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Urbanization refers to the process of population concentration in urban areas, leading to the growth and expansion of cities. It is a fundamental aspect of modernization and economic development, with significant implications for the environment. As populations migrate from rural to urban areas in search of better opportunities, cities grow larger, consuming more resources and generating more waste. This phenomenon has profound effects on the environment, ranging from air and water pollution to habitat destruction and climate change.

One of the most immediate impacts of urbanization on the environment is the alteration of land use patterns. As cities expand, they encroach upon natural habitats, leading to deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and fragmentation of ecosystems. This loss of green spaces not only diminishes the aesthetic value of the landscape but also disrupts ecological processes, such as nutrient cycling and water filtration, which are essential for maintaining ecosystem health.

Moreover, urbanization often results in the conversion of agricultural land into built-up areas, leading to the loss of prime farmland. This can have long-term implications for food security and agricultural sustainability, as arable land becomes increasingly scarce. Additionally, the conversion of natural landscapes into impervious surfaces, such as roads, sidewalks, and buildings, disrupts the hydrological cycle by reducing infiltration and increasing surface runoff, which can contribute to flooding and erosion.

Another significant environmental consequence of urbanization is air pollution. As cities grow, so does the demand for energy, leading to increased emissions from vehicles, industry, and power plants. These emissions release a variety of pollutants, including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds, which can have detrimental effects on human health and the environment. Particulate matter, for example, can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause respiratory problems, while nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds can contribute to the formation of smog and ground-level ozone, which can exacerbate respiratory conditions and damage vegetation.

Furthermore, urbanization can have profound effects on the climate, both locally and globally. The concentration of buildings, roads, and other infrastructure in urban areas creates what is known as the urban heat island effect, whereby cities become significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas due to the absorption and retention of heat by built surfaces. This phenomenon can lead to increased energy consumption for cooling, as well as elevated levels of air pollution and heat-related illnesses. Moreover, the increased emissions of greenhouse gases from urban areas contribute to global climate change, which has far-reaching implications for ecosystems, economies, and human well-being.

In addition to air pollution, urbanization also contributes to water pollution through the discharge of untreated sewage, industrial effluents, and stormwater runoff into rivers, lakes, and oceans. As cities grow, so does the volume of wastewater generated, placing a strain on existing water treatment infrastructure and increasing the risk of contamination. Moreover, the expansion of impervious surfaces in urban areas reduces the natural filtration of rainwater, leading to increased runoff and the transport of pollutants into water bodies. This can have serious consequences for aquatic ecosystems and human health, as contaminated water can lead to the spread of waterborne diseases and the degradation of aquatic habitats.

Furthermore, urbanization can exacerbate social and environmental inequalities, as marginalized communities often bear the brunt of environmental degradation and lack access to essential services, such as clean water, sanitation, and green spaces. This can perpetuate cycles of poverty and environmental injustice, further exacerbating the impacts of urbanization on vulnerable populations.

Despite these challenges, urbanization also presents opportunities for sustainable development and environmental stewardship. By adopting policies and practices that promote compact, mixed-use development, efficient transportation systems, green infrastructure, and renewable energy sources, cities can mitigate the environmental impacts of urbanization and enhance the quality of life for their residents. Moreover, through innovative urban planning and design, cities can create more resilient and adaptive landscapes that are better able to withstand the pressures of urbanization and climate change.

Loss of Agricultural Diversity: Urbanization often leads to the consolidation of agricultural land into large-scale monocultures or the abandonment of agricultural practices altogether. This can result in the loss of agricultural diversity, as traditional crop varieties and farming techniques are replaced with high-yield, genetically uniform crops. The loss of agricultural diversity not only diminishes food security and resilience to pests and diseases but also reduces the genetic pool available for crop breeding and adaptation to changing environmental conditions.

Increased Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions: The rapid pace of urbanization is accompanied by a corresponding increase in energy consumption, as cities require vast amounts of energy to power buildings, transportation systems, and industry. Much of this energy is derived from fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, which emit greenhouse gases when burned. As a result, urbanization contributes significantly to carbon emissions and climate change, both directly through energy consumption and indirectly through land use changes and transportation emissions.

