Search

Inland fisheries play important roles in food and economic security in the riparian countries surrounding the Great Lakes of Africa. However, the lakes are being systematically degraded by anthropogenic pressures, in combination with the huge population growth prevalent in the region. This paper summarises the outcomes of an international conference to develop a 'Strategy for Conservation and Sustainable Development of the African Great Lakes Region in a Changing Climate', held in Uganda in 2017, with particular attention on the potential for fisheries and aquaculture. The paper highlights options for addressing the problems facing the aquatic resources and specifically the importance of effective management of the fisheries and ecosystems of the Great Lakes to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals to ensure food and nutritional security and sustainable livelihoods. There is need to improve fisheries assessment and determine the value of the fisheries (and aquaculture). Fisheries legislation, regulation and enforcement need revision and co‐management mechanisms require rethinking. There is considerable potential for aquaculture, and especially cage culture, to increase fish production, but there is an urgent need to address technical, social, environmental and input requirements. It is also imperative that best practices guidelines are developed that will support cage culture production practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the call for papers on the sustainable development in Africa, which will be issued by the United Nations Department of Economic and published by Blackwell in May 2008. The topics include combating desertification, educational promotion, poverty eradication, food security and health and post-conflict development. An overview of the article requirements are offered together with its submission deadline which is on October 15, 2007. The focus of the future issue's theme will be considered by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in its 16th and 17th sessions.

This paper explores some of the founding principles of the African Union (AU) and the frameworks devised to implement them. It looks at various doctrinal and practical issues pertaining to either the continent's progress towards an effective and strong continental integration or a repeat of the failings of its predecessor Organisation, the Organization of African Unity. The interlinked principles relating to democracy and the rule of law and human rights and sustainable development have been the main issues of inquiry rather than economic (and monetary), collective security or the African human rights considerations. The inquiry will offer an interdisciplinary and theoretical insight onto the normative and practical dimensions of the integration debate in Africa. By highlighting the tension between liberal and constructivist theories of institutions and various integration strategies as applied to Africa, the paper purports to identify and to critique the achievements made so far and the serious challenges ahead of the AU. It is argued that whilst the progress made thus far is significant, it would be premature to talk of the huge success or complete failure of the decade-old AU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past few years have seen a phenomenal rise in the production and consumption of biofuels and biodiesel at the global level. This development is of special significance to Africa, where about 550 million people (75% of the total population in Sub-Saharan Africa) depend on traditional biomass (wood, charcoal, cow dung, etc.) and lack access to electricity or any kind of modern energy service. Derived from plants and agricultural crops, biofuels and biodiesel represent modern forms of bioenergy and more efficient use of biomass energy. Beyond efficiency, modern bioenergy offers tremendous opportunities to meet growing household energy demands, increase income, reduce poverty, and mitigate environmental degradation. In the African setting, energy and livelihoods security are indeed inseparable. This paper argues economic, social, and environmental benefits of modern bioenergy can be realized through a strategy that centres on smallholder production and processing schemes and pursuit of a livelihood approach to energy development. Such a scheme opens up new domestic markets, generates new cash incomes, improves social wellbeing, enhances new technology adoption, and lays the ground for rural economic transformation and sustainable land use. The paper concludes by underlining the vital importance of considering sound property rights and strategic planning of sustainable development as tools for sustainable energy and livelihoods security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that stakeholder capitalism is more appropriate to natural resource management and rural development in Africa than other varieties of capitalism. It examines different management arrangements in Kenyan Lake Victoria fisheries resources to argue that whilst stakeholder capitalism is still far from being the mainstream model of capitalism in Kenya, theoretically and empirically, it is more appropriate to sustainable development than the Anglo-Saxon variety of capitalism that the country inherited from its British colonizers. The paper demonstrates that the concepts of ownership and management rights are social, economic and political constructs that are continuously contested, with huge implications for sustainable development and natural resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past experience shows that inappropriate agricultural development in wetlands can undermine sustainability and may have profound social and economic repercussions for people dependent on the range of ecosystem services provided by those wetlands. Nonetheless, there is escalating pressure to expand agriculture within wetlands due to increasing population, in conjunction with efforts to increase food security. This paper describes the development of a semi-analytical framework for identifying, organizing and analyzing the complex factors that link people, agriculture and wetland ecosystems — an index of Working Wetland Potential (WWP). The method is based on a form of multi-criteria analysis that integrates biophysical and socio-economic aspects of wetland utilization. The WWP index emerges from the aggregation of two values: the first arising from an appraisal of both the biophysical and socio-economic suitability of using the wetland for agriculture; and the second resulting from an assessment of the possible hazards, in relation to both social welfare and the ecological character of the wetland. Hence, the approach provides a way to explicitly integrate biophysical and social aspects of wetland utilization in a single index to enable an initial assessment of the suitability of using a wetland for agriculture. Results from three contrasting wetlands in sub-Saharan Africa are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key role of science and technology and the ways in which it can be developed and deployed to achieve the identified goals of development in Africa are articulated in this paper. Notable projects, programmes, declarations etc. addressing issues of development of Africa are: the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at poverty reduction over a stipulated period of time with globally defined measurable indicators of progress; the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD); the Blair Commission Report for Africa; and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) targeted at repositioning Africa in the world economy. During the WSSD Summit process, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) identified the three pillars of sustainable development as the economic, environmental and social pillars, and emphasized the fact that ‘science and technology must be placed at the heart of policies to promote sustainable development’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, conservation agriculture ( CA) has been increasingly promoted as the best solution to sustainable agricultural development in Africa. Proponents argue that it offers increased yields, reduced labour requirements, improved soil fertility and climate mitigation benefits. At the same time, a growing number of scholars have questioned its promises, impacts and applicability to small, resource-poor African farmers. To add to the debate, this paper draws on fieldwork from two case study villages in the Lindi region of Tanzania. It scrutinizes CA farmer field schools' performances, the impact on villagers' perceptions of core principles and socio-economic/institutional constraints related to its adoption. It demonstrates how farmer field schools failed to meet initial expectations because of challenges associated with economic benefits, labour demand, availability and accessibility of inputs, infrastructure, governance, and stakeholder relations. It argues that the applicability to and adoption of CA depends on the transformation of individual perceptions as well as structural constraints, including credit facilities, markets for inputs, infrastructure and availability of labour, which has long been a limitation of donor-initiated programmes. Under constraining socio-economic and institutional conditions, questions continue to loom large over the long-term applicability of CA to African smallholder farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]