Sustainable development key to continent growth

American aid, and perhaps the rest of donor aid, will never be the same. President Donald Trump’s budget proposals to the Congress include cutting US aid to fund defence spending. This isn’t a surprise.

The writing has been on the wall that donor funds were no longer a stable form of funding development.

Towards the end of 1990s, donor agencies had begun to talk about sustainable development with the hope of weaning donor recipient countries off dependence.

Funds that used to be channelled through governments were cut off. Governments couldn’t manage much of these resources as most of it either ended up in the pockets of bureaucrats or the funds simply never got to their intended target.

An answer to this challenge was found in channelling aid through Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) or straight into some social enterprise, or in development jargon, sustainable development models.

This is what indeed gave rise to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The private sector too adopted their own new initiative, plan B, sometimes referred to as Better Business, Better World or B Team.

According to The Huffington Post, “the B Team is a global non-profit initiative co-founded by Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz that brings together a group of global leaders from business, civil society and government to catalyse a better way of doing business that prioritises the wellbeing of people and the planet.” The initiative, morphed into the Business and Sustainable Development Commission (BSDC).

BSDC was launched in Davos in January 2016 to bring together leaders from various sectors including the business, civil society, labour and international organisations, “with the twin aims of mapping the economic prize that could be available to business if the UN SDGs are achieved, and describing how business can contribute to delivering these goals.”

It is well acknowledged that despite progress in the past few years, current development models are flawed, with many market imperfections that leaves many in perpetual poverty and social inequality.

There are dysfunctional education systems and as a result, too many young people are unemployed.

This isn’t just the government burden. It affects business too, as it erodes the confidence to invest and lack of employable resource. Business, therefore, realised they have a role to play in supporting sustainable development programme.

Entrepreneurial research has shown that social problems are sources of opportunity and the precursors of social entrepreneurial opportunities.

It is from such thinking that the B Team had flipped over the social challenges that became SDGs into opportunity that if exploited, could alleviate some of the pressing social problems.

In the report that was recently launched in Nairobi, they estimate that delivering the SGGs in Africa could generate over $1 trillion worth business opportunities.

Often, Africans have a tendency to see problems and obstacles in the face of opportunities. Agriculture, which is a major contributor of GDP, could do even better if we embraced a more optimistic view of the continent.

The report estimates “agriculture and food opportunities have an estimated potential value of over $367 billion at current prices and could create 21 million new jobs.”

Specifically, with technology in small holder farms, up to $39 billion in new opportunities would be created through doubling “current yields for the 33 million smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 80 per cent of all farms in the region, which are still operating at a low-income, subsistence level.”

The report adds that this will substantively deal with SDG 1, which is poverty elimination. To champion the business led initiative, BSDC has created multiple chapters of the B Teams across the world.

The eastern Africa chapter was launched on February 23, 2017, courtesy of Safaricom. Its chief executive officer, Bob Collymore, was among the early initiates of the global B Team and led the East African chapter’s inauguration.

The challenge ahead is to begin to create a critical mass of business membership that will see opportunity and exploit it sustainably with emphasis on achieving the SDGs.

At the launch, discussions centred on two key areas: anti-corruption and environmental issues.

Corruption undermines economic growth and until everybody takes individual responsibility to tackle the scourge, inequality will persist and no one will be at peace. Equally on environment, we need to take individual responsibilities to promote sustainable solutions.

At the launch, we were told that our oceans now contain more than 15 trillion tonnes of plastic waste and soon we shall have more waste than the fish we eat. This isn’t sustainable development.

We can turn adversity into advantage if we take this emerging opportunity and sustainably exploit Africa’s potential in energy, agriculture, land and mineral resources through leveraging technology.