Demographic growth, industrialisation and the increase of demand resulting from higher living standards is exerting growing pressure on the world’s natural resources. The effects of climate change are also showing their first impacts on some of the regions of the world that are least equipped to manage them. How can these pressures be handled on the long run? What role can public policies play to tackle this rising challenge?

On the occasion of the 6th AFD/EUDN conference on “Population and natural resources: managing pressure”, I evoke in this brief video clip the dual challenge of mounting environmental pressure and demographic explosion in Sub-Saharan Africa – that I think has not sufficiently made its way at the front of the development community’s preoccupations. I also attach some of my recent publications on these two topics, as well as a recent study on the trends of African demographics. I am looking forward to reading your thoughts and experiences on this crucial issue.

Jean-Michel

Strategies to fight climate change
Article de Jean-Michel Severino, paru dans The Economist Times le 9 septembre 2008

Africa and its demographic challenges: an uncertain future, under the direction of Benoît Ferry) Karthala, CEPED, AFD, Paris, 2007

Articles in French :

Les hommes inégaux devant le réchauffement climatique
Article from Jean-Michel Severino, published in Métro December 12th, 2007

Préparons-nous à la métamorphose de l’Afrique
Column from Jean-Michel Severino published in Le Monde de l’Economie September 4th, 2007

Garantir l’eau pour tous, c’est protéger la paix
Op-ed from Jean-Michel Severino and Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, published in Le Figaro June 22nd, 2007

Se préparer aux nouveaux défis démographiques
Article from Jean-Michel Severino appeared in Le Monde de l’Economie March 13th, 2007

Retranscription
“Climate change is obviously, even among the environmental agenda, an issue which is underestimated because in a cross-cutting way it is going to change deeply the physical environment in which countries and poor countries will have to evolve. It is even very difficult to identify what type of problems those countries are going to be challenged with, and even more complicated to understand and describe what type of policies will have to be followed.
Development challenges are also specific to each and every part of the world. When it comes to Africa, which is probably the most challenging item in the hands of the international community, the way this continent’s population is growing is probably also deeply underestimated. Africa is going to grow from around 600 million people today to 1.2 billion people within 20 years. This huge and unprecedented increase in size of its population is creating a huge array of problems that are hardly identified as well. The way migration, equipment, politics are going to play into this movement is probably one of the most important, if not the most important challenge the international community, and Africans themselves, are going to be faced with.”