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    Atelier Mobilité durable : Repenser le paysage de la mobilité à Maurice

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
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    • La mobilité à Maurice est dans une impasse : responsable d’un quart des émissions de CO2 du pays, ses routes sont congestionnée et ses transports publics subis.
    • Les révolutions technologiques en cours et les changements des attentes des citoyens rendent possible de profonds changements : ceux-ci nous sont directement accessibles.
    • L’île Maurice peut choisir de devenir une référence de mobilité durable pour le Monde.

    Près de 50 professionnels, mauriciens et étrangers, ont débattu dans un « atelier virtuel » les 29 juin et 12 juillet dernier sur la Mobilité durable à l’île Maurice à l’initiative du Centre Charles Telfair.

    Les ateliers, animés par Jean-Luc Wilain, consultant en durabilité et directeur de Will Change, Gilles Michel, président du Charles Telfair Campus, et Sid Sharma, PDG de Rose-Hill Transport, se sont déroulés selon la règle de Chatham House, créant un environnement de pleine liberté de parole et de grande qualité d’expression. Ils ont bénéficié d’interventions exclusives de Gunter Pauli, auteur de The Blue Economy, et du Professeur Peter Newman, professeur de durabilité à l’université Curtin et auteur de The End of Automobile Dependence.

    Les enjeux de la mobilité à Maurice

    La question de la mobilité durable est intimement liée à celle de l’urgence climatique et commentant sur les défis à venir, Jean-Luc Wilain, a souligné que “Les enjeux autour de la mobilité durable sont économiques, sociaux, sanitaires et environnementaux. C’est le moment de repenser sans limite ce que sera notre vie de demain afin d’assurer un avenir durable. À Maurice comme ailleurs, la mobilité durable, qui se tourne vers l’électrique, est une composante importante de la transition énergétique.  Il est temps pour tous d’agir et de créer une vision commune et d’avenir comme d’autres l’ont déjà fait ou sont en train de la faire. »

    Réagissant aux changements massifs en cours, notamment autour du passage des véhicules à moteur à combustion interne aux véhicules électriques (VE), Gilles Michel a souligné que nous sommes face à une révolution de la même ampleur que celle résultant de l’invention de l’automobile : comme il y a 120 ans les ruptures technologiques en cours transformeront la mobilité, les villes, les économies, et, la société. Ces changements ne sont pas pour demain : ils sont déjà là et pour l’île Maurice la question est de savoir si nous devons les subir ou les anticiper afin d’en faire des opportunités”.  

    Le Constat

    En gardant ce contexte à l’esprit, les discussions entre les participants ont mis en évidence trois tendances clés et des pistes à suivre pour l’île Maurice:

    1. A Maurice, les transports représentent 26% des émissions de CO2 et au niveau mondial, en moyenne, 74,5% des émissions des transports proviennent des véhicules sur routes. L’augmentation du nombre de voitures individuelles à Maurice est donc un défi majeur pour les objectifs environnementaux de l’île.
    2. Les aspirations à la mobilité qui accompagnent la croissance des revenus s’orientent massivement vers la voiture individuelle à Maurice. A cela s’ajoute les inconvénients traditionnellement attribués aux transports alternatifs en termes de qualité, fiabilité, confort, et efficacité. Chez nous comme ailleurs il sera difficile de modifier les comportements sans une modification profonde de l’offre de mobilité. A Maurice comme ailleurs il sera donc difficile de modifier les comportements sans une modification profonde du contexte.
    3. L’offre de transport public mauricienne est fractionnée (multiples fournisseurs et peu de coordination) et fortement régulée (par les prix, par les barrières réglementaires). Leur utilisation est plus subie que choisie, ce qui est un obstacle majeur à tout changement vers un mobilité durable.
    4. D’énormes bouleversements sont en cours qui révolutionnent la mobilité, de sorte que la transition vers des systèmes de mobilité durable n’est plus un choix mais s’imposera à tous. Poussés par les nouvelles réglementations les véhicules à moteur à combustion interne vont disparaître à horizon proche (2035) dans la plupart du monde. Rendus possibles par les évolutions technologiques les véhicules électriques s’imposent comme une alternative crédible et accessible. Les options de mobilité douce (vélos, tricycles, téléphériques, métro, zones piétonnes) et la planification urbaine intégrée façonnent déjà les villes du monde entier. Pourtant, les parties prenantes sont peu conscientes de l’ampleur de ces changements et de l’urgence pour l’île Maurice à les intégrer dès à présent.

