Egypt COP27: Africans, What Will Your Future Look Like If the Climate Crisis Continues?
This Letter From The Future Visualizes Africa's Fate in a Future Ravaged by Climate Change
Hello rafiki 😊
Welcome to the Not an Afterthought Newsletter. We lead the conversation on how to accelerate Africa’s socio-economic development with a particular emphasis on the role technology will play in fueling economic growth that will make Africa not an afterthought!
Dear Africans,
If you are reading this now, you are approaching the latter days of 2022.
The horn of Africa is suffering the worst drought yet, expected to affect 36.1 million people.
Chad has declared a state of emergency over flooding that’s affected over 1 million Chadians.
Zimbabwe is moving over 2500 animals to a southern reserve to rescue them from the wreckage of climate change.
Even more terrifying, a Sydney-based think tank, the Institute for Economics and Peace, has declared that much of Sub-Saharan Africa will be unsustainable come 2050. Ecological threats and high air pollution are some of the causes listed in the report.
Good news! The total environmental collapse did not happen by 2050. Bad news? Climate change succeeded in ravaging the world, and yes, Africa was the first worst hit.
How do I know this?
I'm writing to you from the Russian colony on Mars.
No, I am not Russian. My blood bleeds black, red and green 🇰🇪, but Russia was one of the seven regions with spaceflight capability to offer African countries four spots each on their spaceships (please don’t ask how they decided on four spots, nobody knows).
Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Niger, Chad, Botswana, Liberia and Lesotho are here, but the others are split among the other six regions—the U.S., E.U., China, India and UAE.
As you can imagine, it is not pretty. Not the planet—Mars is as fine as a new planet can be. That out of more than 1.3 billion Africans, only 224 made it to Mars.
By making it, I mean barely because these seven countries prioritized their citizens, as they had every right to do.
Unfortunately, no one was available to prioritize Africans. ‘Why?’ you might ask. Well, the continent had no functioning space program by the time the world ended.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. An Outer Space Strategy was one of Agenda 2063’s flagship projects. To facilitate it, the African Union developed a Space Policy in 2017.
The policy’s primary goal was to formalize Africa's space program by bringing together all the fragmented space initiatives from the different countries to create a synergized complementary program that would make Africa a global space player.
Sadly, the countries in question did not heed the AU’s call for unity until the end.
When climate extremes became unbearable and West Africa, which had earlier been identified as a climate change hotspot, became uninhabitable, some countries attempted to consolidate their efforts.
It was too little too late! These countries had taken too long to start working together, and there was no amount of cooperation to get a spacecraft working in time.
Do you know what hurts the most? The continent had a chance to turn things around, and it did not maximize the opportunity.
Two pivotal things happened in 2022.
On 4th September 2022, the Guardian ran a piece by Douglas Rushkoff about the super-rich who were planning to save themselves from the apocalypse.
The author, a humanist who explored the impact of digital technology on everyday life, was invited by five billionaires to a remote place for advice on how to survive the apocalyptic event that would inevitably destroy the world.
These billionaires scoffed and rolled their eyes when Douglas Rushkoff argued that solidarity and partnership were the best solutions to the world's collective challenges.
Instead, they were determined to focus their efforts on building doomsday bunkers and wanted advice on how to guarantee the loyalty of the guards or people they would bring to a bunker.
On 27th July 2022, the African Union selected Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Tunisia, Egypt and Mauritius to champion the pilot phase of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
The A.U. was forced to find champions and launch a pilot phase because no country had taken the initiative two years after it became lawful for African countries to start trading under AfCFTA.
These two things—the Guardian article and AfCFTA pilot phase—might sound innocuous, non-issues even, but my bird's-eye view from the future tells me that was the moment!
The critical moment the continent could have changed its odds of survival by realizing two essential things:
No one would go out of their way to save Africans except Africans. As the five billionaires had proven, it would be every human for themselves when things got bad. It wasn't evil—just human nature.
AfCFTA had the potential to transform the continent into an economic powerhouse. In a future dependent on innovative solutions, the continent would need that economic power to develop.
