The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has just released the first "Africa Environment Outlook" report. It provides a comprehensive and integrated analysis of Africa`s environment, including i) an overview of developments in Africa, particularly over the three decades up to 2002; ii) a description of the current state of the environment in Africa (outlining its physical attributes in terms of the atmosphere; land; biodiversity; forests; freshwater, marine and coastal areas; and the urban environment) and iii) a set of scenarios for Africa`s future over the next 30 years. The report concludes in Chapter 5 with a list of 31 recommendations for specific actions by policy makers. This list includes "Urge developed countries to remove agricultural subsidies and apply the precautionary principle to genetically modified organisms" and "Assist African countries in their efforts to gain access to new technologies, particularly information and communication technologies and create conditions for the development of indigenous technologies to enhance economic development". See http://www.grida.no/aeo or http://www.unep.org/aeo or contact [email protected] for more information.

07/07/2002