    Les pistes à suivre

    1. Vision et Leadership : parce qu’elle s’inscrit dans un horizon de moyen terme et parce qu’il s’agit de transformations en profondeur de la société, la transition vers une mobilité durable nécessitera un leadership affirmé de la part des autorités publiques et de celle du secteur privé : les consommateurs ne modifieront leurs comportements que si on les convainc qu’un changement de comportement est pertinent et inéluctable.
    2. Approche globale, coordonnée et concertée : Tous les exemples montrent que c’est par une approche globale, coordonnée et concertée de la planification urbaine d’une part et en favorisant activement l’émergence d’offres globales et alternatives de mobilité d’autre part (tarification, applications digitales, tarifs, voies de circulation, parking etc.) que les changements deviennent attractifs et donc crédibles. Il convient donc d’organiser les adaptations institutionnelles et de régulation nécessaires. Les espaces urbains peuvent être repensés afin d’éviter les espaces à fonction unique, qui tendent à encourager l’utilisation de la voiture, pour encourager le développement d’espaces multifonctionnels (par exemple la ville du quart d’heure).
    3. Bascule vers les véhicules électriques : Les voitures électriques représenteront rapidement la majorité de l’offre automobile avant de devenir exclusifs d’ici une décennie. Si elles n’apportent pas de solution en tant que telles aux défis de l’engorgement des routes, elles sont porteuses d’une efficacité énergétique meilleure, d’une suppression de la pollution atmosphérique locale, d’une réduction des nuisances sonores, et de coûts d’entretien réduits. Elles permettent par ailleurs de très intéressantes possibilités d’optimisation de l’usage du réseau d’électricité dès lors que la règlementation s’y prête. De plus la taille de l’île Maurice fait que la question des bornes de recharge peut être essentiellement traitée à domicile ou au travail. L’opportunité est donc importante et il est possible à Maurice de s’y engager massivement ; pour cela les questions règlementaires, fiscales, mais aussi techniques (ex. réutilisation des batteries) doivent être traitées globalement.
    Parking avec station de recharge pour véhicule éléctrique – Photo Bob Osias/Unsplash
    1. Offres alternatives de mobilités : Les congestions routières sont coûteuses et fort inefficaces. Leur réduction est souhaitable mais elle ne peut procéder de la seule construction de toujours plus d’infrastructures, qui ne réduisent pas les embouteillages mais augmentent les déplacements. La solution passe par la décision des consommateurs de ré-orienter leurs déplacements vers des mobilités alternatives comme les transports publics, le covoiturage et la micromobilité. Cela suppose qu’elles existent, et qu’elles soient attractives avec le développement d’offres connectées et intégrées, des espaces urbains réorganisés, des incitations économiques ou encore une règlementation contraignante.
    2. Les solutions existent : De nombreuses solutions et une grande variété d’outils de politique publique ont été évoqués au cours de l’atelier : mise en place de zones piétonnes, pistes cyclables, places de stationnement pour les cyclistes, voies prioritaires pour les bus/taxi/VE ou de parkings avec des points de recharge solaire ; règlementation de la circulation urbaine y compris avec péage ou horaires d’exclusion ; généralisation ou obligation de bus ou taxis électriques (avec modification du système de subventions) ; nouveaux mode de transport comme le tramway sans rail ; micro-mobilité, mobilité partagée, applications de service de mobilité intégrée (MAAS), etc. Les outils et les solutions existent, la diffusion de la technologie et la numérisation les rendent accessibles à tous, et les attentes des citoyens changent : ce dont il s’agit désormais à Maurice est de faire des choix, d’établir des priorités et de les mettre en œuvre.

    Sid Sharma a conclu l’atelier en nous rappelant qu’ “en tant que pays, la plus grande opportunité pour nous est d’être un modèle pour le monde en matière de mobilité durable. La conversation sur la mobilité durable ne s’arrête pas aujourd’hui, ce n’est que le début d’une aventure…”.