Waste Generation and Management: Urbanization leads to a substantial increase in the generation of solid waste, including household garbage, construction debris, and industrial byproducts.

In conclusion, urbanization is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon with profound effects on the environment. While it presents numerous challenges, from habitat destruction and pollution to climate change and social inequality, it also offers opportunities for sustainable development and environmental conservation.

By recognizing the interconnectedness of urbanization and the environment and implementing policies and practices that prioritize environmental protection and social equity, cities can mitigate the negative impacts of urbanization and create healthier, more resilient communities for future generations.

While a 14-year old pupil in primary five in 1994, Julius Tumushabe got lured into poaching by peers and turned his back on school. On his debut day, he went out into the wilderness of the sprawling Queen Elizabeth National park in a group of six youths who only carried spears and were accompanied by scrawny dogs.

The hunting expedition lasted three days in which the hunters braced the cold nights sleeping under canopies of trees in the park. On the third day they killed a buffalo, an iconic tourist attraction of the celebrated game park.

The poachers cut the buffalo’s carcass into pieces and carried it home, where they received a hero’s welcome upon arrival at their Rwerere village in Kiremba parish, Kihihi Sub County in Kanungu district. The youth feasted on some of the meat with their families but sold most of it using the palms of their hands as weighing scales.

But poaching though dangerous is a habit-forming undertaking in that, as testified by one ex-poacher, when you go once whether you come home with meat or not, you always want to go back hunting again.

As such, Tumushabe says although he felt fearful at the start, he eventually grew in confidence and ended up killing countless number of animals and birds for paltry cash and eating at home during his numerous forays into the Queen Elizabeth National park until the year 2000 when be backed off.

His harrowing tales were made during a fieldwork interface with news editors as part of a week-long training held in Kasese district under the Uganda Editors biodiversity program.

The program organized by the Infonile in partnership with the Wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC and Internews’ Earth Journalism Network brought together 20 editors from all the major regions of Uganda.

In addition to classroom training with conservation and journalism experts, the training incorporated field visits to conservation projects and natural sites to familiarize the participants with the importance of biodiversity and inspire them to conserve and restore biodiversity.

Ramweri Byaruhanga, the LC1 chairman of Kazinga Lower village, who dropped out of school in 1995 also put forward a narrative similar to that of Tumushabe. Byaruhanga disclosed that he was in P.7 at Kibimbiri primary school in Kihihi Sub County, when he saw poaching as a quick way of putting meat on the table.

“I would see people go in groups to hunt in the game park and it felt enticing. I started following them where I would carry for them snares and traps,” recounted Byaruhanga.

“Whenever they killed an animal, they rewarded me with meat. I would give some meat to be cooked at home and I sold the rest until I raised money to buy my own snares and traps,” he said.

Poverty, tradition key drivers of poaching

Both Tumushabe and Byaruhanga said that after getting married, poaching became more of a duty than a hobby as they assumed the responsibility of having to keep someone’s newly married daughter happy, feed the children and take care of the family.

Some of the reasons for poaching cited by park neighbors are poverty, human-wildlife conflict and cultural practices passed down from forbearers who hunted certain animals such as hippopotamus to feed expectant mothers believing that it would ease labour.

Allen Mgaza, an expert on wildlife trafficking and conservation attribute continuous poaching of wildlife to a number of factors including traditional medicine and beliefs- for instance the pangolin scales, the eyes, fat and claws of lions and ivory for powder; sandal wood for cosmetics and species used for pets and ornamentals.
A thirsty elephant sips in water as hippos lurk nearby at Kazinga channel.

A series of events starting from around 2000 including intensified clampdown on poachers by the rangers of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) added to the age-old incidents of poachers getting mauled by wildlife compounded to discourage many poachers including Tumushabe and Byaruhanga.

“I saw people being arrested, jailed and punished. Others got killed in the bush, so, I decided to quit in 2016,” Byaruhanga said.

Kihihi residents say they are grappling with many cases of missing poachers who went into the Game Park years ago and never returned.

However they concede that there are still hardcore poachers who do not see life without poaching because as put by Boaz Fred Niwazima, a community mobilizer in Kanungu district, “some do not have land to cultivate, many are uneducated, lazy and keep wondering how they would survive without poaching.”

