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What else could
anybody expect from a development extravaganza, starting this week and
organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA?

You guessed
correctly – climate change! The forum theme is simple and to the point,
‘Acting on Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa.’
Clearly, African leaders are worried over the disastrous results of the
last Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen, and apprehensive at the
likely outcomes of the next event in Cancun, Mexico this December.

A delegate from the
UK rode with me from the hotel to the conference. At a mild hold-up, he
commented this was ‘like Lagos.’ I asked when his last visit was. He
replied he’d never been there before! The African Development Forum
(ADF) is an initiative led by the Economic Commission for Africa and
supported by a broad range of partners, including the African Union,
UNDP, UNICEF, ILO, UNFPA, the African Development Bank for discussions
of pressing Africa-driven development agenda. It is a process of
initiating dialogue, building consensus, and mobilising partnerships on
emerging issues among Africa’s stakeholders.

However, none of
the rural poor, the most vulnerable to the deleterious impacts of
climate change, is present at this forum in the mean time. Perhaps they
are yet to arrive, and I had better not jump to conclusions. The fact
is that issues of climate change and forest governance are discussed
‘top down,’ and over the heads of the African village communities.
African leaders have simply not learnt how to dialogue with their many
poor citizens.

There are over 1000
participants here, mostly ministers and ministerial assistants, policy
and decision-makers, technocrats and functionaries, the private sector,
press and civil society. The impressive forum exhibition was
coordinated by Yinka Adeyemi, the Economic Commission for Africa
Communication Officer/Exhibition Manager. Wale Adeleke, the World
Conservation Union’s Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and
Degradation, REDD Thematic Coordinator for West and Central Africa
Programme made a typically incisive presentation. At the reception to
the entrance of the Africa Hall, paintings by an Oshogbo artist added
to some pride I felt as a Nigerian.

Poor representation

But back to the
grits of the seventh African Development Forum. I had concentrated my
participation on the first day around the topic ‘Forest Rights and
Climate Change.’ With much candour, agreement or admission of guilt was
rapid among delegates over the fact that Africa had done little
research on climate change issues. As a result, it had been difficult
to speak with one voice in Copenhagen last December. The second point
that reverberated in the hall, as expected, was the question of poor
consultation and involvement of rural people, the difficulties of
knowledge transfer to the masses, and the slow process of
decentralisation of democratic governance.

The third factor
left the male participants in a defensive position. Female delegates
clearly traced the marginalisation of women in the continent’s climate
change initiatives, stressing the fact that African women, by tradition
hardly owned land.

So, queried the delegates from Cameroon and Ghana, of what benefit
was knowledge transfer to the under-empowered and landless. Well, in
response, one East African male delegate contested the issue with
blissful ignorance. In his opinion, differences and confusion existed
between the concepts of land ownership and land management, and that
since women were largely involved in the latter, they could still be
the targets of capacity building and transfer of knowledge on how to
manage land. This thesis had displeased the women present, and
surprised some men as well. No one dared laugh at what was not a
laughing matter.