     

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    Un format efficace  

    Pour Myriam Blin, directrice du Charles Telfair Centre, l’organisation de cet Atelier répondait à deux objectifs majeurs :

    ” Tout d’abord, dans un domaine en rapide mutation dans le monde, et dont l’impact sur l’environnement est évidemment majeur, nous voulions établir un constat sur de la nécessité et l’urgence de changements à l’échelle de Maurice afin d’explorer la manière dont potentiellement les mettre en œuvre et en faire des opportunités pour le pays.

    Mais nous avions aussi un objectif de méthode, consistant à démontrer qu’il est possible et fructueux de réunir dans une même salle virtuelle des personnes aux perspectives diverses (et parfois aux intérêts divergents), issues de différents secteurs, qui ne se seraient peut-être pas rencontrées autrement, pour leur offrir un espace sûr où parler, échanger et exprimer leurs opinions réfléchies. Telle est en effet une mission du Charles Telfair Centre, convaincu que c’est à travers la confrontation de perspectives diverses et le partage de connaissances variées que se créent les conditions pour le progrès et l’amélioration de notre société.

    Le format choisi pour ces ateliers, avec un temps limité consacré aux présentations pour maximiser les temps d’échange, a été très efficace. Le niveau et la qualité des interventions ont dépassé nos attentes et nous disposons de nombreuses pistes à analyser pour une communication ultérieure sur le sujet.”

     

    Main photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash 

    Charles Telfair Centre is an independent nonpartisan not for profit organisation and does not take specific positions. All views, positions, and conclusions expressed in our publications are solely those of the author(s).

    Economics Needs a Climate Revolution

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
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    Tom Brookes, Executive Director of Strategic Communications at the European Climate Foundation 

    Gernot Wagner, Clinical Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University

     

    BRUSSELS/NEW YORK – Nowhere are the limitations of neoclassical economic thinking – the DNA of economics as it is currently taught and practiced – more apparent than in the face of the climate crisis. While there are fresh ideas and models emerging, the old orthodoxy remains deeply entrenched. Change cannot come fast enough.

    The economics discipline has failed to understand the climate crisis – let alone provide effective policy solutions for it – because most economists tend to divide problems into small, manageable pieces. Rational people, they are wont to say, think at the margin. What matters is not the average or totality of one’s actions but rather the very next step, weighed against the immediate alternatives.

    Such thinking is indeed rational for small discrete problems. Compartmentalization is necessary for managing competing demands on one’s time and attention. But marginal thinking is inadequate for an all-consuming problem touching every aspect of society.

    Economists also tend to equate rationality with precision. The discipline’s power over public discourse and policymaking lies in its implicit claim that those who cannot compute precise benefits and costs are somehow irrational. This allows economists – and their models – to ignore pervasive climate risks and uncertainties, including the possibility of climatic tipping points and societal responses to them. And when one considers economists’ fixation with equilibrium models, the mismatch between the climate challenge and the discipline’s current tools becomes too glaring to ignore.

    Yes, a return to equilibrium – getting “back to normal” – is an all-too-human preference. But it is precisely the opposite of what is needed – rapidly phasing out fossil fuels – to stabilize the world’s climate.

    These limitations are reflected in benefit-cost analyses of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The traditional thinking suggests a go-slow path for cutting CO2. The logic seems compelling: the cost of damage caused by climate change, after all, is incurred in the future, while the costs of climate action occur today. The Nobel prize-winning verdict is that we should delay necessary investment in a low-carbon economy to avoid hurting the current high-carbon economy.

    To be clear, a lot of new thinking has gone into showing that even this conventional logic would call for significantly more climate action now, because the costs are often overestimated while the potential (even if uncertain) benefits are underestimated. The young researchers advancing this work must walk a near-impossible tightrope, because they cannot publish what they believe to be their best work (based on the most defensible assumptions) without invoking the outmoded neoclassical model to demonstrate the validity of new ideas.

    The very structure of academic economics all but guarantees that marginal thinking continues to dominate. The most effective way to introduce new ideas into the peer-reviewed academic literature is to follow something akin to an 80/20-rule: stick to the established script for the most part; but try to push the envelope by probing one dubious assumption at a time. Needless to say, this makes it extremely difficult to change the overall frame of reference, even when those who helped establish the standard view are looking well beyond it themselves.

