Abstract
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), occupying a centre stage in the post-2015 development paradigms, raise important questions about how African development priorities and needs are situated within broader global agendas, and the impacts these agendas have on the well-being of people living on the continent. The aim of this chapter is to contribute to discussions and debates on the intersection between the SDGs and African development in the twenty-first century. African development has been a subject of scholarly debates and policy interventions by state and non-state actors for many years. Our intention in this chapter is to discuss African development in the context of the SDGs and through five themes relevant to this volume. The first theme tackles the question whether the SDGs compete with or compliment other development agendas on the continent. The second theme places the SDGs within the political economy of Africa’s natural resources to argue that Africa’s resources remain crucial for the global capitalist economy, and that this limits the promise of transforming the continent through the SDGs. The third theme draws the links between higher education institutions, networks, and African development, and also teases out the identity and developmental roles of African universities. While SDGs offer many opportunities for African development they also come with their own constraints. We explore these opportunities and constraints in theme four. The last theme, on climate–human–ecosystem interactions, draws attention to changing human–environment relations and their implications for global environmental solutions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
A phrase used by a member of the audience at a public forum on ‘Africa and Sustainable Development Agendas’ at the University of Western Australia on Africa Day, 25 May 2018.
- 2.
Some of these universities also played the role of creating the African intelligentsia, who contributed to liberation struggles in the continent.
References
Acemoglu D, Robinson JA (2012) Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity and poverty. Profile Books, London
African Union (2013) 50th anniversary solemn declaration. African Union, Addis Ababa
African Union (2015) First ten-year implementation plan 2014–2023. African Union, Addis Ababa
Angus I (2016) Facing the Anthropocene: fossil capitalism and the crisis of the earth system. NYU Press, New York
Belay A, Recha JW, Woldeamanuel T, Morton JF (2017) Smallholder farmers’ adaptation to climate change and determinants of their adaptation decisions in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia. Agric Food Secur 6(1):24
Besada H, Xu J, Mathers A, Carey R (2017) Advancing African agency in the new 2030 transformative development agenda. Afr Geogr Rev 36(1):19–44
Bond P (ed) (2002) Unsustainable South Africa: environment, development and social protest. University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
Carin, B. (2014). The African Union and the post-2015 development agenda. Policy Brief 45 (July)
Centeno MA, Kohli A, Yashar DJ, Mistree D (eds) (2017) States in the developing world. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Crona BI, Basurto X, Squires D, Gelcich S, Daw TM, Khan A, Havice E, Chomo V, Troell M, Buchary EA, Allison EH (2016) Towards a typology of interactions between small-scale fisheries and global seafood trade. Marine Policy 65:1–10
Dlamini-Zuma N (2014) Common African position on post-2015 development agenda. African Union, Addis Ababa
Dodds F, David Nonoghue D, Roesch JL (2017) Negotiating the sustainable development goals: a transformational agenda for an insecure world. Routledge, London
Edwards DP, Sloan S, Weng L, Dirks P, Sayer J, Laurance WF (2014) Mining and the African environment. Conservation Letters 7(3):302–311
Field CB (ed) (2014) Climate change 2014–impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: regional aspects. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Hajer M, Nilsson M, Raworth K, Bakker P, Berkhout F, de Boer Y, Rockström J, Ludwig K, Kok M (2015) Sustainability 7(2):1651–1660
Hassan M (2001) Transition to sustainability in the twenty-first century: the contribution of science and technology—report of the world conference of scientific academies held in Tokyo, Japan, 15–18 May 2000. Int J Sustain High Educ 2(1):70–78
Harris Z, Moynahan H, Vickery H, Henriksen H, Morello E, Kasemir B (2017) Higher education strategic planning for sustainable development: a global perspective. In: Leal Filho W, Azeiteiro U, Alves F, Molthan-Hill P (eds) Handbook of theory and practice of sustainable development in higher education. Springer, Cham, pp 153–164
Hsu A, Moffat AS, Weinfurter AJ, Schwartz JD (2015) Towards a new climate diplomacy. Nat Clim Change 5:501–503
Huckle J, Wals AEJ (2015) The UN decade of education for sustainable development: business as usual in the end. Environ Educ Res 21(3):491–505
Juma, C. (2005). We need to reinvent the African university. SciDev.Net (14 June)
Kanie N, Bernstein S, Biermann F, Haas PM (2017) Introduction: Global governance through goal setting. In: Kanie N, Biermann F (eds) Governing through goals: sustainable development goals as governance innovation. MIT Press, Cambridge MA
Kepe T (2018) Meanings, alliances and the state in tensions over land rights and conservation in South Africa. In: Mollett S, Kepe T (eds) Land rights, biodiversity conservation and justice: rethinking parks and people. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 17–30
Ki-Zerbo J (1990) Educate or perish: Africa’s impasse and prospects. UNESCO, Dakar
Makgoba MW (2005) The African university: Meaning, penalties & responsibilities. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Mamdani M (2018) London Review of Books 40(14):29–32
McArthur JW (2014) The origins of the millennium development goals. SAIS Review (Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies) 34(2):5–24
Mkandawire T (2001) Thinking about developmental states in Africa. Camb J Econ 25(3):289–313
Nkoane MM (2006) The Africanisation of the university in Africa. Alternation 13(1):49–69
Osaghae EE (1995) The Ogoni uprising: oil politics, minority agitation and the future of the Nigerian state. Afr Aff 94(376):325–344
O’Riordan A, Stulgaitis M (2017) South Africa as donor and Southern Africa: the sustainable development goals (SDGs), emerging foreign policy and development themes in the post-Cotonou context. Transformation 92:84–110
Osborn D, Cutter A, Ullah F (2015) Universal sustainable development goals: a report of a study by stakeholder forum. Stakeholder Forum, Lund
Porter D, Watts M (2017) Righting the resource curse: institutional politics and state capabilities in Edo state, Nigeria. J Dev Stud 53(2):249–263
Puplampu KP, Hanson KT, Shaw TM (2017) From MDGs to SDGs: African development challenges and prospects. In: Hanson KT, Puplampu KP, Shaw TM (eds) From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals: Rethinking African development. Routledge, London, pp 1–10
Ramutsindela M, Miescher G, Boehi M (eds) (2016) The politics of nature and science in Southern Africa. Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel
Schwarzenbach RP, Egli T, Hofstetter TB, von Gunten U, Wehrli B (2010) Global water pollution and human health. Ann Rev Environ Resour 35:109–136
Shettina K (2016) Achieving the sustainable development goals in Africa: call for paradigm shift. Afr J Reprod Health 20(3):19–21
United Nations (2018) The sustainable development goals report. United Nations, New York
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2005) A decade of education for sustainable development. UNESCO, Paris
Valensisi G, Karingi S (2017) From global goals to regional strategies: towards an African approach to SDGs. Afr Geogr Rev 36(1):45–60
Waas T, Verbruggen A, Wright T (2010) University research for sustainable development: definition and characteristics explored. J Clean Prod 18:629–636
Wakenge CI, Dijkzeul D, Vlassenroot K (2018) Regulating the old game of smuggling? Coltan mining, trade and reforms in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. J Mod Afr Stud 56(3):497–522
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ramutsindela, M., Mickler, D. (2020). Global Goals and African Development. In: Ramutsindela, M., Mickler, D. (eds) Africa and the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14857-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14857-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14856-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14857-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)