http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/25/rio20-my-ghanaian-grandfather-africa?INTCMP=SRCH
The storm clouds above the Riocentro conference centre as the Amazonian winter came in were seen by some as an ill omen. The emerging outcomes of the Rio+20 Earth summit have been long on rhetoric and short on specifics, and with a marked lack of firm commitments from the political leaders present. Aggrieved nature biting back?
My late grandfather, who farmed a medium-sized cocoa farm sustainably and successfully in the Akyem region of the old Gold Coast - now Ghana - would have viewed the scene differently. In Africa, rain is widely seen as a blessing. The great fear in Africa, where I now spend much of my working life, is the absence of rain.
No continent stands to lose more than Africa from climate change. As competition intensifies for scarce resources, it is already having - and will continue to have - severe consequences for Africa's economic growth, food security, poverty reduction and conflict resolution. Although the least responsible continent for climate change, Africa is most vulnerable to its affects. Some models suggest that a global temperature increase of about 1.5C by 2040 could lead to an annual loss in Africa's GDP of 1.7%.
The poorest will be hit hardest, and the inequalities already emerging in Africa's fast-growing economies will be exacerbated. Ghana's economy was one of the fastest growing in the world last year, and economic growth is proceeding quickly across the whole continent - even at a time of global recession, and not simply in commodity-driven markets. But growing inequalities are now to be found across Africa in health, education, employment and access to food and clean water. Without financial support to address the impact of climate change, these inequalities are destined to get much worse.
South Africa's international relations minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said to me in the margins of the conference: "We simply want delivery on what has already been promised." South Africa has played a crucial role in a conference where the shift in the balance of global economic power was manifest in the prominence of India and China.
Britain, even in the absence of David Cameron, was a bigger hitter than most of the other developed economies. At least in Britain we continue to deliver on our development pledges. Long may that continue. At the 2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, developed countries committed themselves to contributing $100bn a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with the impacts of climate change, with $30bn in financing to be in place by 2012. This simply hasn't happened.
The reality is that finding the resources for a green economy cannot be left to governments alone. The next generation of millennium development goals, now apparently to be enhanced by the sustainable development agenda, will need to reflect that if they are to make a difference to the lives of the poor.
In Rio, an exciting new partnership between the universities of Newcastle and Agostinho Neto, in Angola, was showcased. Significantly, this is funded by an Angolan bank. Southern hemisphere co-operation was a major emerging theme of the conference. Africa increasingly no longer looks to the north alone for its salvation but to its own resources and those stimulated by partnerships with India, Brazil and China.
Around 60% of the world's uncultivated arable land is to be found in Africa, so research and development in sustainable agriculture is key. This would have pleased my grandfather. Part of his land was given over in colonial times to the West African Coca Research Institute. So for agriculture and science development, along with south-south co-operation, Rio+20 may yet prove to be a positive turning point. As the African blessing goes: Pula! Pula! Let it rain three times over and more.