    Consider the case of Kenneth J. Arrow, who shared a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972 for showing how marginal actions taken by self-interested individuals can improve societal welfare. That pioneering work cemented economists’ equilibrium thinking. But Arrow lived for another 45 years, and he spent that time moving past his earlier work. In the 1980s, for example, he was instrumental in founding the Santa Fe Institute, which is dedicated to what has since become known as complexity science – an attempt to move beyond the equilibrium mindset he had helped establish.

    Because equilibrium thinking underpins the traditional climate-economic models that were developed in the 1990s, these models assume that there are tradeoffs between climate action and economic growth. They imagine a world where the economy simply glides along a Panglossian path of progress. Climate policy might still be worthwhile, but only if we are willing to accept costs that will throw the economy off its chosen path.

    Against the backdrop of this traditional view, recent pronouncements by the International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency are nothing short of revolutionary. Both institutions have now concluded that ambitious climate action leads to higher growth and more jobs even in the near term.

    The logic is straightforward: climate policies create many more jobs in clean-energy sectors than are lost in fossil-fuel sectors, reminding us that investment is the flipside of cost. That is why the proposal for a $2 trillion infrastructure package in the United States could be expected to spur higher net economic activity and employment. Perhaps more surprising is the finding that carbon pricing alone appears to reduce emissions without hurting jobs or overall economic growth. The problem with carbon taxes or emissions trading is that real-world policies are not reducing emissions fast enough and therefore will need to be buttressed by regulation.

    There is no excuse for continuing to adhere to an intellectual paradigm that has served us so badly for so long. The standard models have been used to reject policies that would have helped turn the tide many years ago, back when the climate crisis still could have been addressed with marginal changes to the existing economic system. Now, we no longer have the luxury of being able to settle for incremental change.

    The good news is that rapid change is happening on the political front, owing not least to the shrinking cost of climate action. The bad news is that the framework of neoclassical economics is still blocking progress. The discipline is long overdue for its own tipping point toward new modes of thinking commensurate with the climate challenge.

     

    Charles Telfair Centre is an independent nonpartisan not for profit organisation and does not take specific positions. All views, positions, and conclusions expressed in our publications are solely those of the author(s).

    (c) Project Syndicate, 2021.
    www.project-syndicate.org

    Main Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash  

     

    La réinvention de l’économie de Maurice avec le cannabis médical et récréatif

    By
    Amit Bakhirta
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    Amit Bakhirta, Fondateur et CEO, ANNEAU

     

    La légalisation du cannabis à l’Ile Maurice pourrait accroître la diversification, stimuler la croissance et aider à traiter sérieusement des maladies chroniques. La résistance locale persistera vraisemblablement – mais les retombées économiques que promet la légalisation et donc la commercialisation sont bien palpables. L’on ne saurait l’ignorer pour longtemps encore. En effet, les marchés sont tournés vers le futur et les bonnes graines de l’investissement donne toujours naissance à une industrie florissante.

    Le Cannabis: une industrie florissante 

    Cet article propose d’explorer le potentiel de ce produit pour des secteurs clés de l’économie mauricienne, en abordant succinctement tour à tour, l’industrie mondiale, l’évolution résolument nécessaire des différents secteurs de notre économie ainsi que les défis liés à l’établissement d’un marché réglementer, innovant et porteur de croissance.

    « Ce n’est pas la plus forte des espèces qui survivent, ni la plus intelligente, mais celle qui réagit le mieux au changement… » Charles Darwin

    Au niveau mondial, le soutien à une réforme pragmatique a franchi le point de basculement dans le courant dominant de l’opinion publique et politique. L’industrie du cannabis impactera pratiquement tous les secteurs de la consommation.

    Le cannabis en tant qu’industrie devrait atteindre les 166 milliards USD en 2025 en termes de vente mondiale. Dans la plus grande économie du monde, la plante devrait contribuer environ 80 milliards de dollars d’ici 2030. L’industrie canadienne du cannabis a représenté 14,256 milliards de dollars au produit intérieur brut du pays en décembre 2020 selon les derniers chiffres publiés par Statistique Canada. Ce marché devrait se développer à un taux de croissance annuel moyen de 26,7 % entre 2021 et 2028.

