Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Libreville (Agenzia Fides) - “The African continent is rich in natural resources and has a potentially strong human resource base to sustain flourishing economies. Yet the continent’s natural wealth is being seriously undermined by over-exploitation, pollution and mismanagement,” says the background document released by the First Inter-Ministerial Conference on health and the environment, which took place in Libreville (capital of Gabon), August 26-29. The Conference was organized by various UN agencies and was attended by 80 ministers of health and environment from 53 African nations, who discussed how environmental and health factors affect the quality of living in Africa, as well as possibilities of economic development on the continent.
The statistics presented at the Conference, by the World Health Organization (WHO) are alarming: for example, “in 2002, environmental risk factors accounted for 23% (2.4million) of all deaths in Africa...the health impacts of this situation are already being felt particularly among the world’s poor and vulnerable populations.”
Africa has also become the world’s “garbage dump,” where the more developed nations disregard the environment and the health of human beings, leave behind their waste products left over from industrial production and excessive consumerism (just think of the enormous amount of electronic waste from cellular phones to personal computers).
At the end of the sessions, the African ministers signed the Libreville Declaration, a document that will be presented in the upcoming Summit of Leaders of the African Union. This document makes the African states agree to the establishment of “a strategic alliance between health and environment.” In order for the Libreville Declaration not to remain merely paper and ink, experts say, the ministers of health and environment will have to coordinate political efforts with those in charge of the agricultural, economic, and housing dicasteries.
The continent of Africa is also suffering from the negative affects of the high demands of living imposed by the more developed nations, as was declared in the Conference on climate changes held at the end of August in Accra (Ghana). A total of 1,600 delegates participates in the Conference, which served as preparation for the COP 14 conference (and the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of contaminating emissions responsible for global warming), which will take place in Potsdam (Poland) in December, in order to create the foundations for reaching a final accord (that will be modified at the Kyoto Convention to take place 2012) in Copenhagen in 2009. In the Accra Conference, the problem of financing for development projects that consider the welfare of the environment was addressed. In order to finance the production of “green” electrical energy (compatible with the environment), a total of 35 billion dollars would be needed each year. The developing nations are thus trying to insert new clauses into the document (which will replace that of Kyoto), which would oblige the wealthiest nations to help them coordinate development with respect for the environment. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 2/9/2008)
