The Uptake of Cleaner Production in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

One factor for focusing on cleaner production practices in Africa is the possibility of building in environmental matters in Africa’s quest to industrialise. In comparison to the industrialised countries, the industrialising countries of Africa can be seen as ‘a green field economic space’. The condition for setting up cleaner production centres to help design and plan both an environmentally and economically sound industrial systems is open in Africa. The fact that Africa has no locked up industrial system is a plus in the sense that it does not have to pay the huge costs to readjust and retool massive industrial structures built over many years. It is possible that national environmental laws could enforce the requisite regulatory regime to combine environmental planning with a wealth-creation planning in Africa’s relatively more agrarian setting than in industrialised countries.

The author is currently a visiting research professor at Aalborg University. Acknowledgements: thanks to DFID for financial support to carry out the research for this article.