    Le marché européen du cannabis devrait connaître un taux de croissance annuel composé (TCAC) de 67,4 % pour atteindre 3,2 milliards d’euros d’ici 2025, selon un nouveau rapport de Prohibition Partners. Le marché africain du cannabis légal pourrait quant à lui valoir plus de 7,1 milliards de dollars par an d’ici 2023.

    Il est aussi à noter que des grandes marques de consommation ont déjà fait des percées dans le « nouvel or ». Des investissements conséquents sont injectés dans cette nouvelle industrie, par des entreprises réputées et bien établies, notamment dans les secteurs de la pharmacie, du tabac, des producteurs de boissons alcoolisées ou de biens de consommation. Par exemple, Constellation Brand, le fabricant des bières Corona, a conclu l’accord le plus conséquent à ce jour dans l’industrie après avoir investi pas moins de 4 milliards de dollars dans Canopy dans le cadre de son objectif de développement de boissons infusées au cannabis. La multinationale de la bière et fabricant de Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch In Bev (le plus grand producteur de bière au monde) a conclu un partenariat avec Tilray en décembre 2018. Les deux entreprises investiront jusqu’à 50 millions de dollars pour faire des recherches sur les boissons non alcoolisées contenant du THC et du CBD au Canada. Tilray a signé un partenariat mondial avec une division du géant pharmaceutique suisse Novartis AG pour développer et distribuer sa marijuana médicale dans les juridictions légales du monde entier. Au cours des cinq prochaines années, les revenus générés par le marché du cannabis médical aux États-Unis devraient presque doubler, passant de 8,5 milliards de dollars en 2020 à un peu plus de 16 milliards de dollars en 2025. Les deux géants que sont Pepsi et Coca-Cola surveillent de près l’évolution de ce marché pour le moment.

    Sur le continent africain, quelques-uns de nos voisins accueillent déjà les investisseurs internationaux, à l’instar du Lesotho, le Malawi et L’Afrique du Sud. D’autres pays comme la Zambie, le Zimbabwe, le Swaziland, l’Ouganda, et le Ghana se préparent pour ouvrir l’investissement dans ce nouveau secteur de l’économie.

    Le gouvernement mauricien a déjà pris acte de l’évolution de ce marché  avec le comité technique récemment créé par le ministère de la Santé et du Bien-être pour évaluer et faire des recommandations sur l’utilisation du cannabis médical. Le potentiel du secteur cannabis est déjà en pleine exploration au niveau mondial. L’ile Maurice doit se préparer dès maintenant à façonner de manière efficace les industries du cannabis médical, cosmétiques, récréatif et du chanvre industriel qu’on souhaiterait pour l’avenir afin d’éviter d’avoir à courir sur le quai derrière le train.

    Tout commence par un cadre réglementaire robuste et proactif

    Un secteur prospère de toute économie a besoin d’une base robuste, juste et équitable. Ainsi, l’élaboration des politiques publiques reste fondamentale. La bonne nouvelle est que nous n’avons pas besoin de réinventer la roue. Sur le plan international, plusieurs législations sur le cannabis médical et récréatif existent maintenant depuis plus de quelques décennies.  Elles ont été généralement testées, modifiées et enrichies. Des modèles commerciaux, opérationnels et de chaîne d’approvisionnement réels et rentables fonctionnent déjà. Nous avons simplement besoin de ‘leap frog’, et cela intelligemment. Ne pas inventer mais plutôt se réinventer.

    Une approche globale concernant le cannabis et les produits dérivés du cannabis est de traiter ces produits comme tous les autres. De ce fait, le cadre législatif existant en ce qui concerne d’autres produits pourrait facilement encadrer le cannabis afin de protéger les patients du cannabis médical, d’assurer un contrôle de la qualité des produits, protéger la santé publique et ainsi favoriser la confiance des consommateurs.

