Leapfrogging Possibilities For Sustainable Consumption and ...

PART I - CONTEXTUAL DESCRIPTIION
2 Synopsis of status of production
and consumption in Africa
The success of any effort of problem-solving is often associated with the matching of the
proposed solution to the context. For the same reason, understanding the production and
consumption status in Africa as well as the challenges in changing the current situation is
vital. This chapter deals with creating the context of production and consumption in
Africa mainly from the perspective of challenges faced such as agricultural productivity,
energy supply, solid waste management, health problems, and environmental challenges
including climate change.
2.1 Production of products and economic
structure
The industrial sector in Africa in general is not well developed. Except for few countries
like South Africa that boast well developed manufacturing industries, for most of the
African countries the lions share of their economic turnover comes from agriculture.
Agricultural activity contributes at least 40% of exports, 30% of GDP, up to 30% of
foreign exchange revenues, and 70% of employment in Sub-Saharan Africa 2 .
Even for the case of agriculture, mechanized agriculture is used to a limited extent.
Around 60% of the economic output of Africa comes from the five largest economies of
the region, namely, South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Morocco. Angola has
recently overtaken Morocco. Mining is a major sector in some African countries. For
example, it accounts for a third of Botswana’s GDP.
2.2 Consumption and Poverty
Given that 45% of the population is below poverty line, over-consumption is not yet a
problem in Africa in general. This will not, however, be the case in the long term even
with a business-as-usual trajectory. That is where the social leapfrogging becomes
relevant. There is an opportunity in discussing consumption in terms of meeting
universally accepted basic needs for its ever increasing population (Figure 2). The
challenge here is to do it without pursuing a moving-target of created artificial needs.
Technical and institutional networks that provide consumers with the right information to
make sustainable choices should be developed.
2 Segal and Stollery (2007)
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