Figure 9: Diagnosis of the green economy in Gabon
9. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The development process for a green economy is both a necessity and an opportunity for the struc-tural transformation of Gabon. The country must adapt to inevitable change and contribute to the mitigation of the emerging risks. This involves ca-pacity building of adaptation to climate change and the search for sustainable solutions to fulfil food security, employment, water, sanitation and energy needs. It also offers the country the op-portunity to make wise choices in a development process enabling advances to be made towards more effective technologies.
Gabon also has the potential to benefit from ef-fective management of goods and services pro-vided by the ecosystems. The latter are assuming increasing importance globally in such areas as the protection of carbon stocks and biodiversity.
The first experiences resulting from the pilot ac-tivities demonstrate that the transition towards green growth requires a high level of commit-ment and political support, laying the emphasis on integrated intersectoral activities and on a results-based approach rather than on solutions based on isolated projects. Green growth is an iter-ative process. It takes into account the sustainable and effective use of resources, waste reduction, pollution and the promotion of resilience, actions already incorporated into the national legislation which will help to optimize the quality of growth.
Priority efforts will need to be focused on the im-provement of diagnostics and technological and institutional capacities that can help the country to identify development paths capable of foster-ing inclusive green growth. In this context op-portunities exist to strengthen the exchange of knowledge about the initial lessons learned and to develop partnerships which would enable and promote coordinated action.
With respect to the analysis carried out in this re-port, we would like to make the following recom-mendations:
1. To strengthen the structures of governance at the highest level of the administration, with a view to fostering the transparency and ef-fectiveness of the institutions because the implementation of the green economy and structural transformation policies requires a supervisory framework provided by reliable institutions equipped with skills and knowl-edge that can guide the green economy more firmly towards structural transformation.
In other words, it is necessary to train human resources, build physical, financial and judicial capacities and strengthen effectiveness and transparency in the management of public assets and finances to combat corruption to instil this dynamic into governance.
2. To take specific measures, such as strengthen-ing the capacities of the monitorstrengthen-ing agencies to increase institutional capacity. In order to do this, the objective of green growth must be incorporated into public action processes, which would help to make all the monitoring agencies effective by providing them with substantial technological, financial and hu-man resources.
3. To accelerate the updating of infrastructures and logistical services, such as roads, agricul-tural tracks, healthcare facilities, etc. so that green economy activities can be conducted with the goal of locally processing the prod-ucts of these activities.
4. To put in place a legal framework of the reg-ulations expected to be conducive to private investment. The structural transformation of a country’s economy is achieved through the dominance of the private sector.
Conse-quently, the Government is called upon to put in place a legal system able to facilitate the creation of private enterprise in every sec-tor of the country’s activities. This will provide incentives for national entrepreneurship and foster private initiative. Consequently, there is a need not only to attract foreign investors, but also to enable their appropriation by Gab-onese nationals.
5. To give priority to the development of tech-nological and entrepreneurial skills through training in the green economy and structur-al transformation spheres. The training sys-tem for integration and rehabilitation must include upgrading human resources in the areas of green economy and structural trans-formation.
6. To improve the implementation of policies at the local level by incorporating the concerns of vulnerable populations and by taking ac-count of the objectives of creating a green economy and structural transformation. Vul-nerable populations, which are often the most impoverished, are entitled to express their concerns when it comes to the formu-lation and implementation of local develop-ment policies and must therefore participate in them to ensure that the desired outcomes are effectively achieved.
7. To consolidate achievements in macroeco-nomic stabilization by pursuing monetary and budgetary policies which include the sustainable management of natural resourc-es. This must be underpinned by the current construction and implementation of environ-mental accounting in Gabon.
8. To boost the sustainable exploitation of soft-woods and their derivatives. This is a growth market which includes upstream activities of sustainable management and facilitates local processing. It is a process which ranges from the sustainable management of the timber concessions to the development of
second-ary products from softwoods (biomass, saw-dust and shavings from factory timber, etc.).
9. To strengthen the exploitation of non-timber forest products which help to create new eco-nomic sectors that incorporate sustainable development free of carbon emissions and processing of the products. Non-timber for-est products provide an opportunity to break down national production into the food pro-cessing, cosmetic, plant protection products and arts and crafts sectors.
10. To develop bio-ecoconstruction in terms of sustainable urban areas through houses built using local materials. Building involves a structural transformation which should help to reduce the negative impacts on the environment through bio-design. This also involves implementing high environmental quality targets (HEQ) and promoting the use of local resources for a decent and sustainable habitat.
11. To develop agroforestry and reforestation to perpetuate the country’s timber resources and to continue the local processing that has been initiated. This is a new approach being implemented in Gabon for the sustainable development of the forest massifs given over to exploitation. It links enriching the degrad-ed areas to indigenous sedegrad-eds, enhancing the natural tree populations, monitoring regener-ation, creating seedling nurseries and select-ing seedlselect-ings.
12. To develop ecotourism and the economy of the protected areas. One of the key sectors of the Gabonese economic diversification poli-cy, ecotourism provides green jobs and is also a factor in economic transformation. With the potential offered by 13 national parks which occupy 11 per cent of the national territory, about 3 million hectares, ecotourism activities can be developed in the lush and beautiful landscapes which offer diversified forest eco-systems and varied aquatic ecoeco-systems which
can provide value added services in the coun-try’s production.
13. To promote the development of waste recov-ery and sanitation. Many materials can be re-cycled in various ways at the end of their life.
There are two major forms of recycling: ma-terial recovery which consists of recycling the product and energy recovery which allows the energy to be released (heat, electricity) from a form of waste. Organic waste can be methanized to produce clean electricity, while metallic waste can be recycled in the produc-tion of the ferro-alloy needed for industrial ac-tivities to prevent the opening of new quar-ries which damage the environment. Further-more, there can be no sanitation unless the towns have a collection network for domestic wastewater and rain water linked to a waste-water treatment centre. Promoting sanitation means installing this technology, regardless of the expense involved.
14. To promote renewable energies at a greater level. This means developing clean energy sources with the country’s available resourc-es, especially hydroelectricity, because Gabon has a vast hydrographic network of over 1 million hectares. Solar power also represents one of the country’s areas of great potential as it has a hot, wet equatorial climate, condu-cive to the use of the sun’s rays and electricity production. In the oil sector, a flared gas re-covery system has been established in one of the companies operating in the sector out of
a concern to integrate sustainability into the country’s economic activities. This recovered carbon is now used to feed a power plant in Libreville, which allows a 30 per cent reduc-tion of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the factory’s activity. This process needs to come into general use in all the fossil fuel production companies.
15. In ensuring the transformation of these ac-tivity sectors, policies must be based on ap-propriate technologies. In fact, many different technologies are needed to ensure the tran-sition to the inclusive green economy and structural transformation in Gabon. They are used in the activity sectors such as agricul-ture, energy, industry, exploitation of natu-ral resources, etc. which are the levers of the country’s economy. The traditional farming system in Central Africa as a whole and in Gabon in particular is geared towards subsist-ence or small-scale trade in agricultural prod-ucts and does not allow the development of a capacity for resilience to climate change. If sustainable structural transformation in Ga-bon is to be truly promoted, it is necessary both to increase agricultural productivity and to promote environmentally sound farming practices. Using revenue generated by the oil, mining and other extractive sectors, the Gov-ernment should subsidize access to technolo-gies so as to strengthen productivity and fos-ter the sustainable management of land and natural resources in general of the country’s ecosystems.
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