Five systemic challenges

In a recent panel discussion at the South African chapter of the World Future Society we discussed the top five systemic challenges facing South Africa. From the perspective of environmental sustainability here is my five:

First, the uneasy relationship between coal and carbon. Much of the electricity in major developing countries such as China and also South Africa is expected to come from coal. The energy returned on energy invested ratios for coal are still higher than other energy feedstocks. The IEA expects that coal will continue to play a major role in world energy supply for many decades to come. South Africa’s own energy plans include coal as the primary source for electricity generation in the forseeable future. Around a third of total carbon emissions in the world is from coal. This number is higher in South Africa. Coal provides three-quarters of energy supplied in SA. How and when the costs of carbon constraints will seep through into South Africa’s energy system, and what the technological and behavioural responses will be is a key trend to watch and a key challenge to manage.

Second is the nexus between changing climates, the availability of water and the need for more productive food systems. South Africa, apart from some Middle Eastern countries, have one of the lowest amounts of renewable freshwater available to its people. This amount has also been drastically reduced in the last few decades. Food security in Southern Africa is a major problem, with well over 100 million people malnourished in the region. The pressure for an African revolution in food production is large, but this have to be managed within the context of high vulnerability to climatic change and increased competition for water resources. Desalination is fastly becoming an option for coastal towns and cities.

Third is the impact of Sino-African relationships on Africa’s, as well as South Africa’s, development paths. Africa is seen as a preferred supplier of commodities, most notably oil, but also cotton, diamonds, logs and other base metals. The ecological costs of China’s growth have been well documented as well as China’s drive towards investment in cleaner technology in recent years. Africa’s long history of natural resource exploitation and the mixed signals from China on environmental management needs to be further unpacked as it may have important consequences for the sustainability of South Africa’s development path.

Fourth, South Africa’s water system needs urgent attention. Water services in only 11% of municipalities in the country are fully functional. Almost half are either at high risk or critical. A report on the state of about half of our sewage treatment works further revealed that only around 7% qualified for so-called Green Drop Status, which is a close measure of international accepted norms. The problem of decanting acid mine drainage looms, where the high amounts of salts and heavy metals associated with it will threaten downstream irrigation and other water users.

Fifth, one of the downside’s of South Africa’s recent economic boom was a massive pile of waste. Landfills are under pressure, and alternative waste management options are actively seeked. The costs of waste management are likely to rise while the country is managing the transition to waste avoidance, reduction and recycling.

Transit delays impacts on African exports

What constrains Africa's exports ?

Date:	2010-01-01
By:	Freund, Caroline Rocha, Nadia
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5184&r=afr
This paper examines the effects of transit, documentation, and ports and customs delays on Africa’s exports. The authors find that transit delays have the most economically and statically significant effect on exports. A one-day reduction in inland travel times leads to a 7 percent increase in exports. Put another way, a one-day reduction in inland travel times translates to a 1.5 percentage point decrease in all importing-country tariffs. By contrast, longer delays in the other areas have a far smaller impact on trade. The analysis controls for the possibility that greater trade leads to shorter delays in three ways. First, it examines the effect of trade times on exports of new products. Second, it evaluates the effect of delays in a transit country on the exports of landlocked countries. Third, it examines whether delays affect time-sensitive goods relatively more. The authors show that large transit delays are relat ively more harmful because of high within-country variation. This is a key issue in the food security question (see here for earlier blogpost on the determinants of hunger in SADC).

Zimbabwe: Beauty, destruction and surprise

No country has had so much bad press as Zimbabwe in recent years. No country's leadership deserves any less to be frank. In the last few days I had the opportunity to visit this country of destruction and beauty. In the process we had a few very positive and very negative surprises.

"From Zambezi to Limpopo

May leaders be exemplary;"

Our purpose was to visit Chimanimani National Park, a piece of paradise in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. It is a rugged and pristine wilderness area catered for the self sufficient hiker. It was 19 years since we have been there and little has changed. The views are stunning, the waterfalls crystal clear and the air so pure that it cures an otherwise chronic sinusitis in a few days.

"Oh lovely Zimbabwe, so wondrously adorned

With mountains, and rivers cascading, flowing free;"

The serenity of this place stands in stark contrast to the course the country has taken in the last decade or so. The disastrous consequences of Zimbabwe's land reform process is evident everywhere. Production of foreign exchange earning commodities such as sugar cane and tobacco have fallen drastically, while maize production has also more than halved over the period 2000-2007 (see FAO Stats). My own information is that an estimated 200 white farmers are left in Zimbabwe. This compares to 280 white farmers in June 2008 as reported in the Daily Telegraph. Despite these disastrous developments, according to the FAO undernourishment in Zimbabwe remained relatively constant at around 40% of the population. We have witnessed many fields planted with maize and other crops in the rural areas and saw trucks delivering bags of food to remote areas. The question is how sustainable this situation is and whether these rural households are able to withstand any further shocks to their already frail economy.

