A letter … to African Leaders

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Like diamonds in the past, do not throw our lands at strangers before we find their true value.

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Dear African Leaders,

Resources are not, they become and if you do not act immediately, we would lose, land – our next big resource before we realise its value.

You have already pledged 113 million ha of land towards restoration under the AFR100 initiative. This is independent of several million of hectares already under the control of  foreign investors in Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania to name a few. You do this in the name of attracting investments to create jobs and mitigate climate change. But before you proceed to accept funding proposals, mainly from the global North and far East, to develop the lands that you have promised, if I may, could you pause to consider the following?

Your commitment to climate change action is admirable if not enviable because the sustenance of the human race is dependent on how we deal with climate change. However, our quest save humanity should not let us lose focus of our mission to build the Africa we want.

Scientific evidence shows that we are but a small contributor of global emissions and by extension climate. Nonetheless, our geographic positioning makes a cornerstone in the quest to tackle it. We have fertile land, forests and year-round sunshine to support plant growth. In bioeconomy era, this means clean energy and an immense opportunity sequester the now dreaded CO₂. This makes us indispensable in the world´s commitment to climate action.

It is true that we remain the most vulnerable and least prepared continent to deal with the impacts of climate change. Notwithstanding, our indispensability in the fight against this global menace presents us with the opportunity to leverage investments from the rest of the world to catch up on economic development, an area where we remain light years behind.

This might seem easy but it is not. This, however, makes it even more suited for the offices you hold. For you have been elected not to address easy but complex, complicated and wicked problems. You need to be thoroughly prepared because the rest of the world have outsmarted us for years and they seem to be at it again. Do not fail us by letting this happen. Never again.

Please do not repeat the mistakes many of your predecessors made in negotiating bad deals for the development of oil, gas and other mineral resources. You would agree with me that oil and minerals extraction in countries like Nigeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea have done little to our ‘Africa we want’ agenda. Rather, such wealth continue enrich a few greedy ones amongst you and predominantly foreigner.

I guess it is a good thing that oil belongs to the past. Renewable energy is our common future. You, therefore, need to tap into the potential our lands offer in the emerging bioeconomy for our economic liberation. Without it, we will remain poor beggars who take anything that other throw at us.

First, you need to invest in research to re-value our lands to reflect their ´space value´. In a climate change era, the value of land is not only shaped by its mineral richness, biodiversity, water and soil fertility but also, how much sunshine it receives and the labour opportunities available to transform this into clean energy and biomass to feed the emerging bioeconomy. May I call this value, which encompasses all these attributes and more, ´space value´. Before going into any meaningful transactions on our land pledges towards landscape restoration, we must make it a point to know this ´space value´.

Beyond this, we must ensure that investments solicited under AFR100 enriches our space value and the people around it. Current approaches where our land: 1) deals are negotiated with no transparency and citizen participation; 2) is used for monoculture forest plantations are established; and 3) is used to provide our people short-term and low-income employment only deepen economic inequalities, reduce our space value and the dignity of our folks. You cannot allow that to continue. You need to invest in and develop our own human resources to engage in and benefit from the emerging bioeconomy.

Our ancestors, not knowing the value of diamonds, made a great mistake in the past when they threw them at strangers. Before they realized its value, they had been enslaved. But in their wisdom, they told us that “He who has been bitten by a snake fears the worm”. At present, you have abandoned this wisdom and are increasingly taking delight in becoming friends with perhaps, the biggest of all snakes. You do not owe the world or any country our lands. The only people you owe is the next generation Africans. So on behalf of this generation, I humbly ask, do not give out our lands out before we find its space value.

With much concern,
Eric Mensah Kumeh

Sustainable Development Goals addressed in this article