Niwazima noted that while animals like antelopes and buffalo are mainly targeted to satisfy community’s cravings for game meat and for petty cash, big cats like the tree climbing lions are targeted when foreigners with connections to faraway traffickers such as in the Far East Asian countries come to convince the people to kill them.
Water-bucks grazing against the backdrop of dappling sun rays

In September 2022, the wildlife crimes court sentenced two poachers to 17 years imprisonment for poisoning lions in Queen Elizabeth National park while arrests of poachers for killing buffalos has been recorded.

UWA in a 2017-2023 community based wildlife crime prevention action plan, identified illegal hunting and trade of high value wildlife species, commercial hunting and trade of bush meat species and subsistence hunting for bush meat as priority offences posing a threat to the long-term health of wildlife population and wildlife based tourism.

Piggery and Apiary to the Rescue

The general consensus in Kanungu and Rubirizi now is that the rate of poaching in Queen Elizabeth national park has reduced over the years.
Olive baboons at a water point in Queen Elizabeth National park

This among others is said to be due to a livelihood support program implemented by the IUCN, Wild Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and TRAFFIC, under the conserving natural capital and enhancing collaborative management of trans-boundary resources (CONNECT) program which has since 2022 supported 120 households of former poachers in four groups in Kanungu and Rubirizi districts.

These are Kameme, Rwerere, Bwambala and Kamukiri reformed poachers’ groups.

Niwazima says that the groups received 20 sows each for piggery projects and 40 bee hives per group for apiary.

On average, they harvest 3kg of comb honey per hive which is sold at sh10,000 (USD$2.71) a kilo, translating into sh1,200,000 (USD$326.39) per group in every harvest season while some of the pigs have reproduced and the piglets have been given to individual households for multiplication.
Fred Boaz Niwanzima at the piggery project in Rwerere village Kanungu district.

“People have learnt that you can survive on raring animals and bee keeping but we are not reaping much due to lack of knowledge and processing capacity,” he said.

He added that the projects have helped the ex-poachers to pay school fees for children, meet family needs and encourage other poachers to stop hunting in the game park.

Deusdedit Twinomugisha, the UWA’s assistant warden in charge of the Southern sector of the Queen Elizabeth National Park, without delving into the specifics, reaffirmed that community poaching has indeed declined since the intervention by conservation partners to support families of people who denounced poaching with livelihood projects.

He said to reinforce those efforts, UWA stationed wildlife scouts in every village surrounding the game park and dug a trench from Ishasha to Kamameme to prevent elephants from straying into community farmlands.

He acknowledged that the livelihood support project are still being limited by inadequate knowledge in managing piggery and apiary, high costs of feeds for the pigs and lack of equipment for processing and that there is still low level human-wildlife conflict being registered, especially during rainy season when the elephants can manage to cross the trench and that there are isolated cases of attacks of domestic animals by wildlife.

He emphasized that the reformed poachers still need a push in terms of skills training and equipment support for value addition.

A more tangible plan to construct a 33km electric fence from the Democratic Republic of Congo border to protect the communities and wildlife could be actualized in the first half of this year, Twinomugisha assured.

Eco-friendly is a term that can be loosely translated to when human being engage in activities that do not harm the environment.

With recent studies showing that the climate change process has already begun, it is important that we look for ways to conserve our environment and not accelerate global warming. Going green does not literally mean painting your hotel green, planting flowers, and using paper plates but it means that we take several measures that help reduce the harm we bring to our environment. Here are a few steps that a hotel can take to ensure they have an eco-friendly location.

Involve All The Staff

Before you kickstart any campaign or make new changes, it is very important to involve all the staff members in the initiative. Get their ideas and feedback on some of the ones you want to put into action which will make it easy when the time comes to implement all the eco-friendly steps you have.

Small Steps

You can only do a complete overhaul when it is easy for you and the clients or when the hotel is not in its busy season. Therefore, before you jump head first into the green project, it is highly advisable to take small steps. Start with the smallest of things, such as putting recycling bins in every room and office station, electricity management among many other.

Maintain The  Environment

Yes, going green involves planting as many trees, grass, flowers and well manicured bushes around your hotel but it also means maintaining what the hotel found in place. If your hotel is next to the lake, swamp or forest, grow a dependant relationship with the area by not draining the swamps, cutting down tons of trees for expansion or dumping waste in the lake.

