September 6, 2023
Nairobi, Kenya
4.30pm EAT
Statement on the Nairobi declaration, by Fadhel Kaboub (full bio below).
As an African economist, attending the first Africa Climate Summit on African soil, I had high expectations, but unfortunately the Nairobi declaration leaves much to be desired.
I was hoping that our leaders would advance a bold, transformative, coherent and comprehensive vision on climate and development for Africa.
While external debt is a serious problem that limits our economic and monetary sovereignty and reduces the fiscal policy space to act on climate and to invest in national priorities, it is important to recognize that external debt is a symptom of much deeper structural deficiencies: food deficits, energy deficits, and low value-added manufacturing.
The economic transformation that our leaders needed to rally behind cannot ignore the importance of food sovereignty (not just food security) andagroecology, renewable energy sovereignty, and pan-Africain high value-added industrialization.
This was a missed opportunity to harmonize our climate, energy, adaptation and development strategies.
Instead, we find false solutions proposed in the Nairobi declaration like carbon markets, which simply amount to cheap pollution permits for Global North historic polluters who can pass on the cost of the permits to their customers (many of whom are in the Slobal South), displace farmers and indigenous communities, enrich speculators and middlemen, and continue polluting while offering crumbs as climate finance.
I expected our leaders to state the facts. Africa is owed a climate debt by the historic polluters. Climate reparations must be delivered in the form of debt cancelation (not debt restructuring), transfer of technology (not impoted green tech), grants (not loans) for adaptation and economic resilience, and transformation of the global trade, finance and investment architecture.
It is disappointing to see the wide ambitions gap between the official “Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change” and the “Nairobi Africa Climate People’s declaration on Climate and Development”.
The message to our leaders is very clear. African civil society is informed, organized, mobilized and united on climate and development goals. We want this inaugural Africa Climate Summit to be the starting point of engaging our leaders in a sustained pan-Africain dialogue to unite Africans from the grassroots to the top of the political hierarchy so we can go to COP meetings and other international fora with one coherent, comprehensive, uncompromising vision for just, equitable, and sustainable prosperity for all Africans.
Fadhel Kaboub is a Tunisian economist based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is an Associate Professor of economics at Denison University (Ohio, USA), and the president of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He has recently served as Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development at the Organisation of Southern Cooperation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Dr. Kaboub is an expert on designing public policies to enhance monetary and economic sovereignty in the Global South, build resilience, and promote equitable and sustainable prosperity. His recent work focuses on Just Transition, Climate Finance, and transforming the global trade, finance, and investment architecture. His most recent co-authored publication is Just Transition: A Climate, Energy, and Development Vision for Africa (2023), published by an independent expert group. He has held a number of research affiliations with the Levy Economics Institute (NY), the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (MA), the Economic Research Forum (Cairo), Power Shift Africa (Nairobi), and the Center for Strategic Studies on the Maghreb (Tunis). You can follow him on Twitter @FadhelKaboub and can reach him via email kaboubf@denison.edu
PHwakawaka 