| AREA |
FAILURES, WEAKNESSES AND BARRIERS FOR IMPLEMENTATION |
| A. Protection of the environment |
| A1. Atmosphere |
- Weak early warning system and low capacity for prediction of climate
variability
- In some African states, inadequate integration of transport systems
with urban and regional settlement strategies, due to absence of land
and land use policies
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| A2. Toxic chemicals |
- Lack of risk assessment and of dissemination of information
- Labelling of chemicals not sufficiently understood by the majority
of Africans
- Inadequate industry response to risk reduction programmes
- Inadequate national coordinating mechanism for liaison between all
parties involved in chemical safety activities
- Weak national enforcement programmes for prevention of illegal international
traffic in toxic and dangerous products
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| A3. Hazardous wastes |
- Inadequate industry response to treat, recycle, re-use and dispose
of wastes at source
- Inadequate information network and alert systems to assist with detection
of illegal traffic in hazardous wastes
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| A4. Solid wastes and sewerage related issues |
- Commitments to achieving certain benchmarks by year 2000 have not
been met. African states agreed that, by 2000, they would:
- ensure sufficient national capacity for waste management
- promote sufficient financial and technological capacities at national
and local levels
- establish waste treatment and disposal quality criteria, and
- ensure that 75 per cent of solid waste generated in urban areas
is collected, recycled or disposed of in an environmentally safe
manner
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| A5. Radioactive wastes |
- No significant activity in this area in most African states
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| B. Natural resources |
|
| B1. Land resources |
- Absence of planning and management systems
- Little community involvement in information gathering
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| B2. Combating deforestation |
- Inadequate information base on status of resources and rates of deforestation
- Inadequate valuation of forest resources
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| B3. Combating desertification and drought |
- Low capacity for drought preparedness and drought relief schemes
- Absence of comprehensive anti-desertification programmes integrated
into national development plans and national environmental planning
- Inadequate popular participation and environmental education focussing
on desertification control and management of effects of drought
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| B4. Sustainable development for mountainous areas |
- Lack of database or information systems to facilitate integrated management
and environmental assessment of mountain ecosystems
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| B5. Sustainable agriculture and rural development |
- Africa's agriculture still remains low-input/low-yield, and is therefore
unsustainable
- Limited opportunities for non-farm employment
- Limited incentives to promote land conservation
- Inadequate attention given to indigenous knowledge in agriculture
- Both plant and animal genetic resources are poorly inventoried or
documented
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| B6. Conservation and biodiversity |
- Biodiversity resources poorly inventoried
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| B7. Environmentally- sound management of biotechnology |
- The potential contribution of biotechnology to sustainable development
in Africa is unknown or at best under-estimated
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| B8. Water bodies, shoreline and aquatic resources |
- Fisheries research focused largely on a few selected species, neglecting
the remaining water bodies
- Absence of land use zones for shoreline areas
- Inadequate resource inventory and management planing
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| B9. Protection of quality and supply of freshwater |
- African states agreed that, by 2000:
- all urban residents would have access to at least 40 litres per
capita per day of safe water, and
- 75 per cent of the urban population would be provided with on-site
or community facilities for sanitation
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