Structural Planning

When adding more structures to your hotel opt for materials that will not damage the environment, an example would be how most hotels that are built in forests always create cabins out of some of the wood and in the fact that the structure has to be removed, dismantling it will not be as damaging to the surroundings compared to heavy steel and concrete.

Save Energy

This is highly advisable especially when it comes to electricity use in hotels; you can get power saving bulbs for lighting, gas as an alternative kitchen cooking sauce, use solar heating systems for the pool and educate staff on room maintenance especially when there are no guests. This means that they should turn off lights as well as air conditioning in empty rooms during the hotel’s low season to save energy and of course the amount of money spent on the electricity bills.

Water Use

As important as water is, we never realise how much till the drought which is bad for business. No hotel should run when they are low on water supply or even without water; always ensure that there are tanks that tap rainwater which can be used in the toilets, watering plants and cleaning. Use low flush toilets that do not use as much water, encourage employees to use water sparingly, fix leaking faucets among many other things.

Green Spaces

Include many green spaces in the interior design of your hotel even in the rooms; bring in flower pots, the foyer can have a fountain with a tropical feel to it and maybe add manmade streams connecting the hotel structures. The best example of such eco-harmony would be the Serena group of hotels in Uganda. Each hotel has a unique but aesthetic feel to it that keeps you in contact with nature.

Over the years, the thick vegetation that was covering the countryside of Uganda has gone down by almost 50%. Every year, the country loses a huge chunk of forests is lost to encroachers which has created an imbalance in the weather seasons that Uganda experiences throughout the year.

There are of course several reasons that have led to the encroachment:

Land grabbing, population increase that have started destroying one of the most diverse ecosystem on the continent.

Between the early 90s and 2000s, Uganda has lost over 5 million hectares of forest cover throughout the country which number increases by the year.

Most of the forest reserves are handed over on a silver plate to future investors that have squandered away the forests and destroyed the rest around the factories with the residue from their activities.

Do we understand why forests are important to our environment though?

Reduction of Carbon Footprint

In any healthy environment, there has to balance between the carbon dioxide and Oxygen compounds. Trees help and can assist prevent catastrophic climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide which is mostly stored below the ground within the roots and exhaled by human beings. Oxygen is important, given it is what human beings rely on to live.

Regulates Landslides

When you see a forest’s root network, you will notice that it stabilizes half of the soil, holding together the entire ecosystem’s foundation against erosion by wind or water. Not only does deforestation disrupt all that, but the ensuing soil erosion can trigger new, life-threatening problems like landslides and dust storms.

Medicinal and Food Properties

Most of the tree species in our forests provide the general population with food that has been eaten for generations, as well as provide ingredients for the natural healing products in our medicines that keep us healthy and well. For example, the commonest “mululuza,”  mango trees are used for medicine and food respectively. Mango tree leaves plus it’s berk can be boiled and drunk for medicine.

Homes To Nature

Yes, to us trees are just the many leafy plants but they are homes to a variety of different animals on the Earth, the act as nesting grounds for bird, wild animals such as wolves. This means destruction of forests renders all these creatures homeless.

Flood Control

Tree roots are key allies in heavy rain, especially for low-lying areas like river plains. They help the ground absorb more of a flash flood, reducing soil loss and property damage by slowing the flow.

Provides Material

Half of the world’s raw materials come from our forests; the timber we use in construction, woodwork used for furniture, art among so many other. Using them means we have to cut down some of the trees but that doesn’t mean we do not plant many more others to take their place.

The National Forest Association and the other concerned bodies in charge need to take a stand and educate several Ugandans as to why the forests shouldn’t be cut down. The laws put into place should also be also properly implemented and understood by the people.

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has released a set of recommendations calling for urgent and strong support to help the global tourism sector not only recover from the unprecedented challenge of COVID-19 but to ‘grow back better’. The Recommendations are the first output of the Global Tourism Crisis Committee, established by UNWTO with high-level representatives from across the tourism sector and from within the wider United Nations system.

Recognizing that tourism and transport has been among the hardest hit of all sectors, the Recommendations are designed to support governments, the private sector and the international community in navigating the unparalleled social and economic emergency that is COVID-19.

