BY NATH OMAME, Jr. l Wednesday, July 10, 2019
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria – “Making Africa Work through the Power of Innovative Volunteerism” by Dr. Richard Munang, the United Nations Environment Regional Climate Change Coordinator, in Africa, is a refreshing voice in the crying need to develop Africa.
It is a clarion call to Africans that a continent blessed with 65% of the world’s arable land; $1 trillion domestic market; over 200 million upwardly mobile youths who are social media savvy and gifted with “the best weather all year round and is favourably positioned to tap into the most fundamental source of energy globally: the sun,” should not be entrapped in endemic poverty, unemployment, hunger, disease and plagued with wanton environmental degradation.
In addition to these existential assets are “rivers, seas, lakes, captivating sceneries, diverse exciting wildlife—and tremendous, seemingly infinite mineral wealth in the continent”, and when properly harnessed Africa should be on her motorway to economic recovery, development and financial self-sufficiency. This is the strong message that Dr. Munang is sending with his introspective, expansive, well-researched, and pragmatic let-us-do-it-ourselves book to Africans. He urges the continental body, the African Union (AU), national governments, state governments, local or municipal governments, financial institutions, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s); corporate bodies, business people, entrepreneurs, men, women and youths to look inwards; to appreciate their natural and human resources and leverage on the assets with which Africa has been naturally endowed.
Munang, an environmental scientist who earned a PhD in Environmental Science in Nottingham University in England was first attracted to the challenges posed by climate change in his village, Jinkfuin, in north-west Cameroun. His perception on climate change was shaped when he returned home to Jinkfluin, at the end of the first semester, at the University of Yaounde Higher Training College, ENS Bambili, where he read Physics and Education.
He recalls: “This is the time when I saw the devastating effects the erratic weather—climate change—was having on farming in our village. It really frustrated me to witness my mother’s tireless efforts in tilling our farmland, only met by failing rains and much diminished harvest. To see old rivers ebb away. It got me curious, why was this happening and what could be done to salvage the situation? Many questions arose in my mind, and it tweaked my interest to delve deeper into the climate and environment phenomena.”
Munang’s curiosity on “what could be done to salvage the situation” took him to Nottingham University to acquire knowledge; then, the United Nations to apply his knowledge on combating the menace of climate change; and deployed to Nairobi, Kenya, in Africa, where he proffered the treatise of Innovative Volunteerism – “where human, material, and natural resources as well as intangibles like policies line up in unison towards a shared goal, that of maximising productivity of a strategic area.”
And the strategic area in Munang’s summation is for African countries to concentrate on an Agricultural-driven industrialization programme using “off-grid energy generated outside hydrocarbon components.” He, dutifully, recommends solar energy, African having been blessed with the largest amount of sunshine in the world, essentially because of Africa’s strategic and unique geographical location.
Innovative volunteerism as a catch phrase resonates through the pages of the book. The phrase is an all-inclusive African brand of agrarian revolution, leveraging on the availability of land, water, sun; favourable weather conditions; young, active and energetic population; expansive professional and technical expertise acquired by Africans from developed countries; the availability of funds from public and private financial institutions; bolstered by funds from cooperatives; complimented with one of the biggest consuming continental markets in the world. Innovative volunteerism advocates for an African collectivism in the march forward for a “clean energy-powered agro-industrialisation” programme where each African country will focus and consolidate its agricultural industry on the product(s) most likely to do well based on its climatic conditions, soil, or natural endowments.
Rather than sell farm produce in form of raw materials, Innovative volunteerism advocates that the each African country should maximise whatever they produce by adding value through advanced processing of the raw materials into finished products. And with an industrialized agricultural market worth about $150 billion, African countries can trade amongst themselves and make enough profit to run their economies and improve the lives of their people.
With multilateral funding running dry and thin, and African countries ridden with debt, Dr. Richard Munang’s book: Making Africa Work through the Power of Innovative Volunteerism is a veritable handbook for the development and transformation of the African continent from the clutches of endemic poverty; pervasive unemployment; environmental degradation, hunger, disease and the vagaries of climate change through “climatic resilience”: an African continental-grown agricultural revolution powered by clean energy, geared towards the preservation of the environment and wealth creation.
Munang’s unique concept of Innovative Volunteerism as a panacea for growth and development in African pointedly advocates for an “inclusive framework” that will elicit the collective participation of “multiple stakeholders” in a “shared goal” in a collectively chosen field of human endeavour for the collective advancement of the African continent from the rings of runaway national debts that are mostly misapplied, misdirected, misused, and often salted away by corrupt leaders without being properly accounted for due to a deep-seated culture of poor governance and an avalanche of poor institutions.
Instead, Innovative Volunteerism offers a refreshingly different vista and avenue for African countries to look inward and collectively combat the challenges posed by climate change; by turning the environmental drawback posed by climate change into a rewarding clean energy-propelled agro-based industrialised economy that will spark the continent onto the motorway to economic ascendancy, self-reliance, financial growth and scientific development; and with appreciable funds ploughed into research and development to lubricate and nourish the future of African youths and the economic wellbeing of the continent.
Dr. Richard Munang’s 96 page book represents a handbook for the development and transformation of Africa from endemic poverty, pervasive unemployment, hunger and disease; wanton environmental degradation to an economically stable and prosperous continent, premised on agriculture as a vehicle for human capital development.
NATH OMAME, Jr. is a journalist and an environmental justice advocate.