    En ce qui concerne l’élaboration d’une loi sur le cannabis contrôlant, réglementant, autorisant la production, la recherche et le développement – le pays a déjà en place des lois mais aussi des instituts de recherche pour la canne à sucre et d’autres cultures. Par ailleurs, des modifications au ‘Dangerous Drug Act 2000’ seront requises et accessoirement à d’autres lois afin de constituer le cadre règlementaire du cannabis. Le Consumer Protection Act pourrait également contenir des dispositions quant à la commercialisation (y compris la publicité intérieure / extérieure, l’emballage, etc.) et la distribution du cannabis. Les nouveaux produits comestibles à base de cannabis sont susceptibles de représenter un énorme bassin de consommateurs étant donné que le marché des non-fumeurs doublera vraisemblablement – les chiffres au Canada témoignent l’ingestion des produits comestibles post légalisation tant bien chez les femmes que les hommes. Aussi, selon un rapport de Deloitte, cette légalisation devrait attirer de plus en plus de consommateurs autres que ceux ayant déjà eu recours au marché parallèle, y compris parmi une population considérée plus « conservatrice » vis-à-vis de son usage.

    En sus des modifications apportées aux réglementations relatives à l’alimentation et à la sécurité, d’autres modifications dans le secteur des soins de santé et des services bancaires / financiers seront essentielles. Par ailleurs, l’ingéniosité fiscale sera cruciale dans la mesure où l’imposition fiscale des bénéfices et la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée devront s’adapter afin de ne pas rendre le prix de revente trop élevé ce qui aurait pour effet de conserver/alimenter un marché parallèle illicite.

    La réinvention de notre destination touristique et gastronomique

    La concurrence mondiale entre les destinations touristiques devient de plus en plus accrue et la destination “Ile Maurice” doit se remettre constamment en question et être disposée à s’adapter à l’évolution des marchés.

    Le cannabis a le potentiel de réinventer  complètement nos industries du tourisme médical et récréatif. Avec l’émergence de la Canna gastronomie à l’échelle Michelin dans le monde, nous avons l’opportunité de valoriser notre gastronomie locale mais aussi ses chaînes d’approvisionnement. Le tourisme du cannabis devrait pouvoir profiter à la fois des souches mauriciennes locales mais aussi, pourquoi pas des variétés de renommée internationale (et donc de la réglementation des exportations et des importations, y compris les droits d’accise – étendue aux produits comestibles) et cela devrait être couplé par une stratégie « payante » d’événements et de divertissement – un autre secteur sous-jacent potentiellement porteur, qui sera booster par cette réinvention socio-économique.

    Compte tenu de la récente légalisation du cannabis récréatif il n’y a pas de réponse claire lorsqu’il s’agit de tracer la voie à suivre. Néanmoins, une comparaison peut être faite avec des produits similaires, tels que les circuits des vignobles en France ou Amsterdam pour sa fameuse bière Heineken. Localement, l’industrie touristique pourrait adapter certains de ces paramètres et proposer d’autres expériences telle que : restaurants proposant des menus infusés au cannabis, café et boulangeries proposant des comestibles infusés au cannabis, Spas au cannabis et chambres d’hôtels ‘cannabis friendly”.

    Sucre bas et cannabis élevé pour notre agriculture en déclin

    Globalement, et plus particulièrement dans les pays d’exportations de notre sucre, il existe une inclinaison structurelle vers les alternatives au sucre et une prise de conscience de l’effet préjudiciable d’une surconsommation de sucre. Même au niveau local, les autorités ont une taxe sur les produits sucrés caloriques, pour tenter d’en infléchir la consommation.

    La tendance culturelle et commerciale est préoccupante pour  le secteur agricole de base du pays. Il ne s’agit pas de remplacer toute la canne à sucre par du chanvre. En effet, les progrès de la génétique agricole, y compris la culture, permettent désormais de cultiver plus efficacement la plante du Cannabis à plus haut rendement, avec l’utilisation de la culture hydroponique et de la haute technologie. Le monde développé a déjà vu l’émergence de nouveaux canna-entrepreneurs agricoles mais aussi dans les domaines de la santé, des consommables, financiers, et du détail.  Ce nouveau secteur, nous démontre sur une base empirique, qu’il peut être créateur de richesse et d’emploi. A titre d’exemple, le secteur du cannabis de Washington a contribué à hauteur de 1,85 milliard de dollars au produit brut de l’État et a soutenu directement et indirectement près de 18,700 emplois équivalents temps plein. Une ile Maurice plus verte a besoin d’une agriculture plus intelligente et rentable, pas moins.