“These specific recommendations give countries a check-list of possible measures to help our sector sustain the jobs and support the companies at risk at this very moment. Mitigating the impact on employment and liquidity, protecting the most vulnerable and preparing for recovery, must be our key priorities,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.

Recognising the diverse realities in each country as well as the evolving nature of this crisis, the document will continue to be updated. 

Preparing for recovery now

We must support the sector now while we prepare for it to come back stronger and more sustainable

“We still do not know what the full impact of COVID-19 will be on global tourism. However, we must support the sector now while we prepare for it to come back stronger and more sustainable. Recovery plans and programmes for tourism will translate into jobs and economic growth.” added the Secretary-General.

The Recommendations for Action are the first comprehensive set of actions governments and private sector actors can take now and in the challenging months ahead. Mr Pololikashvili stressed that “for tourism to fulfil its potential to help societies and whole countries recover from this crisis, our response needs to be quick, consistent, united and ambitious”.

Responding today and preparing for tomorrow

In all, this new guide provides 23 actionable recommendations, divided into three key areas:

Managing the Crisis and Mitigating the Impact: Key recommendations relate to retaining jobs, supporting self-employed workers, ensuring liquidity, promoting skills development and reviewing taxes, charges and regulations relating to travel and tourism. The Recommendations are made as a global economic recession looks likely. Given its labor-intensive nature, tourism will be hard hit, with millions of jobs at risk, especially those held by women and youth as well as marginalised groups.

Providing Stimulus and Accelerating Recovery: This set of Recommendations emphasises the importance of providing financial stimulus, including favourable tax policies, lifting travel restrictions as soon as the health emergency allows for it, promoting visa facilitation, boosting marketing and consumer confidence, in order to accelerate recovery. The Recommendations also call for tourism to be placed at the centre of national recovery policies and action plans.

Preparing for Tomorrow: Emphasising tourism’s unique ability to lead local and national growth, the Recommendations call for greater emphasis to be placed on the sector’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Agenda and to build resilience learning from the lessons of the current crisis. The Recommendations call on governments and private sector actors to become build preparedness plans, and to use this opportunity to transition to the circular economy.

About the Global Tourism Crisis Committee

UNWTO formed the Global Tourism Crisis Committee to guide the sector as it responds to the COVID-19 crisis and to build the foundations for future resilience and sustainable growth. The Committee comprises representatives of UNWTO’s Member States and Affiliate Members, alongside the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The private sector is represented by Airports Council International (ACI), Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), International Air Transport Association (IATA) and World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) to ensure a coordinated and effective response.

The tourism industry in Uganda has good news, another baby Rhino has been born at the Ziwa Rhino sanctuary, off the Kampala-Gulu highway, Nakasongola district in the Kafu river basin. This new born has brought the total number of the formerly extinct white rhino given birth to in Uganda to five in less than years.

Rhinos were mostly found in Murchison falls national park and Kidepo national park. But with the wars in 1970’s, they were extinct through poaching and currently, they are only in Ziwa rhino sanctuary. Tourists en route to Murchison falls national park for wildlife tour always make a one hour stop over to track the rhinos before proceeding to the park.

The government has a future plan to re-introduce the rhinos in the parks once they breed a good number of them.

Angie Genade the executive director of the Rhino Fund Uganda noted that this newly born Rhino came months just after the recent birth of “Malaika” calf on 2^nd July, 2011 and added that it’s a blessing to Uganda’s conservation society as she is the only country worldwide with such an advancement in Rhino conservation.

Wildlife tours generate more foreign exchange in the tourism industry in Uganda, only second to Gorilla tracking tours which is done in Bwindi Impenetrable national park and Mgahinga national park.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has raised an exceptional $3 billion in a three-year bond to help alleviate the economic and social impact the Covid-19 pandemic will have on livelihoods and Africa’s economies.

The Fight Covid-19 Social bond, with a three-year maturity, garnered interest from central banks and official institutions, bank treasuries, and asset managers including Socially Responsible Investors, with bids exceeding $4.6 billion. This is the largest Social Bond ever launched in international capital markets to date, and the largest US Dollar benchmark ever issued by the Bank. It will pay an interest rate of 0.75%.

