Leapfrogging Possibilities For Sustainable Consumption and ...

household and government level resulted from good economic policies that enjoyed
educated workforce triggered a significant growth of investments in manufacturing
technologies that helped sustain the growth in these countries.
In view of the ecological challenges the world is facing today, emulating the economic
growth of the Asian Tigers or attaining the level of living standards of countries in the
North should be done through promoting sustainable development that addresses both the
production and consumption realm.
In this regard, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in its Johannesburg Plan
of Implementation called for the development of a ten year framework programme
(10YFP) to support regional and national initiatives to promote the shift towards
sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns. A global effort called the
Marrakech Process is underway in mainstreaming activities that promote progress on the
implementation of SCP and the elaboration of regional and national strategies and the
proposal for a global 10YFP on SCP.
Many development efforts have not delivered promised changes in Africa, albeit for
different reasons. One example of such global effort that affects Africa and other regions
of the world is the endorsement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by
over 180 member states at UN General Assembly in 2000. The target year for the MDGs
is 2015. MDGs consist of eight goals, eighteen targets and forty eight indicators
harbouring a number of previous declarations between 1970s and 90s. The first seven
goals cover the development challenges of Africa including poverty and hunger, health
problems, lower participation of girls in education as well as environmental management
issues. Current assessments indicate that most African countries are falling short of
meeting the MDGs. Looking at Human Development Index (HDI) calculated using three
variables that are part of MDGs underlying parameters namely Life Expectancy,
Education Level and Income, Africa is lagging behind other regions (Figure 1).
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