A united Africa delivering solutions on land

Your Excellency, Seyoum Mekonen Hailu, State Minister of Planning and Development in charge of Environment and Climate Change and Population and Development of Ethiopia,

Your Excellency, Jacques Assahre Konan, Minister of env, Cote d’Ivoire,

Your Excellency Osama I. Faqeeha, Deputy Minister of Environment, Saudi Arabia,

My dear sister, Your Excellency Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy, and Sustainable Environment of the African Union,

Kevin Kariuki, Vice President, African Development Bank Group,

Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,

Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary, UN Convention to Combat Desertification,

Hanan Morsey, Deputy Executive Secretary, UN Economic Commission for Africa,

Ministers,

Excellencies,

Distinguished guests,

Friends. 

I am deeply honoured to address this tenth special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment. 

Land degradation, desertification and drought are indeed global problems, affecting over three billion people. But these problems cause more havoc in countries that have less resilience and bear little responsibility for climate change. Many African nations lie in this bracket, as we have seen with more frequent and more intense droughts. 

But building drought resilience, restoring land and combatting desertification are possible in Africa – with benefits across the full triple planetary crisis: the crisis of climate change, the crisis of nature and land loss, and the crisis of pollution and waste.  

Restoration, in particular, is a powerful tool. Sustainable land management and restoration boosts livelihoods, builds resilience, increases carbon storage, creates more productive land, brings back biodiversity, and – more fundamentally —leads to growth, development, peace and sustainable societies. 

African nations are leading the way. The Great Green Wall is restoring land across the Sahel. Farmers are restoring food systems using the Forest Garden Approach in East and West Africa. Soil health and food security are being improved under the Regreening Africa World Restoration Flagship. 

UNEP and the international community are behind restoration efforts. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is backing commitments to restore one billion hectares – over half of them in Africa. World Environment Day, hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on June 5, amplified those efforts. And a few months earlier, at the sixth UN Environment Assembly, nations agreed to strengthen sustainable land management and enhance the fight against land degradation and desertification.  

Of course, African nations need support from the international community. But, in the spirit of the September 2023 Africa Climate Summit, let us remind ourselves what African Heads of State noted: namely that Africa is a continent of solutions.  

Solutions to renewable energy in the form of vast solar, wind and hydro resources, and critical minerals. Solutions to food security, with fertile lands and competent farming communities. Solutions for innovation, as Africa has both youth and experience in a population eager to puts its shoulder to the wheel for growth, prosperity, opportunity and development. 

So, what can Africa do to deliver these solutions, particularly in the area of protecting and restoring land? 

One, unite action on land under the three Rio Conventions. 

The Rio Conventions on climate, biodiversity and land are soon holding Conferences of Parties. Land restoration can deliver action and ambition across these three deals.  

African nations can go to these COPs with a strong position on land. Link land restoration, land management and land productivity to climate pledges and to national biodiversity strategies and action plans – with land degradation neutrality commitments being the golden thread that weaves it all together under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. And Africa, as a united block under the strong leadership of the African Union, can back land restoration targets with clear action plans and long-term funding. 

Two, account for the value of nature. 

The African Development Bank estimated the continent’s natural capital at US$6.2 trillion in 2018. But this is being depleted. Through illegal logging, fishing and more. Through unsustainable agriculture. Through pollution of the soil and water. Through constant climate impacts. So, switching to economic indicators that value nature and reduce these pressures is crucial. The Africa Natural Capital Atlas, being launched today, can help shape these indicators. 

Three, back circular approaches to minerals. 

Switching to clean energy requires a reliable supply of critical energy transition minerals. Africa holds vast deposits of such minerals and resources. But the colonial legacy of exploitation has left many countries boxed into patterns of extraction and trade that do not give the full value of these minerals to the source country. The so-called “value addition” is done elsewhere. 

Africa can break these patterns and ensure that value addition is done at home. We are approaching a “gold rush” for these valuable materials. The world will be wooing producer countries. This is a clear opportunity for African nations with these minerals to use the increased revenues for poverty reduction, sustainable development and long-term investments.  

In addition, since ramping up mining would further damage nature and lead to these minerals running out, Africa can approach extraction with a clear policy on circularity and lead the exodus from a linear economy of take-make-waste to a circular use-reuse pattern.

African nations can develop infrastructure for reuse and recovery near mining sites – benefitting host economies and local communities and reducing the need for primary mining and thus also benefiting nature, land and biodiversity.

Excellencies, 

Of course, more needs to be done. Public and private finance needs to ramp up. Food systems need to reform. And pollution needs to be addressed. In this last regard, African nations can help deliver a strong instrument to end plastic pollution at the final round of talks in Busan at the end of this year. 

Allow me, therefore, a few words on the plastic treaty negotiations. This instrument is not about banning all plastics. Plastic is – and will remain – an incredibly useful material. But we need to be deliberate about how and where we use it: in clean transport and energy, in construction, in healthcare, in certain food delivery systems, and so on. We need to tackle single-use and short-lived plastics, a large part of which ends up in the environment. And, by taking a lifecycle approach, we need to ensure that the plastics we do use stay in the economy, not leak into the environment. 

I am asking you, distinguished ministers, to provide political support to INC-5 so that we can land a deal in Busan. This is incredibly important, as a strong deal that sparks a just transition would create new opportunities for African nations and businesses, such as producing alternatives to single-use plastic, investing in waste management and recycling, and, of course, strengthening the health and productivity of land and aquatic ecosystems. 

As I mentioned, the African Climate Summit a year ago was very clear. This is a continent of solutions. Not victims. You are climate leaders, with solutions to our global crisis. 

And as the lyrics to “Rise” – the new single by UNEP’s Goodwill Ambassador for Africa, Rocky Dawuni – remind us: 

“Imagine what we go do if we organize! 

Imagine what we could do if we unify!” 

Your leadership matters. We at UNEP look forward to supporting you, through AMCEN and beyond, to deliver.