UN pledges to help Africa embrace green industrialization

NAIROBI, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Saturday pledged to help African countries embrace green industrialization pathways.

Fatima Denton, Director of Special Initiatives Division at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), told a science forum in Nairobi that many African countries are looking towards structural transformation through industrialization.

"We are therefore working with a number of African countries to support them to identify how to tap the huge opportunities of green industrialization," Dento said during the UN Global Science Policy Forum on the environment.

The ultimate objective of green industrialization is to create non-fossil based economies.

The UN body will provide technical support and advisory capacity services to enable African states to move towards a low carbon development pathway.

"We will help them in developing polices and activities that they can implement on the ground in terms of green industrialization," said Denton.

She also emphasized the need for the continent to move towards green industrialization because the region is experiencing mega trends such as rising middle class and urbanization rates which are associated with growing levels of pollution.

The UNECA official noted that Africa is very much dependent on natural resources which are currently extracted and exported in raw form.

"Part of the green industrialization initiative will be to push for industries to conduct value addition locally in manner that is friendly to the environment," she added.

The director urged Africa to think of how to achieve development differently given that the continent is hardest hit by climate change.

The sectors that are likely to benefit from green industrialization include the energy, manufacturing and waste industries.

Denton noted that Africa needs to decouple economic growth from fossil fuel use in order to reduce the amount of wastage of resources.

She said that an advantage of green industrialization is that Africa can leverage on nascent industries to create jobs and generate a cleaner and safer future. Enditem