"May rain abound, and fertile fields;

May we be fed, our labour blessed;"

In Africa one can expect anything. We did experience a few surprises ourselves.

The border post at Beitbridge is a cocktail of diesel, dust and queues. It takes anything between 1.5 and 8 hours for a car to pass the border and it is worse coming back into South Africa. The sheer volume of trucks and people passing into Zimbabwe bodes well to the economy of this beleaguered nation, but do not jump to conclusions before one has seen the queue of Zimbabweans joining the estimated 3 million refugees in South Africa already. The situation may be improving slightly, but it seems as if many Zimbabweans are still choosing a xenophobic South Africa above their own country. For us the place has a new Afrikaans name: "Vasbytbrug", or roughly translated: a bridge where one has to really hang on tightly.

The feared police roadblocks is one of those popular travel myths. We have encountered 20 odd of these roadblocks, but in most cases the Zimbabwean police were friendly and professional. The only two attempts at bribery were easily thwarted by steering the conversation towards more desirable goals, such as the soccer World Cup 2010 or the country's exceptional beauty.

The roads are generally in reasonable condition, that is if one is not too fussy about road markings, road shoulders, cat's eyes and some potholes. It is not a good idea to drive at night though. We have tried it in a dark 100km/h rush towards Beitbridge competing with trucks, taxis, and overloaded bakkies for a slim piece of tar. Not a good idea.

Money remains a challenge though. The country's economy runs on Rands and US dollars, but it gets a bit tough when R/$ conversions come into play. Zimbabwe National Parks, at least in Chimanimani, is still working on a rate of R10 = 1USD (official rate is closer to R7.50/1$). That puts a handsome R2.50 to the dollar into some pocket somewhere!

Safety remains an issue. Despite assurances that Zimbabwe is safer then South Africa, we were the victims of opportunistic theft while hiking in the mountains. According to the authorities, this was the first ever incidence of this nature in the Park. We were quite positively surprised by the response of the authorities. The incidence was treated as a serious transgression and a well-armed search party of National Park rangers, supported by the local police, were on their way in a matter of hours. It is clear that Zimbabwe wants to benefit from the 2010 World Cup and no crimes on visitors will be tolerated.

Note: Lyrics from the national anthem of Zimbabwe

Image: Wikipedia

Hunger and climate change in SADC - summarised

After a few months of data analyses and literature review, a cautious conclusion on hunger in SADC:

In summary, the main threat to undernourishment in SADC is a lack of food consumption. This is mainly influenced by a lack of own production, erratic local prices, a weak spatial integration of food markets, and very low penetration of average income growth to poorer household economies. The additional risks of climate change and competing land use for biofuels increase the vulnerability of the system, most directly on a household level. Direct response options to support farmers and households are important, but not sufficient. Broader reforms in regional and international trade, as well as a focus on socio-economic and political factors, are needed to improve the overall food system in SADC.

A day of number crunching on hunger in SADC

The Southern African Development Community suffers from a food crises. The impact is certainly not uniform. On a country level both impact and direction of change is very different. Here are some facts:

- Hunger is a problem on an enormous scale: 95 million people or almost half the SADC population are undernourished. That is twice the number of people living in South Africa.

- Hunger tends to be more acute in certain regions. Almost half of undernourished people in SADC are in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone. Almost 84% of undernourished people in SADC are found in only five countries: DRC, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola and Madagascar, 15% are in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi and 1.5% in the rest of SADC.

- In absolute terms hunger is increasing, but the rate at which this increase is happening is slowing down. For the whole of SADC the rate of growth in undernourished people slowed down from 46% between the time periods 1990-1992 and 1995-97 (roughly 9% pa), to 10% between the time periods 2000-02 to 2004-6 (roughly 2.5% pa).

- There are mixed successes across the region in responding to the problem. Countries with large undernourished populations are either making good progress (Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe) or are making very poor or poor progress (DRC, Tanzania, Madagascar, Zambia).

- Early prognosis?: In the cases of countries with large undernourished populations, the scale of the problem is such that a normal business as usual approach will not eradicate hunger in the forseeable future.

For more read the latest FAO/WFP report on food insecurity in the world.

Hunger in sub-Saharan Africa

The 2009 Global Hunger Index reveals the disturbing reality that hunger is on the rise again in the region. Although GHI declined overall in sub Saharan Africa, nearly all the countries in which the GHI rose since 1990 are in the region. Both in the DRC and in Burundi the GHI has reached alarmingly high levels.

The report states as reasons for this growing food insecurity: government ineffectiveness, conflict, political instability and high rates of HIV and AIDS, noting that the financial crises adds to the vulnerability of the hungry. The report further argues that reducing gender inequality is an important part of the solution to global hunger.