The millennium development goals (MDG's) and national and international policy reform : realising the right to a healthy environment in Africa

Abstract

Africa is a continent characterised by deepening environmental degradation and increasing loss of natural resources. This has had an adverse effect on human health and well-being in the region. Environmental degradation has also made it impossible for average Africans to enjoy the human right to environment guaranteed under the continent-wide African Charter, and the constitutions and laws of most African nations. Several factors are responsible for perpetuating this state of affairs, namely poverty, lack of political will to enforce or adopt environmental regulations, and weak institutional capacity. An opportunity to reverse this trend has been offered by the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by all United Nations member States in 2000. The MDGs are eight developmental goals with time-bound targets. However, the MDGs are not legally binding despite their global adoption. Despite this inherent legal weakness, the MDGs still have important normative value as they provided a framework for holding governments accountable to their millennium anti-poverty commitments vis-à-vis instituting sound socio-economic reform and strengthening good governance. This thesis proposes that the role of the MDGs in guiding or stimulating national and international policy reform towards the realisation of the right to environment in Africa is, as a framework of accountability, they can be used to promote good governance and socio-economic reform, two ingredients that are essential to creating the enabling environment for implementing the right to environment in Africa. This thesis is therefore an in-depth analysis of this role. The purpose of this analysis is sixfold. First, to provide an overview of the concepts as well as the research methodology used in this study; second, to determine whether there is an established human right to environment in Africa; third, to analyse the extent to which the right has been realised as well as the factors responsible for the non-realisation; fourth, to discuss the relationship between the achievement of the MDGs and realisation of the right in Africa; fifth, to analyse how the MDGs can guide or stimulate policy reform towards the realisation of the right; and sixth, to analyse the major policies adopted for the achievement of the MDGs in Africa to ascertain how they would contribute to the realisation of the right to environment in the region.