An investigative report by US-based watchdog group CorpWatch has implicated textile manufacturer Ramatex in the indiscriminate disposal of hazardous wastewater into Namibia’s capitol Windhoek, while also pointing the finger at the Namibian government for doing little to stop it.

According to the report, Ramatex, which opened its Namibia factories to much popular support, promising to staunch the flow of Namibia’s high unemployment rate and establish southern Africa’s largest garment factory, departed suddenly in 2008, leaving in their wake a litany of environmental damages. Supported by massive investments and infrastructure provided by the Namibian government, Ramatex was virtually untouched by the required environmental impact reports, which were either rarely conducted or largely ignored. According to business practices monitor Trade Union Solidarity Center of Finland:

The company managed to mislead Namibia (in particular the government) time and again by providing false information to hide its true intentions of using the country merely as a temporary production location.

In another call for cleanups, Ugandan General Elly Tumwine called upon his fellow citizens to better educate themselves about the risks of deforestation to preserve the national environment, which he cited as having some of “the cleanest water in Africa…because of the high number of trees we have.” He said that an educational program free of sectarian divisions would be the key to Ugandan’s understanding the importance of their environment.

Image: Anti-Tamarex editorial

South Africa announced a plan this week to capture and sequester carbon emissions through the establishment of a center devoted to studying and implementing solutions aimed toward lowering carbon emissions in the country.

The announcement comes on the heels of a previous statement by South Africa’s environmental ministry that pledged an attempt to capture 5% of the nation’s carbon emissions, a promise that indicates the political, economic, and environmental importance of the cause to the national government. By better understanding the geology of the region, the South African Center of Carbon Capture and Storage can best figure out the methods needed to capture carbon with the available natural storage, which geologists estimate at 100 gigatons.

Fortuitous timing on the part of South Africa had the announcement being released to coincide with a statement by Lord Ron Oxburgh of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, who urged leaders at the Energy & Environment 2009 conference to adopt more methods of carbon capture. He said that carbon capture technologies will become more and more important in the coming decades as China, India, and the United States rely more on their coal reserves.

Image: Carbon emissions will rise as coal is burnt when oil reserves stagnate

As the 5th World Water Forum enters its fourth day in Istanbul, a water crisis brews not so far away, in the rural communities of Africa, according to research by the International Institute for Environment and Development. According to the Institute, rural water pumps, boreholes, and wells are often a first construction priority for development organizations and NGOs, but are largely neglected and rarely maintained by these organizations or national governments.

The Institute cites the thousands of wells that are dug each year and then left in disrepair as priorities shift and attention moves elsewhere. Jamie Skinner, the author of the paper studying the topic, recommends 30 methods to alleviate this situation, among them giving communities ownership over their water sources and making sure community members understand the technology and how to repair it. Skinner, in her own words:

The water community has often focused on building infrastructure, rather than on maintaining it. This failure is forcing women and children to carry water over great distances with serious impacts on their health and education. It is not enough to drill a well and walk away. Water projects needs to support long term maintenance needs and engage local communities. Without this, it is like throwing money down the drain.

The statistics largely speak for themselves. A survey by the Global Water Initiative shows that in western Niger alone, all 43 boreholes are either abandoned and in disrepair, non-functional once a year, or non-functional multiple times per year. In many cases, communities are unable or unwilling to pay to have water sources repaired or upgraded, leading to their reliance on unsafe water sources. Skinner urges NGOs and governments to consider the responsibilities of infrastructure maintenance and community involvement in funding water sources.

Image: Man at borehole, Sudan

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) opened a meeting on climate change at the resort town of Kololi, Gambia, with a stern warning from Momodou Kotu Cham, the country’s Secretary of State for Forestry and the Environment. Cham said that West Africa as a region will be highly vulnerable to climate change, and that the economic prosperity and technology transfer that has eluded some countries in the region will become even more important to combat global warming. Delegates are working at the United Nations Environment Program-sponsored program to figure out the most effective negotiating terms to use in dealing with the international community and the rest of Africa on climate change, though as Cham admits, the negotiating process won’t be easy. Cham, in his own words:

The ad-hoc working group on long term cooperative action will have to finalise an agreement on all the four building blocks - mitigation, adaptation, technology and financing, and establish a timetable under the Kyoto Protocol…Reaching the final agreements in favour of Africa at the upcoming conference of parties will require very high level preparedness during these difficult negotiations.

The aim is to reach a compromise on acceptable emissions levels and adaptation programs for the major UN climate change conference in Copenhagen later this year. Mohammed Jarju, the Gambian representative to the UN on climate change issues, admitted that tackling climate change would require international cooperation on a scale never seen before. This is not the first attempt by Gambia to tackle the spectre of climate change, however. In a 2008 conference, Secretary Cham said that Gambia’s forest cover was crucial to absorbing carbon emissions, and that the country had the political will to tackle the issue but lacked the resources.

Image: The beach at Kololi, Gambia

The American film director James Cameron, after visiting India, called it home to “ten thousand civil servants” who all seemed to be moving at once. With a new push to better use the country’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Project (NREGP), there could be a few thousand more citizens on government payrolls.

In a report in The Times of India, a leading conservation official argues that NREGP employment- which , as Atanu Dey explains, pays for 100 days of employment for one rural unemployed family member per year- could be a way to jumpstart a ‘green economy’ in India.

Another country grappling with its responsibility to the rural poor- and maybe also positioning itself for a slice of the green pie- is West Africa’s oil giant, Nigeria. Nigeria’s Interview magazine offers a revealing transcription of an interview with Ebonyi State Governor Martins Elechi who pledged a new investment in countryside populations in his state:

We’re training the youth arm of this country. The first batch of 25 would be given loan by mid-February. The loan is to the tune of N70 million, apart from the micro-credit scheme. These well trained agriculturists will start projects on their own, assisted financially by the state government. By this month (March), another batch would come on stage in the same manner. The idea is to ensure that over time, we’ll have a pool of well trained, self reliant youth, able to stand on their own.

Columnist Michael Olugdobe at This Day is not so sure. He writes about workshops held by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation to help everyday Nigerians- both urban and rural- understand the responsibilities of their local government. Olugdobe says:

Political leaders at all levels, particularly at the local government level, are hardly held accountable by the people for their performances or otherwise. The citizenry only await the crumbs especially at the end of each month from their leaders especially the council leaders as if they were dogs waiting for the crumbs from their owners table, and the leaders and their families feed fat from the commonwealth.

Can a ‘green economy’ start from this?

Image: Man works in fields, India.