Introduction
Africa is the world's second largest and most populated continent after Asia. With 1.0 billion people as of 2009 accounting for about 14.72% of the entire human population. Africa suffers from many environmental problems including deforestation, oil pollution, air pollution, and land and water pollution. This issues is as a result of new technologies leading to an increase in solid mineral mining, oil exploration, an increase in the number of plants and factories, and on the whole increase in the application of manufacturing tools. Consequently, the quality and richness of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments have been polluted and has declined. Other factors contributing to Africa’ environmental issues are rapid population growth (2.2 percent annually), energy consumption, overgrazing, over cultivation of lands, and globalization. This region consists mostly of developing countries and over the years, has not been concerned about environmental issues until recently. The major concern of the government for many years has been the provision of basic social amenities to the people and development. Environmental protection was similar to maintenance of natural resources, while industrial pollution control and hazardous waste management were treated as incomprehensible. Even so, environmental problems comprise one of the main challenges on the African continent today. These problems hinder Africa from making progress with regard to economic development because these issues are not fully understood and tackled accordingly. Attention is now progressively shifting from politics, wars, and poverty to how best to handle environmental issues.
Environmental issues - Africa
The impact of environmental decline on...
... middle of paper ...
...ic or social. African government needs to look into what other countries which are developed and have passed through similar problems did in order to tackle its environmental problems. The developed countries such as in Europe and America should be used a benchmark in tackling the highlighted issues. Finally, the environmental issues need regular monitoring, assessments and public reports to the state.
Works Cited
The African society. (2008). Addressing environmental problems in Africa. Available online: www.africansummit.org/publications/environment.pdf
http://www.africasummit.org/publications/Environment.pdf
http://pdf.wri.org/eaa_bruch.pdf
http://www.inece.org/3rdvol1/pdf/adegoro.pdf
http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/pdf-files/vol2num1/korvenoja.pdf
http://www.uneca.org/wssd/env_rprt.pdf
http://www.africa.upeace.org/documents/environment_files.pdf
Against this bleak landscape, it is unsurprising that realising sustainable development continues to date to be a key priority in policy making processes these cases. In Africa, like elsewhere across the global south for instance, economic drivers of development have shaped constitutional reform processes as policy makers ...
Africa is the world’s poorest inhabited continent, with more than one third of its residents living on less than a comparative US dollar per day. Africa is often stereotyped as poor, overpopulated, and uncivilized. Africa is commonly interpreted as one united land mass rather than multiple independent nations. Africa’s limited use of technology, agriculture and market based economy, and independent self-governing prior to independence have made gathering data on the continent difficult. Africa as a whole has little data collected about its past and as a result many studies conducted and published refer to the continent as a whole rather than referring to individual nations.
...e senseless and heartless government, which ruthlessly destroys the peaceful atmosphere in the villages. Africa will only reach its potential when everybody realizes the importance of preserving the cultural traditions.
Nowadays, corporate social responsibility (CSR) becomes an integral part of each company. CSR can be understood as a management concept and a process that links social and environmental issues in business operations to a company’s interactions with it’s stakeholders. CSR not only gives the company a chance to help society but also enhances company’s reputation and investors’ attractiveness. In this paper, we will show a brief description about CSR and effects of CSR on international business, including pros and cons when a company applies the CSR program. Besides that, I give my ideas on conflicts of interest beween shareholders and the company’s managers. And then, advantages and difficulties for companies implementing CSR in Vietnam will be defined. Although CSR was first introduced widely in Vietnam many years, it is still a new concept. Therefore, pioneers in this area are facing lots of challenges in running CSR programs in Vietnam.
Humans have greatly impacted the global environment. Throughout the course of history, human populations have rapidly increased. Especially in Africa, these numbers have reached extraordinary proportions. Out of all the continents in the world, Africa’s population is increasing the most. The type of growth here is exponential. “Overpopulation is a condition when an organisms numbers exceeds the carrying of its ecological niche.” The growth rate of a population is equal to the birth rate minus the death rate. Therefore, for overpopulation to occur, the birth rate must surpass the death rate (Wiley). The current population of Nigeria is estimated to be 155,215,573. Most of the population consists of the younger generation. More specifically, 41% of the population is between the ages of 0-14. 56% of the population is between the ages of 15-64. However, only 3.1% of the population is 65 and over. This age group represents a very small part of the population. (CIA)
1998-1999 World Resources: A Guide to the Global Environment. Environmental Change and Human Health. A Joint Publication by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank, the United Nations Environmental Programme, and the United Nations Development Programme. Oxford University Press, New York, NY 1998.
