HOW GREEN CAN AFRICA BE?
To many Africans, Africa is green enough and need not worry about being green.
They look around their immediate environment, see the expanse of green forests and wonder if any thing or place can be greener.
The answer, of course is yes, no place canbe greener than the natural rain forest still abound in Africa romanced each day by the rising sun and gentle breeze and sometimes, wild storm when the rains do decide to pour down.
But of course, unknown to these few people, what they view and inhale is offered only in some parts of African; desert Africa is crying for trees with which to hold back the growing expanding sand dunes; city Africa is choking under the overhang of daily polluted air and fast growing population and inadequate public governance is leading to crowding; scramble for few working and reliable public facilities be it energy supply, water supply or good network for moving men, materials and information.
What they also don't see are the rivers and creeks in oil producing areas of Africa; the daily vanishing of once thriving villages and settlements along ocean coastlines and the housing encroachment in growing mega cities hungry for green lands to turn into homes for human beings.
So, really to the question, how green can Africa be, the best answer really is as much as Africa can think green and act green.
This means thinking and aiming for sustainable development; encouraging green investment philosophy, corporate green interaction with men and materials while searching yearly for the bottomline.
Unfortunately, or perhaps even fortunately given Africa's inability to even catch up most times, Africa is in no position right now to help dictate for the world the green way to go. It can only follow and so, learn the ropes from the world's leading economic powers and the UN agencies.
However, two events held in Lagos recently helped draw the needed attention of the World's highest concentration of the black race,Nigeria,
to green thinking and acting.
The first was the forum put together by different federal ministries, the stock exchange and others to interact with investors on Nigeria's first ever green bonds in the making. It was held on February 23,2017.
The other one was the collaboration bwtween Global Reporting Initiative,GRI; Ernst & Young and the stock exchange to sensitise, for the third year running, top corporate executives on the growing spectrum of investors who are getting more interested in investing their money in companies rightly thinking and acting green and also acqaint them with sustainability reporting standards already set by GRI with which such investors can be reached as part of the average corporate governance report.
Both were very much appreciated by participants even though one or two questions still hung over how comprehensive, Nigerian green thinking as an oil producing nation was.
The presentations were quite educating and the questions and answers were worth all the effort put into organising them.
If nothing else, both opened many eyes to the need to ensure that what we all do any where is environment friendly and that to presume that Africa has no green issues is false assumption.
Africa certainly needs to think and act green now; not tomorrow when it may be too late and costly to demolish homes to make way for greener pastures, fresh air and blue sky.
They look around their immediate environment, see the expanse of green forests and wonder if any thing or place can be greener.
The answer, of course is yes, no place canbe greener than the natural rain forest still abound in Africa romanced each day by the rising sun and gentle breeze and sometimes, wild storm when the rains do decide to pour down.
But of course, unknown to these few people, what they view and inhale is offered only in some parts of African; desert Africa is crying for trees with which to hold back the growing expanding sand dunes; city Africa is choking under the overhang of daily polluted air and fast growing population and inadequate public governance is leading to crowding; scramble for few working and reliable public facilities be it energy supply, water supply or good network for moving men, materials and information.
What they also don't see are the rivers and creeks in oil producing areas of Africa; the daily vanishing of once thriving villages and settlements along ocean coastlines and the housing encroachment in growing mega cities hungry for green lands to turn into homes for human beings.
So, really to the question, how green can Africa be, the best answer really is as much as Africa can think green and act green.
This means thinking and aiming for sustainable development; encouraging green investment philosophy, corporate green interaction with men and materials while searching yearly for the bottomline.
Unfortunately, or perhaps even fortunately given Africa's inability to even catch up most times, Africa is in no position right now to help dictate for the world the green way to go. It can only follow and so, learn the ropes from the world's leading economic powers and the UN agencies.
However, two events held in Lagos recently helped draw the needed attention of the World's highest concentration of the black race,Nigeria,
to green thinking and acting.
The first was the forum put together by different federal ministries, the stock exchange and others to interact with investors on Nigeria's first ever green bonds in the making. It was held on February 23,2017.
The other one was the collaboration bwtween Global Reporting Initiative,GRI; Ernst & Young and the stock exchange to sensitise, for the third year running, top corporate executives on the growing spectrum of investors who are getting more interested in investing their money in companies rightly thinking and acting green and also acqaint them with sustainability reporting standards already set by GRI with which such investors can be reached as part of the average corporate governance report.
Both were very much appreciated by participants even though one or two questions still hung over how comprehensive, Nigerian green thinking as an oil producing nation was.
The presentations were quite educating and the questions and answers were worth all the effort put into organising them.
If nothing else, both opened many eyes to the need to ensure that what we all do any where is environment friendly and that to presume that Africa has no green issues is false assumption.
Africa certainly needs to think and act green now; not tomorrow when it may be too late and costly to demolish homes to make way for greener pastures, fresh air and blue sky.
Comments
Post a Comment