29 Nov 2015

President Lt General Seretse Khama Ian Khama is scheduled to present the Gaborone Declaration for Sustainability in Africa (GDSA) at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) Climate Change Summit in Paris, France.

The summit has gathered leaders together from around the world in effort to reach a new climate accord.

President Khama left Malta on Sunday November 28 for the COP21 meeting which is hosted by French President Francois Hollande and starts today (November 30). 

He was in Malta for four days where he attended several sessions of the Commonwealth Heads of State Meeting (CHOGM) and also presented the GDSA to member states.

In an interview, President Khama said Botswana would present the GDSA at the COP21 summit and try to sell it to other developing countries. 

He noted that developing countries should attempt to do things in a sustainable way to guard against creating things that would harm the environment while developed countries must engage in new technologies which are less harmful to the environment, including setting dates and coming up with legislation  so that countries were forced to abide by the agreements they would make.

“But as you would expect it is difficult to get some of the countries to come on board because countries feel that by doing so it would affect their economic growth and that is where we have got a way up because of the economy and the death of the planet,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Gaborone Declaration stemmed from the Commonwealth Local Government conference held in Gaborone from June 16-19 this year.

The conference was themed Local government 2030: achieving the vision, and was opened by President Khama.

The declaration highlights the urgent need for holistic national urban policies to provide for effective planning which recognises the importance of reducing urban sprawl and strengthen urban-rural linkages. 

Also, it points out the growing need to strengthen linkages between local government and national planning and budgeting systems for effective localisation of the SDGs. ENDS