The problem that was investigated consisted of a question that Milton Friedman posed in one of his articles, which was featured in The New York Times Magazine in 1970. The question was, “What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities” (Friedman, 2007, p. 173)? Friedman (1970) elaborated on how businesses cannot have assigned responsibilities. Furthermore, he described how groups or individuals should be the only ones that can hold responsibilities, not businesses. He stated that associating responsibilities with the word business is too ambiguous. I will examine three discussion questions and three compare and contrast questions which Jennings (2009) posed in a case study that is related to Friedman’s (1970) article “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”.
In the article, The Truth About CSR by Kasturi Rangan, Lisa Chase, and Sohel Karim, the importance that coherence plays in corporate social responsibility (CSR), is emphasized. Throughout the article, corporate social responsibility application, within corporations, is broken down into three theaters. According to the article, many corporations do not focus on their CSR programs, and usually see these CSR actions as a secondary responsibility following the responsibility they hold towards their shareholders. It is argued in the article that in CSR is a key and essential block for corporate success, focusing on CSR coherence throughout all three theaters will bring positive results along the way, possibly making the corporation
Economic growth and social development are complementary and they have a close but complex relationship. With the economic growth, it is clear that there are many environmental concerns in today’s society. Air, water, and land pollution have worsened; the environment of wild animals and plants has been seriously damaged; many species are threatened with extinction, deforestation and over-exploitation of mineral resources.
In Africa, one important feature of the urbanization process is that a lot of the growth is taking place in the industrial increase. Urbanization also finds expression in external expansion of the built-up area and the changing of prime agricultural lands into residential and industrial uses (Saundry, 2008). An alternate to the present expansion of the urban population across a wide area of the country in order to save crucial land for agriculture is to construct high-rise buildings and support commercial development in specific zones, which would depend on efficiency, and the right technology and resources (Hanson, 2011). In Africa, the urbanization processes are largely driven by market forces and government policies. This will lead to methods at the same time of change in incomes, land use, health and natural resources management including water, soil and forests and often reactive changes in local governments (The Economist, 2010). So this is saying that government development policies and budget divisions, in which urban residents are often favorites over rural areas and will tend to pull more people into the urban areas. I...
There is no doubt that European colonialism has left a grave impact on Africa. Many of Africa’s current and recent issues can trace their roots back to the poor decisions made during the European colonial era. Some good has resulted however, like modern medicine, education, and infrastructure. Africa’s history and culture have also been transformed. It will take many years for the scars left by colonization to fade, but some things may never truly disappear. The fate of the continent may be unclear, but its past provides us with information on why the present is the way it is.
While the concept of an individual having responsibility is commonly recognized, modern views have lead to the emerging issue of corporate responsibility. Business Directory.com defines corporate social responsibility as, “A company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship (1) through their waste and pollution reduction processes, (2) by contributing educational and social programs, and (3) by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.” But such a concept has been much disputed since at least the 1970’s.
This is mainly due to mining in the country. The heavy reliance on coal mines to supply 80% of the energy in South Africa causes pollution and allows toxic chemicals to leech into the surrounding land and water bodies. Poor spatial planning of human settlements, sanitation and waste management systems, storm water management, and fall in life expectancy in the past few years have also contributed to South Africa’s low long-term sustainability and high greenhouse gas emission.
The environment today is not in a good condition, Climate change is evident, and oceans are getting polluted. Rainforrest's are decreasing in size due to deforestation and illegal logging. Animals are getting extinct due to the destruction of their habitats. Natural resources are being consumed at very large amounts, and get wasted. There are different ways these problems can be addressed, one option is environmental management. Environmental management focuses on conservation of natural resources, protection of habitats, and impact of humans on the environment. Conservation of natural resources is the smart use of the world's resources by humans, through this waste production is limited, and there will be less garbage in the world. By conserving
middle of paper ... ... Retrieved December 2, 2009, from CICERO: Center for International Climate and Environmental Research: www.cicero.vio.no. Juma, C. (2009, September 15). Climate Change in Africa. Retrieved December 1, 2009, from The World Bank Blog: http://blogs.worldbank.org.