Ndivhuho Raphulu |
Director of South Africa’s National Cleaner Production Centre, Ndivhuho Raphulu, was elected president of the African Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production (ARSCP) at its recent meeting in Accra, Ghana. In terms of the election, he also serves on the Sustainable Development executive of the African Union. He will represent the ARSCP at the United Nations talks, starting with the Rio+20 summit (the UN Conference on Sustainable Development) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012.
The ARSCP promotes sustainable consumption and production as a way of mitigating climate change and reducing poverty in Africa. “The organisation promotes the development of capacity for the effective implementation of sustainable consumption and production principles in individual member countries and in the region as a whole. It also serves as regional clearing house for these issues,” explains Raphulu. Contributing to the Millennium Development Goals, the ARSCP aims to protect the regional ecosystem, and contribute to the eradication of poverty and environmental sustainability, both globally and in the region.
Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) has been on the international agenda since the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, which among others highlighted unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, and focused on developing national policies and strategies to change these. Poor institutional promotion and a lack of funding have been identified as the main obstacles to widespread implementation of SCP principles in Africa. The mandate of the ARSCP includes addressing these issues.
The ARSCP was endorsed by the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment as its main technical arm and implementer of the African 10-Year Framework of Programmes on SCP, linking SCP with the challenges of meeting basic needs.
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