East African Business Week

With half of Africa's forests and water resources and trillion-dollar mineral reserves, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could become a powerhouse of African development.
This could be if multiple pressures on its natural resources are urgently addressed, a post-conflict Environmental Assessment of the DRC by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released Monday shows.
However, the study warns of alarming trends including increased deforestation, species depletion, heavy metal pollution and land degradation from mining, as well as an acute drinking water crisis which has left an estimated 51 million Congolese without access to potable water.
The outcomes of the two-year assessment was released in Kinshasa, by UNEP's Executive Director Achim Steiner, and the DRC's Environment Minister José Endundo.
Conducted in conjunction with the DRC's Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism, the assessment highlights successful initiatives and identifies strategic opportunities to restore livelihoods, promote good governance and support the sustainability of the DRC's post-conflict economic reconstruction, and reinforce ongoing peace consolidation.
The good news is that most of the DRC's environmental degradation is not irreversible and there has been substantial progress in strengthening environmental governance.
For example, through steps such as regular anti-poaching patrols, the Congolese Wildlife Authority has secured the Virunga National Park, which at the peak of the DRC's crisis was losing the equivalent of 89 hectares of forest each day due to illegal fuelwood harvesting.
However, the country's rapidly growing population of nearly 70 million people - most of whom directly depend on natural resources for their survival - and intense international competition for raw materials are adding to the multiple pressures on the DRC's natural resource base.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said the assessment highlights strategic opportunities that can support the sustainability of the DRC's post-conflict economic reconstruction and serve to accelerate peace consolidation efforts.
"This assessment confirms the DRC's unique endowment of natural resources and how they can contribute to sustainable economic growth, but also reveals the legacy of using these resources in fuelling much of the conflict and human tragedy that has plagued its people for too long," he said.
"It is UNEP's hope the assessment's outcomes will galvanize action and greater support from the international community and help set the nation on a more sustainable course, capitalizing on the opportunities offered by a green economy in the DRC," the UNEP Executive Director said.
The assessment aims to support the creation of enabling conditions for a transition to a 'green economy' in the DRC and promote a fundamental rethinking of the country's 'frontier' approach to the use of its natural resources.
Speaking at the launch, the Environment Minister, Mr José Endundo, said the government welcomed the assessment which sheds light on important issues and opportunities, including the potential of the carbon market and ecotourism as sources of large-scale financing.
"We know from this two-year joint study that the DRC's vast mineral reserves are again the object of intense foreign competition and that this is placing great pressures on our forests, wildlife and water resources," Endundo said.
"The REDD+ scheme in which the DRC is already engaged could potentially generate the necessary funding to address a wide range of development and environment challenges and we look to such mechanisms to support a sustainable recovery in the DRC," the Minister said.
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