Page 47 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 29
P. 47
Community
from outside the
continent. It’s counter-
productive, especially
when you consider the
fact that not everyone
who comes into the
continent to “offer
solutions” is a tourist
or investor, some are
data collectors and
agents of foreign
militaries and
intelligence agencies.
As a form of solution:
Community solutions for community problems
we must not take
Well, that’s if the climate change narrative is for granted sustainable environmental
even genuine, and not some hoax to twist the management practices, such as reforestation
world towards a direction. and sustainable agriculture, to mitigate the
effects of climate change and promote eco-
The devastating impact of environmental tourism. Laws and policies that empower
degradation, including deforestation, soil local systems that care for the environment
erosion, and climate change on African must be put in place and also nurtured. We
communities can no longer be overlooked must stop this stupidity of talking about local
or subjected to annual AU, WEF, or UN environmental empowerment only when
summits where lies are spoken more than some royals from the UK or some investors
simple truths are shared and shameless from the UAE come to our countries. We
promises made. Each country in Africa must must stop these I-don’t-care attitudes and
understand their environment, and make photo ops that we do and sit down to make
policies that give strength to those whose real things happen.
indigenous knowledge systems have created
solutions for millennia. Africa does not lack 3. False Competition over Resources:
local solutions to its local problems, but It is easy to think and also claim that many
we keep missing the point because of over- conflicts in Africa are fueled by competition
reliance on foreign aid and foreign solutions over resources, such as land, water, and
that are not suited to local problems. We minerals. But how true are these claims
must break out of this mentality that for of lack of resources? Take, for instance,
anything to work in Africa, it must take the seventy percent of Namibia is unoccupied
input of some “brains” and “intelligence” by humans and many African countries
ISSUE 29 | JULY 2024 47