The African Development Bank Group is moving to provide flexible responses aimed at lessening the severe economic and social impact of this pandemic on its regional member countries and Africa’s private sector.

“These are critical times for Africa as it addresses the challenges resulting from the Coronavirus. The African Development Bank is taking bold measures to support African countries. This $3 billion Covid-19 bond issuance is the first part of our comprehensive response that will soon be announced. This is indeed the largest social bond transaction to date in capital markets. We are here for Africa, and we will provide significant rapid support for countries,” said Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group.

The order book for this record-breaking bond highlights the scale of investor support, which the African Development Bank enjoys, said the arrangers.

“As the Covid-19 outbreak is dangerously threatening Africa, the African Development Bank lives up to its huge responsibilities and deploys funds to assist and prepare the African population, through the financing of access to health and to all other essential goods, services and infrastructure,” said Tanguy Claquin, Head of Sustainable Banking, Crédit Agricole CIB.

Coronavirus cases were slow to arrive in Africa, but the virus is spreading quickly and has infected nearly 3,000 people across 45 countries, placing strain on already fragile health systems.

It is estimated that the continent will require many billions of dollars to cushion the impact of the disease as many countries scrambled contingency measures, including commercial lockdowns in desperate efforts to contain it. Globally, factories have been closed and workers sent home, disrupting supply chains, trade, travel, and driving many economies toward recession.

Commenting on the landmark transaction, George Sager, Executive Director, SSA Syndicate, Goldman Sachs said: “In a time of unprecedented market volatility, the African Development Bank has been able to brave the capital markets in order to secure invaluable funding to help the efforts of the African continent’s fight against Covid-19. Not only that, but in the process, delivering their largest ever USD benchmark. A truly remarkable outcome both in terms of its purpose but also in terms of a USD financing”.

The Bank established its Social Bond framework in 2017 and raised the equivalent of $2 billion through issuances denominated in Euro and Norwegian krone. In 2018 the Bank was designated by financial markets, ‘Second most impressive social or sustainability bond issuer” at the Global Capital SRI Awards.

“We are thankful for the exceptional level of interest the Fight Covid-19 Social Bond has raised across the world, as the African Development Bank moves towards lessening the social and economic impact of the pandemic on a continent already severely constrained. Our Social bond program enables us to highlight our strong development mandate to the investor community, allowing them to play a part in improving the lives of the people of Africa. This was an exceptional outcome for an exceptional cause,” said Hassatou Diop N’Sele, Treasurer, African Development Bank.

Fight Covid-19 was allocated to central banks and official institutions (53%), bank treasuries (27%) and asset managers (20%). Final bond distribution statistics were as follows: Europe (37%), Americas (36%), Asia (17%) Africa (8%,) and Middle-East (1%).

The pressure is building to phase out fossil fuels in Africa to fight climate change. Organizations ranging from the World Bank to the European Investment Bank (EIB) have dropped support for African fossil fuel production in hopes of encouraging a transition from oil, gas and coal to sustainable energy sources like wind and solar power.

Now there are legitimate concerns that investor support for oil and gas production will dwindle as well. Blackrock, which controls $7 trillion in investments, and the Royal Bank of Scotland have said they’ll be moving away from investments that support fossil fuel production.

The anti-fossil fuel fervor is being demonstrated in what may seem like surprising ways: the Bank of England was criticized for having an oil company executive its board of directors.

Pressure is coming from within the African continent, as well. Lobbies from Kenya and the surrounding region, for example, recently petitioned the African Union to put a stop to coal usage and look into phasing out oil and gas usage over the next three decades in hopes of eliminating emissions that contribute to global warming.

I agree that climate change should be taken seriously, but we cannot accept knee-jerk responses. We must not rob our continent of the significant benefits it can realize from oil and gas operations, from the economic opportunities of monetized natural resources to critically important gas-to-power initiatives.

I am not, by any means, calling for a stop to sustainable energy programs. They are being implemented, and I hope to see more. I’m simply saying it’s too soon for an either-or approach to green energy sources and fossil fuels.