    La souche mauricienne et le secteur manufacturier

    Le marché d’exportation d’une “variété de chanvre mauricien” a du potentiel. Une stratégie adaptée pourrait voir des personnes aux États-Unis, au Canada, en Europe, en Afrique ou en Asie goûter ou apprécier la «variété mauricienne». Pour assurer une compétitivité durable, il faudra assurer la consistance de sa qualité et de son rendement. Il sera donc essentiel de réglementer la ‘qualité’ de la « souche mauricienne ».

    Un système d’appellation d’origine permettrait d’asseoir cette compétitivité. La demande inhérente de diverses variétés « locales » au niveau mondial pourrait devenir en elle-même un marché digne d’intérêt, car les nuances des différentes variétés, tout comme le bon vin, appartiennent au sol et à l’écosystème dans lesquels il est cultivé et a muté au fil du temps.

    Le potentiel du chanvre pour la résurgence du secteur manufacturier mauricien est triple :

    1. Le textile de chanvre existe depuis des siècles et gagne à nouveau en importance. Le secteur textile existant pourrait l’exploiter. En effet, on peut constater que l’industrie chinoise du chanvre avance déjà à un rythme accéléré.
    2. Le cannabis médical permettrait au pays d’attirer des investissements dans une industrie pharmacologique naissante.
    3. Les produits comestibles et non comestibles sont susceptibles de présenter des possibilités de fabrication et d’exportation prometteuses.

    Ces potentiels de développement multisectoriel pour le chanvre et les flux qui pourraient en résulter pourront également aider à resserrer les doubles écarts de nos déficit jumeaux (compte courant et fiscale) ; à la fois d’un point de vue qualitatif mais aussi nominal.

    C’est ainsi que notre stratégie budgétaire repousse Moody’s

    Compte tenu du ralentissement économique actuel, à moins d’heurter la valeur de notre monnaie par le biais de son impression incontrôlée, la marge de manœuvre de l’exécutif est extrêmement mince. Ainsi, une réinvention de notre économie menée par le cannabis médicale et récréatif a le potentiel de resserrer nos déficits budgétaire et courant grâce à une base de revenus budgétaires directe et indirecte (effet multiplicateur) raisonnablement plus durable. Un supplément de 10% des recettes fiscales, pour commencer, est déjà une perspective extrêmement positive. Tout commence toujours avec le premier 1%, le premier pas !

    Recettes Fiscales du gouvernment – Maurice 2015/16-2019/20

    Ile Maurice, bienvenue au 21e siècle.

    Des mesures audacieuses sont parfois nécessaires dans les moments difficiles. Alors que l’ile Maurice est confrontée à de nombreuses tempêtes géopolitiques, fiscales et socio-économiques, il semble opportun d’utiliser la crise comme une opportunité pour réinventer son économie vers une prospérité durable pour les générations futures.

    « Je patine là où la rondelle ira, non vers où elle se trouvait. » Wayne Gretzky.

     

    Charles Telfair Centre is an independent nonpartisan not for profit organisation and does not take specific positions. All views, positions, and conclusions expressed in our publications are solely those of the author(s).

    Main Photo by Aphiwat chuangchoem from Pexels

    Aggregate Economic Shocks and Expediting Gender Equality

    By
    Kaleab Kebede Haile
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    0

     

    Kaleab Kebede Haile, Principal Researcher at Includovate

     

    This article argues that more empirical investigations on the effect of aggregate economic shocks on household investments in boy and girl child human capital development in the SSA context is needed. This data can help to prioritize disaster responses that mitigate gender biases and, in turn, alleviate gender inequality in human capital development in SSA.