African ancestors said,
all errors are amendable.
I pray it is true because this might be your only chance to amend an egregious error.
Do not think that when Africa becomes uninhabitable, you will have non-Africans lining up to help. The signs are already there. Read your papers. Sometime in September, your time, African leaders gathered in Rotterdam to discuss solutions to climate change, and the then president of Senegal—Macky Sall—bitterly noted the absence of leaders from the industrial world.
That's because climate change is more real to you as the hottest continent and will continue to be so. The world only took real notice and action when Miami and Bangladesh succumbed to extreme weather conditions.
You have no choice but to work together, Africans. The author of the Guardian article was correct; solidarity and partnership, genuine partnership amongst all the African countries, is the only way out.
You must find innovative solutions to mitigate climate change's effects on the African continent. I know. Why can't I tell you how? It is against the rules to give you that big of an advantage.
I will tell you this; the private sector should be at the center of your efforts because their motivation for profit will spur quick and efficient solutions.
Dear ones, the A.U. shouldn't have to motivate you to embrace AfCFTA. Data from 2022 showed that AfCFTA was estimated to increase the African GDP by $3.4 trillion.
You will need that economic and financial muscle that AfCFTA will provide. No. You must get it.
When all the measures you have put up to mitigate climate change eventually fail, you will need a backup plan. That plan is space. The ability to set up an African colony on Mars or any other planet/moon.
That can only happen if you are financially strong. Otherwise, the high cost of participating in space activities will hinder you.
Money will not come except by accelerating AfCFTA like mad people! Solvable things like ratification, rules of origin and tariff schedule shouldn't be a reason to delay quick and full implementation.
224 Africans are not enough to preserve the African culture, people, languages and heritage. I…we cannot do it! Some of us did not even make it here alive.
Sometimes, the 36 of us in the Russian colony step out at night, look up at Phobos and Deimos and imagine we can see Africa reflected back at us. We tell each other stories of a continent that lives in our souls.
We want the stories to become a song in our blood. A song that we will hopefully live long enough to pass on because this cannot be how it ends for Africa. With 224 people working so hard to preserve it but know in their bones that they will probably fail.
Please do something now, so I never have to write this letter.
Yours Sincerely,
Nakuru Kenya
A descendant of the founder of this newsletter.
P.S. We had to drop our birth name for names that better reflected what Kenya used to be. Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu send their greetings.
Opportunity Corner: Opportunity For Africans
The Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program is now open. The program enables individuals from all over the world to increase their capacity to improve the world and make it a better place. Click link to apply.
https://worldfellows.yale.edu/
The Dalai Lama Fellowship is now open. It is open to 15 social innovators from across the world. The deadline is 1st December. Visit link to apply.
https://www.dalailamafellows.org/dl-fellowship
The Miracle Corners of the World (MCW) Global Young Leaders Fellowship Program is open for individuals all over the world aged 18-26 years. It is aimed at individuals who would like to address community projects in the health, economic security and education sectors. The deadline is 18th November 2022. Click link to apply.
The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO) is inviting eligible candidates to apply for a three-month fellowship program aimed at improving the management of public health emergencies in the continent.
The deadline is 13th November 2022. It is open to Master’s degree students, PHD students and five mid and senior-level public health experts. Visit link to apply.
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) Internship Program 2022/2023 for young Africans is now open. One can apply throughout the year as long as you meet the eligibility criteria. Click link to apply.
https://www.afreximbank.com/careers/vacancies/internship/internship-opportunities/
Applications are now open for the Mwalimu Nyerere Pan-African Young Leaders Fellowship. The deadline is 10th November 2022. Click link to apply.
https://nyererefoundation.org/nyererefellowship/
If this is your first time here, here are a couple of issues that you might have missed.
Why Africa's Relevance Globally is Directly Tied to Its Self-Sufficiency
Dissecting the East African Community’s Customs Union: How Has it Benefited EAC Citizens?
Building and succeeding in Africa: How Safaricom Did It
If you liked this article, please share & Subscribe