What’s more, it should be Africans, not well-meaning outsiders, who determine when the timing is right to phase out fossil fuels in Africa, if ever. Pressuring Africa to do otherwise is insulting, no better than throwing foreign aid at us with the assumption that Africans are incapable of building a better future for ourselves. It’s also hypocritical for countries and people who enjoy the security, greater life expectancy, comforts and economic opportunities associated with plentiful, reliable energy to say, “Time’s up, Africa. No more fossil fuels for you. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

What about the desperation that the 600,000-plus Africans without power live with every day?

Is it reasonable to expect them to wait for green energy to evolve while domestic natural gas and crude oil reserves can be exploited to create electricity and heating fuel far more quickly?

Addressing Energy Poverty

We cannot move forward with phasing out fossil fuels in Africa before we address the huge swaths of our continent existing in energy poverty. I strongly agree with OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo, who said in a recent speech: “The almost one billion people worldwide who currently lack access to electricity and the three billion without modern fuels for cooking are not just statistics on a page. They are real people . . . Nobody should be left behind.”

Closer to home, more than two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, more than 620 million people, lack access to electricity. Even more infuriating, that number is likely to increase. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that by 2040, approximately 75 percent of sub-Saharan Africa will lack access to electricity. Why? Surging populations are far outpacing the spread of infrastructure.

As I wrote in my 2019 book, Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals, living without electricity is much more than an inconvenience. It keeps people from modern health care, and it exposes them to toxic air pollution caused by burning unsafe fuels indoors. It also reinforces poverty and contributes to economic stagnation: Businesses, factories and schools need electricity to function and grow.

I’m convinced that one of our continent’s best chances of eliminating energy poverty is to strategically exploit our abundant natural gas resources instead of exporting and flaring it. Africa had 503.3 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves available to us as of 2017. Natural gas can be used to fuel electricity generation: It’s available; it produces less carbon dioxide emissions than diesel, gasoline or coal; and it’s affordable. In fact its price recently fell to its lowest February level in 20 years. What’s more, natural gas can be integrated with wind and solar power to produce energy that’s both sustainable and reliable.

While gas-to-power will require effort, from the creation of intra-African trade agreements that make natural gas available to countries without it to cooperation from power producers, it represents a very doable way for Africans to resolve one of the continent’s greatest challenges.

With that in mind, this is a horrible time to stop producing and using natural gas in Africa.

African Companies, Monetization and Economic Growth

Phasing out fossil fuels in Africa also would be harmful to the many international and indigenous oil and gas companies that contribute to the continent’s revenues and make a positive social impact here.  I’ve written extensively about companies that do real good for African communities, such as Atlas Oranto Petroleum, Sahara Energy Group, Aiteo,  Seplat, Sonangol, Shoreline Power Company Limited and many, many more. These indigenous companies create jobs for Africans, buy from African suppliers, and do business with other African companies, in addition to their extensive community outreach efforts. We have, and need, foreign companies that do the same—and share their technologies.

And that’s only part of the picture. Africa has not fully capitalized on a game-changing opportunity: monetizing our oil and gas resources. This starts with using oil and gas as a feedstock to create other value-added products. Natural gas, for example, can be used to make liquid transport fuels, base oils, paraffin, and naphtha. The resulting revenues can be used to build infrastructure and diversify economies. This is not an abstract, pie in the sky idea. In Equatorial Guinea, for example, initiatives aimed at monetizing the country’s massive natural gas reserves has led to the creation of new infrastructure. It is helping the government build a natural gas mega hub that could make Equatorial Guinea a major player in the global liquified natural gas market and bring in $2 billion in revenues. There’s no reason that other African countries can’t do the same.

Our Opportunities, Our Timing

I realizing that fully capitalizing on Africa’s oil and gas resources poses significant challenges, but it is doable. Both of my books, Billions at Play and Big Barrels: African Oil and Gas and the Quest for Prosperity, provide practical steps for realizing the African Oil dream. They show there are ways to strategically harness our oil and gas resources, create economic growth and promote stability, the kinds of changes that impact everyday people throughout the continent.

Our view on oil and gas is not about greed or lining the pockets of a select few. If we work to use these resources wisely, they really can power a better future for Africa. And we’re not ready to toss them aside.

NJ Ayuk is Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, CEO of pan-African corporate law conglomerate Centurion Law Group, and the author of several books about the oil and gas industry in Africa, including Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals.