REPUBLIC OF THE SUDAN THE PRESIDENCY The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)

1. Presentation on: Growth and Environmental Degradation By: Badr Eddin Sulieman Africa Partnership Forum Special Session on Climate Change Hosted by UN Economic Commission for Africa Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 3rd September 2009 REPUBLIC OF THE SUDANTHE PRESIDENCY The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)

2. Growth and Environmental Degradation “Mahatma Gandi” was once asked ; would you like free India to be as developed as the country of its colonial masters Britain ? .. his reply was a stunning NO: if it took Britain to rape half of the world to be where it is, how many worlds would India need ?. Indeed this question and answer confront humanity today. Today it is more clear than before how the western model of growth is intrinsically toxic.

3. It squandered the resources of our planet : materials and energy and it generated enormous waste. The model could not has been possible had it not been accompanied by the immorality of imperialism,colonization and capture of the weak world's resource and markets. The toxic emissions from the so called civilized world have put the entire world's climate system at risk, externalizing the illicit consequence of their attained prosperity to the less fortunate and less able to deal with its implications.

4. This is not the Model of Growth for the new world to emulate and the culprits must come to terms with a new world where rape of resource and markets is no longer feasible.

5. Biological Base of the Economic System After all we should not loose sight of the biological under- pinning of our economic systems. Today the economic signs of ecological stress are visible everywhere : soil erosion of the croplands, grasslands, and deforestation, declining fisheries , destroyed wetlands and floods and droughts.

6. The stresses would at the next level manifest themselves in economic terms , social distress and eventual civil strife and political unrest. Darfur is a case in-point of the complex impact of environmental change manifesting themselves in economic and social stress and eventual civil strife.

7. Climate change is partly to blame for the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, where droughts have provoked fighting over water sources, “UN. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon” said in an editorial published Saturday, June 13th 2009. For sometime the economic signs of ecological stress are visible everywhere: soil erosion of the croplands, grasslands, and droughts. The stresses typically manifested themselves in the next level in economic andsocial distress and eventual civil strife and political unrest.

8. As a result of extended drought from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s, there were large population movements of pastoralists from Northern Darfur and Chad into the central farming belt in Darfur. Demographic changes coincided in the 1970s with sharp decline in rainfall, localized famines and a rise in political violence across the international border with Chad.

9. Consequently, conflicts developed between the immigrants and the settled population reflecting conflicting interests of sedentaryagricultural groups and other semi-nomadic pastoralists. We admit that partisan politics and foreign interference from neighboring countries sharpened the conflict, as the region became awash in give-away arms and ammunition. The outbreak of regional wars during1986-1987 spilled into the region and the racial salience led to intensified confrontations.

10. The history of strife in Darfurfocused on land, with migrants and pastoralists deprived of their traditional livelihood, trying to carve out home territories from land previously occupied by sedentary communities.

11. New Model of Development Humanity has no choice but to reinvent a new human development model friendly to the environment. The strong and rich must restrain their excessive demand on our planet resources; Humanity should wisely seek to harness energy and material supply from our universe, together with renewable resources of our planet.

12. The New Model of Human Development entails low-costengineering and lean production processes, focusing on material and energy productivity, and restraining wastefulconsumption and greed. (The Economist No. dated ). The core of the New Model would enhance "global environment justice"; This notion of justice demands in the first place outright enforcement of prohibition of dumping of toxic waste in the poor world.

13. “ Global environment justice” , demands secondly, adhering forcefully to the principle of “ Polluters Pay the Price” “PPP ” so as to support the helpless victims in Africa and elsewhere by comprehensive remedial and medicating measures: capacity enhancement to deal with the adverse consequences of environmental degradation , revival of crop lands ,grass lands and aforestation, enhancing rain–fed farming, organic pastures and rural water harvest.

14. Yet in the midst of gloom a ray of hope shine for the distant future of Africa; USA Energy Minister while he was at Berkeley Institute “conceived the idea of a global glucose economy, to supplant mankind dependence on oil. Fast-growing crops would be planted in the tropics, where sunlight is abundant. They would be converted into glucose (of which cellulose, which makes up much of the dry weight of a plant, is a polymer) and the glucose would be shipped around much as oil is today, for eventual conversion into biofuels and bioplastics”.

15. “The Economist July 2, 2009” Africa the continent of the tropics is destined to save the world by transforming its largest industry : energy. In Conclusion, I recall the African Union 2007 commitment to integrate climate change and climate change adaptation strategies into national and sub-regional development policies. Thank You,,,,