Leapfrogging Possibilities For Sustainable Consumption and ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Resource rich countries that boast high level of total GDP have a significant number of their people suffering from poverty due to the fact that their economies haven’t created enough number of jobs at the local community level. 6.2.7 Lock-in One of the important reasons behind the delays of shifting to hydrogen economy and other economies which are more sustainable than the current fossil based economy is the challenges of lock-in. Each type of economy requires its own institutional, infrastructural, financial and social as well as legal supports that in the first place establish it and later operate it. Each type of economy is also characterized by a certain set of technologies. Once such structural and institutional supports are well developed around the set of technologies to which they are created only incremental changes and improvements becomes viable, not a transformational change of leapfrogging. That is why at higher or at the systems level there is this problem of lock-in around a specific set of dominant technologies and a set of corresponding surrounding support systems. 6.2.8 Rebound effect This phenomenon describes a situation where a gain in improved energy and material use efficiencies is counteracted or offset by the increase in the total use of energy and material. For example, the gain made by leapfrogging into effective energy technologies has a potential to lead to a reduced energy cost that can simulate increased energy consumption. In the long run, this poses the same challenge of over-consumption in Africa as in other countries in the North. 7 Creating enabling conditions for leapfrogging In the effort of turning around the challenges into opportunities, it is crucial to identify enabling conditions that make leapfrogging landing into a higher plateau of success rather than stepping into a muddy pond of failure. These enabling conditions define the landing platform so that all the leapfrogging exercise does not derail the most pressing issue of poverty alleviation and meeting basic needs. They also create an inclusive socioeconomic development for the majority of the African population. With the view of the foregoing challenges, the conditions that facilitate possible leapfrogging in Africa are briefly outlined as follows under four clusters namely, political and institutional cluster; infrastructural cluster; development context and cooperation cluster; and instrumental cluster. 7.1 Political and Institutional Cluster Government policies, education as well as institutional capacity building are included under this cluster. 7.1.1 Government policies Governments have the role of providing policies on science and technology as well as on SCP to enhance the shift to sustainability. In Brazil, the success story of ethanol 46
programme is associated with the governmental policy that led to disincentives for conventional gasoline-fueled automobiles. In addition to policy provision, governments are well positioned to use economic and fiscal instruments to trigger and reinforce different activities that significantly contribute to long-term changes. In this regards, the government of Brazil purchased a guaranteed amount of ethanol; provided economic incentives for industries to produce ethanol; and set the price of gasoline at twice the price of gasoline in the US to create a strong disincentive for the consumption of gasoline 58 . Governments should operate in setting a good role model through, for example, of employing green procurement in their offices. The regulatory systems should be far from being fragmented across countries and sectors. Countries need to work out detailed policies on technological change and transformation that encourage green production, technologies and sustainable consumption. 7.1.2 Education The minimum for a robust leapfrogging is having a large number of people that can read and write. A sufficient condition is increasing the number of educated people that can work for the economy that will be created along the trajectory of leapfrogging. Integrating aspects of sustainable production and consumption at all levels of curriculum is necessary. Both access to and quality of education should be improved. In supplying the required high-level manpower to enhance technological development that not only pulls the countries from the traps of poverty but also maintains a sustainable economic growth, focus should be give to quality technical education and training. 7.1.3 Institutional capacity building There are a lot of examples where implementation of technologies with good performance failed to deliver something positive due to lack of institutional capacity of operating and maintaining the technology. This capacity is required not only at the operational level but also at the planning and legislative level. The magnitude and quality of trained staff at all relevant institutions with hand-on knowledge in technology transfer, development and dissemination should be the focus of policy makers and development partners. 7.2 Infrastructural Cluster Africa can adopt and contextualize the Chinese model of Circular Economy and Japanese 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) initiatives. For this to happen there is a need to focus on the technological infrastructure and associated decentralized systems. 7.2.1 Technological infrastructure Technical and social leapfrogging will require different levels of technological infrastructure. Unlike project-oriented initiatives, leapfrogging actions entail an economy-wide measure. The technological leap should render an improvement that is better than current best practice and compatible to the natural resource riches of Africa. Technology implies more than the hardware component and technical arsenals. In the case of energy 58 Moriera and Goldemberg (1999) 47
Page 1 and 2: Task Force “Cooperation with Afri
Page 3 and 4: 6.2.3 Lack of institutional capacit
Page 5 and 6: need to consider leapfrogging possi
Page 7 and 8: household and government level resu
Page 9 and 10: PART I - CONTEXTUAL DESCRIPTIION 2
Page 11 and 12: Table 1: Agricultural Indicators by
Page 13 and 14: The Reference scenario assumes cont
Page 15 and 16: primarily along waterways. Associat
Page 17 and 18: Figure 6: Water Supply and Sanitati
Page 19 and 20: Figure 8: Malaria affected areas in
Page 21 and 22: Figure 9: Threatened and endangered
Page 23 and 24: 3.2 Current activities related to S
Page 25 and 26: the context-relevance of SCP to Afr
Page 27 and 28: PART II- SCP AND LEAPFROGGIING 4 Le
Page 29 and 30: African countries face the challeng
Page 31 and 32: Biofuel The development of large-sc
Page 33 and 34: To appreciate the significance of t
Page 35 and 36: deterring cattle thefts, The EU bee
Page 37 and 38: Solar-powered micro-enterprise buil
Page 39 and 40: 5 SCP Areas attractive for leapfrog
Page 41 and 42: 5.2.3 Biotechnology Development of
Page 43 and 44: Sanitation access Sanitation Techno
Page 45: Figure 12: Proportion of Children C
Page 49 and 50: 7.3.3 South-South Cooperation Coope
Page 51 and 52: this temptation of going for quick
Page 53 and 54: initiatives. The role of developmen
Page 55 and 56: http://www.uneca.org/csd/CSD4_Repor

Leapfrogging Possibilities For Sustainable Consumption and ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?