{"id":774,"date":"2013-12-23T10:21:30","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T09:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/?p=774"},"modified":"2014-04-28T11:58:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T10:58:09","slug":"clean-tech-for-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/2013\/12\/23\/clean-tech-for-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Clean Tech for Africa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In last week\u2019s posting<\/a>, I made reference to a new report<\/a> of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) which discusses how the continent can leverage the current boom in commodity demand to transform its economy. The same report says it is \u201cunlikely\u201d that Africa will achieve most of its Millennium Development Goals by the original 2015 target.<\/p>\n

Millenium Goals<\/b><\/p>\n

\"MDG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2000, the United Nations began the drive to eradicate poverty in the world with its Millennium\u00a0Declaration<\/a> and in 2005 established a series of 8 specific targets<\/a> for the world in 2015.<\/p>\n

In its latest report<\/a> on the achievement of those goals on the continent, the African Development Bank, says that Africa has made great strides but that it is \u201coff- track\u201d on many of the goals and is in danger of losing ground after 2015.<\/p>\n

While all the goals are important, I am particular interested in Goal 7, which is about ensuring environmental sustainability.<\/p>\n

Wealth and the Environment goals<\/b><\/p>\n

\"kuznets\"<\/a>The issue is that the relationship between economic wealth and environmental performance has shown itself to be like an upside down U.<\/p>\n

Panayotou (1993) found that poor countries produce little environmental damage as there is not much going on and then tend to use more energy and produce more CO2 and other pollutants as they get richer. This process continues until the environmental costs becomes significant and wealthier people are able to choose a healthier lifestyle.<\/span><\/p>\n

As discussed a few weeks ago<\/a>, I believe that China has reached the top of the curve and will now begin cleaning up its air and water.<\/p>\n

Africa is, perhaps, 20 years behind China in its economic pathway and also, I fear, following its environmental footprints. According to the report cited above, African forests are being cleared for industry and economic development faster than they can be replanted.<\/p>\n

More concerning is that many people lack access to safe drinking water and even more, some 612 million in 2010, have little or no access to sanitation.<\/p>\n

Everything is Linked<\/b><\/p>\n

Of course clean water and sanitation are critical for other goals such as decreasing infant mortality (4) and improving maternal health (5).<\/p>\n

The problem will be, however, expensive to fix using conventional technology. In another report<\/a>, the World Health Organization demonstrates the clear cost\/benefit of attaining the Millennium\u00a0goals and even reaching universal access, but also recognizes that the investment required for North and Sub Saharan Africa is on the order of $ 41.4 billion and 101.5 billion in 2010 U.S. dollars for water and sanitation respectively.<\/p>\n

The Great Stink and Public Policy<\/b><\/p>\n

\"stink_1404722c\"<\/a>In 1858 the Thames River in London reached a point that Parliament could no longer function due to the overpowering smell and that event galvanized the UK to began building its water infrastructure.<\/p>\n

What will make this happen in the poorer areas of urban and rural Africa? Who will pay for it?<\/p>\n

Maybe the Chinese will foot the bill as a bold \u00a0public relations gesture.<\/p>\n

There are, however, innovative ways to treat water and sewage and new technologies together with innovative business models (Clean Tech) could be part of the solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Africa’s economy is growing largely due to raw materials and other commodities, the Continent is not advancing on social issues and appears to be off track to meet …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40367],"tags":[138,76541,76548,76549,132],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy-sustainability","tag-africa","tag-clean-tech","tag-millennium-goals","tag-sanitation","tag-sustainability"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1136,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions\/1136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}