04 Mar 2014

Botswana like the rest of the world takes into high esteem matters of environmental sustainability.

Acting deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment Wildlife and Tourism, Mr Jimmy Opelo said when officially opening the Africa Environment Day in Gaborone on March 3.

Mr Opelo said the day was meant to raise awareness on issues of sustainable development in Botswana and the continent as a whole, as well as to reflect on major environmental issues faced by the Africa continent and mitigations to put in place.

The Africa World Environment day, he said, was agreed upon to be commemorated annually on March 3 by African Union Council of Ministers at the Gaborone Declaration for Sustainability, which he said played a crucial part.

He said environmental issues had been at the ministry’s core agenda, which was why they embraced the 2014 theme “Environment for Sustainability is everyone’s call”.

Some of the issues affecting the continent currently, he said, were climate change which had an impact on rains and led to environmental degradation and on poverty. He expressed the desire to see the private sector being allied with government on contributing to environmental issues and raising public awareness.

The UNDP National Strategy for Sustainable Development Advisor, Dr Muyeye Chambwera said sustainable development is a new global paradigm that needs exploration, saying the existing concepts in Africa are not effective since they did not bring much developmental changes.

He said although Africa was experiencing a rapid growth in GDP between 4-6 per cent, there still remained an unreasonable income gap between the rich and the poor.

Dr Chambwera said sustainable development meant meeting the needs of the current generation without compromising the future generation and balancing the social, economic and environmental objectives, saying the three latter factors cannot be tackled in isolation. ENDS