Yemi Katerere is the Southern African regional director of IUCN. He talks to Fiona Macleod about the challenges and the future of the World Summit.
Some people would say ”sustainable development” is a contradiction in terms. What is your understanding of it? What does it mean?
If you take a very theoretical or conceptual discussion about sustainable development, it can be contradictory because sustainable development as a concept is not the basis for action. It does not describe the action that you will actually do, so it becomes a theoretical discussion of sustainable development.
But in terms of how we use, it’s really about the wise use of the natural resources. In particular for a region like Southern Africa that is dependent on natural resources for local and international markets, it’s about how we can use those natural resources to generate economic development without undermining your future ability to continue to grow the economy. Secondly, the environment is not only a source of inputs into different sectors – whether you are talking tourism, mining, or agriculture – but it acts as a sink: as you create waste, the environment absorbs all that waste you generate. There’s clearly a limit to which the environment can continue to provide inputs into those different sectors and also act as a sink for all the waste we generate. It’s creating that balance that is really what we are talking about when we refer to sustainable development.
How does IUCN-The World Conservation Union further sustainable development in Southern Africa?
In different ways. First of all, our mission in Southern Africa is to promote sustainable and equitable development and also the sustainable use of biodiversity.
In order to do that, we believe that in order to mobilise people to be able to conserve the natural resources and biodiversity in a sustainable manner, we first have to demonstrate benefit. People have to see that these natural resources generate tangible benefits. Secondly, people have to have a sense of ownership. This means they can make decisions about the resources and the benefits that derive from those resources.
Our contribution has been to try to promote this thinking through policy changes, engaging governments, bringing on board examples of good practice, engaging parliamentarians, civil society, middle managers and senior bureaucrats – and showing them what is working and what is not working. We are trying to facilitate policy development that then promotes the ability of people to manage their resources and to benefit from those resources. Benefit is important, and a sense of ownership and participation in the process.
Do you get actively involved in projects?
We get involved in projects to the extent that we need to test or to demonstrate concepts or to undertake case studies, but generally in terms of projects we do not want to be involved in dissemination.
If we undertake a study, for example, in a particular area of how communities manage a resource, we would collect the information and we would then disseminate the information to other organisations that can take it further by replicating that example in other parts of the country. We wouldn’t get involved in mass replication, that would not be our role.
But to the extent that we need to come up with new methods of doing something, we do projects. We don’t have a mandate to do field work and mass dissemination. We are a membership organisation and one of our core values is that we work in partnership with our members. So ultimately it will be our members who take on the main roles of implementing field projects, rather than IUCN.
How do you expect the World Summit to further sustainable development in this region?
What is critical firstly is that the World Summit is being held in Africa. There has been a lot of focus on Africa, on Africa’s poverty, on the fact that Africa is a very rich continent and despite its wealth, in terms of natural resources and people, it remains poor. Having the summit in Africa is putting a focus on Africa, and it’s bringing into focus some of these issues.
Yes, we have known all these things, there is nothing new in what is being said, but in terms of finding solutions, in moving forward, we are hoping the summit will focus on the action.
We must not be getting into debate. Agenda 21 was an action agenda – for example, it talked about capacity building in terms of sustainable development. Agenda 21 is still relevant today. But we really have not committed ourselves to the implementation of Agenda 21.
Capacity building remains an issue on the agenda for the World Summit. Partnerships is another issue that is coming across strongly in terms of getting what needs to be done done. The summit is going to highlight the actions that need to be taken – very concrete, practical actions in terms of starting to address some of the challenges that we face within the context of Africa.
The kinds of economic growth that we are looking at in terms of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) vision, we are talking about economic growth of 7% per annum, at halving poverty by half by the year 2015 -2020. If you are going to do that, it will imply that you are going to have to increase the rate of exploitation of natural resources.
Now unless we can focus very critically on how we are going to exploit those natural resources, we can put ourselves on an unsustainable path. It is important that, as we try to address the poverty of Africa and as we inevitably are going to focus on Africa’s natural resources, we do so in sustainable manner.
I think the summit is going to help renew our commitment to Agenda 21, to do the things that we should have been doing. What we are seeing with Nepad being an African vision of addressing some of the problems is very closely linked to the agenda for the World Summit Sustainable Development. I see Nepad mobilising the financial resources, the political commitment from the leadership of Africa, seeking African solutions to African problems – I think that in itself will enhance the whole agenda of sustainable development in Africa.
Will a programme of action then be the most important legacy of the World Summit?
Yes, coming up with types of actions that need to be taken forward. We are not re-negotiating Agenda 21, we are focusing on action, on what needs to be done.
That’s why, for example, the issue of partnerships is being highlighted, because that will be one way of achieving those actions. What is the role of the private sector; can we identify those areas where the private sector can mobilise the requisite financial resources to do the things that the private sector can do best? What is the role of the public sector; what sort of public resources can we mobilise to do certain things that the public sector should be doing? What is the role of civil society in terms of this agenda? Those are the issues that should be focused on.
We should not just be looking at the summit itself, but beyond the summit. The real challenge is the action that we actually implement after the summit. That is where the test will be.
Does the Southern approach to this programme of action and the issues attached differ from the Northern approach?
There has always been a North-South tension, there have always been issues around the flow of the resources, about trade barriers. If Africa is going to develop, some of those issues need to be addressed.
The whole issue of governance is also coming on the table. It’s not just governance in terms of Africa, but governance in terms of how the multilateral organisations – the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation – are managed and how the decisions are made in those institutions which impact on Africa.
I think the summit should not dwell on the North-South divide. We cannot avoid some debate about what is the role or responsibility of the North and what the South should be doing. But at the end of the day we should not end with allegations that the North did not do this, and with the North responding that the South did not do this. If we look at the South frankly, since 1992 we have made some impressive gains. Even if we just look at Southern Africa and the commitment to protected areas. Protected areas are a global public good. They benefit not just the Southern African region, they are a global benefit.
There is a tremendous commitment by the governments of Southern Africa, if you look at the amount of land that has been committed to the protected areas. It is a huge amount of land. If you look at the pressures that these countries are facing, that land could easily be converted to various other uses. We are impressed with the amount of land that has been put under protected areas.
So we should not be focusing on blaming each other, but we should recognise where we have not played our part, whether we are the North or the South, and ultimately we have to be looking forward. We have to face the challenges and find the commitment to address them.