CheeRio: What next for Africa?

Twenty years after the world came together at Rio to tackle inequality, hunger and environmental destruction, we are moving in the wrong direction. The Rio+20 Earth Summit was a huge opportunity to address this backsliding. But Rio did not deliver what many had hoped. Alarmingly, many of the equity and access commitments seem to have been diluted or even have disappeared, such as the omission of reproductive rights from the final document.

Let’s forget Rio (See Kevin Watkins Blog). Here are three crucial policy messages that the world – though international cooperation – must now focus on.

First, African governments and international partners must commit to a “big push” to meet the current 2015 MDG targets and integrate them into longer-term sustainable development goals.

As outlined in our 2012 Africa Progress Report, “Jobs, Justice and Equity,” the continent continues to suffer from deep, persistent and enduring inequalities. But inequality is not just an African problem – across the world inequality is increasing and economic and political currents are reconfiguring globalization.  Over the long run, inequalities undermine growth and human development, and weaken the bonds that hold societies together.   

An urgent dual challenge now exists: to meet the current MDGs while defining goals beyond 2015 within a single new framework. Any post-MDG agenda (or Sustainable Development Goals, as discussed at Rio+20) must include a clear set of shared global goals and timetables that build on the current MDGs. Above all, these new goals must not become overly complex.

Second, governments must put smallholder farmers and agricultural productivity at the center of national strategies for growth and food and nutrition security, with a focus on women farmers and land rights.

Africa’s farmers face some of the gravest risks from the many failures in the global food system. Across the continent, 200 million people face food insecurity. But Rio+20 failed to agree provisions for essential investment in smallholder farmers or strengthened land rights. In the last decade, over 134 million hectares of land have been bought across Africa – an area larger than France, Germany and the UK combined often negatively affecting the most vulnerable.  It is widely recognized that Africa is the worst hit by climate change. Governments in and outside the continent must fund a climate-resilient Green Revolution in Africa – not just for Africa, but also to enable Africa to become a global food basket.

Third, rich countries must deliver what they have promised

ODA is falling well short of the internationally agreed target of 0.7% of rich countries’ GNP, the $100 billion promised by 2020 in international climate finance has not been forthcoming, and development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa actually fell (by 3 per cent) for the first time ever. The recently adopted Green Climate Fund remains an empty shell. Meanwhile, agricultural support from richer countries to their own farmers in 2009 was 80 times the funding for development aid to agriculture.

There is no doubt that national budgets the world over are under intense pressure. This is why new funding mechanisms such as levies on international air transport or bunker fuel taxes are needed urgently. Our Panel Members, Kofi Annan, Michel Camdessus and Muhammad Yunus are calling for a financial transaction tax to mobilize resources for development and climate change finance.

Unjust and increasing inequalities, hunger, and environmental destruction leave many feeling that their societies are fundamentally unjust and their governments unresponsive. Political leaders may have failed at Rio+20 but across the global there is growing support for urgent collective action.