The Greening of African Technology

Graca Machel

Technological innovation offers Africa huge possibilities. That is why I joined Africa’s movers and shakers last week at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. We were there to discuss how the digital economy can propel the kind of radical change the continent needs.

At the same time, though, we had to think about some old tools that our ancestors passed down to us – namely, how to think for the long term and how to work together. These tools are a form of technology that we need to use now, so that future generations have a chance.

Climate change is the ultimate test of whether we can use the old and new technologies to safeguard our children’s future.
Africans must take decisive action to combat the threat of global warming, by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and by helping one another to adapt to climate change. If we fail to make progress in these areas now, future generations will judge our inaction as expensive, unjust, and immoral.

Africa is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change. Yet it accounts for only 2.3% of global CO2 emissions. That is partly because two-thirds of Africans – 621 million people – do not have access to electricity.

To meet the double challenge of climate change and this energy deficit, African countries need to help themselves and one another. Developed countries – the major contributors to global warming – must live up to the promises they made at the COP21 climate talks in Paris last December.

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