than 90 percent of households use firewood as their main source of energy, children in fuel wood-scarce districts are 10 to 15 percent less likely to attend secondary school.

Almost 50 percent of the developing world’s population – 2.5 billion people – lack improved sanitation facilities, and over 884 million people still use unsafe drinking water sources. Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation services, coupled with poor hygiene practices, kills and sickens thousands of children every day, and leads to impoverishment and diminished opportunities for thousands more.Sanitation coverage is lowest in South Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of people do not have access to improved sanitation. For water, coverage remains below 60 percent of the population in both sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania.

In countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, 4 out of 5 children either use surface water or have to walk more than 15 minutes to find a protected water source. Unclean water spreads diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhoea, which kill 5 million people per year, mainly children. More than half of Africans suffer from such water-related diseases. 400 million school-aged children a year are infected by intestinal worms that sap their cognitive abilities. Sick, pregnant and post-partum women are most likely to suffer from lack of sanitation and to pass disease on to their children.(CSD)
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(Sources: “Africa environment outlook”, 2005, UNDP; “Ensure environmental sustainability”, UNICEF).