     

    Aggregate Shocks and Household Investment in Human Capital

    Aggregate economic shocks induced by environmental, health, political, and financial crises disproportionately affect poor and vulnerable households. This is especially true in developing countries because they lack the institutional and policy support mechanisms that buffer vulnerable populations against the effects of these shocks. For an uninsured and liquidity-constrained household, negative income shocks have repercussions for household behaviour and attitudes towards investing in child human capital, because the sudden loss of financial stability raises the cost of health care and education relative to household income. The parents’ ability and willingness to bear the direct and opportunity costs of health inputs (i.e., allocating resources to health care services) and schooling inputs (i.e., spending on school fees and school-related materials such as books, uniforms, etc.) depends on household income. The decision to curb household human capital investment in response to negative income shocks may differ across children based on how the parents perceive the value of child labour and the return on their investment.

    The Mediating Role of Gender Norms

    Gender is an important sociocultural element that may mediate individual resource allocations within a household and, thus, may dictate who bears the burden of aggregate economic shocks among boys and girls. Societal gender roles have a substantial effect on shaping parents’ expectations of costs and returns on human capital investments within the household. While households in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) display a preference for variety (equal number of sons and daughters) or no preference at all when it comes to fertility patterns, this does not mean the absence of inequality when it comes to attitudes towards gender roles.

    The origins of societal gender roles are linked to the form of livelihood activities practiced in a society. Present-day societies that practice traditional plow agriculture have gender norms that persistently discriminate against women’s participation in workplaces, politics, and entrepreneurial activities. In these societies, the prevailing discriminatory gender norms give women subordinate status in the community. This may compel parents to perceive girls’ labor as having a lower rate of return and, consequently, prioritize boys when investing in human capital.

    For example, perceived returns on girls’ education, which influence child human capital investment decisions, are lower than actual returns in the Dominican Republic. Despite the lack of concrete empirical proof in the context of SSA where the majority of households are illiterate and less-informed, and the prevailing gender norms discriminate against women, the gender gap in education may indicate that parents substantially underestimate the returns to their investment in human capital of female children. As such, households may underestimate the costs of gender bias and continue to assign lower values to female children’s education and their economic contributions to the household.

    The livelihood of the majority households in SSA depends mainly on physically intensive productive activities rather than on mental tasks, disfavouring girls’ and women’s comparative advantage and unrecognizing their contribution. In this context, when rural households experience negative income shocks, they may divert their human capital investment spending away from female children. In the eyes of parents, reducing their investment in human capital for girls is a lower opportunity cost of labour than reducing investments in boys. Consequently, during shock periods, female children receive lower household investments in terms of nutrition and use of medical services and are more likely to have poor health status. Ill health adversely affects schooling, hence, further widening the gender gap in education.

    This has far reaching repercussions because it generates a feminized poverty trap. Households in a society with discriminatory gender norms see less value in investing in the human capital of female children because the assumption is that women are only capable of handling low value tasks inside the household. Ultimately, girls with low human capital become women with reduced earnings potential and low socioeconomic status, which limits their capacity to financially support their parents. This completes the vicious cycle, perpetuating parents’ gender bias by discouraging them from investing household resources in the human capital of girls. Therefore, where prevailing gender norms assume women’s roles are limited to unremunerated domestic and reproductive tasks, the income effect of aggregate economic shocks reinforces gender inequality because households feel compelled to invest less in a female child’s human capital.

    Thus, laying out the interplay between household and social behaviour helps policy makers, development practitioners, academicians, and private businesses to understand why parents prioritize the health and physical well-being of boys, particularly in agrarian societies.

    Is There a Way Forward?

    In sum, in the face of aggregate economic shocks, pre-existing gender biases cause household human capital investment decisions to be based on the sex of the child, typically to the detriment of girls. How to escape the perpetual cycle of girls being undervalued and disfavoured when it comes to household investment in health and education? Seema Jayachandran (2015) posited that “the cultural institutions favouring males might themselves fade naturally with economic modernization, enabling gender gaps to close,” but follows this up by pointing out “there is also scope for policy makers to expedite the process” (p. 84). An important place to start is with an empirical investigation on the effect of aggregate economic shocks on household investments in child human capital conditional on gender in the SSA context. This will have valuable policy implications, helping prioritize those disaster responses that intend to mitigate gender biases and, in turn, alleviate gender inequality in human capital development in SSA.

     

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Main Photo by Eva Blue on Unsplash  

    This article first appeared in the Includovate’s Medium Blog.

    The Role of Mauritian Universities in Supporting Translational Research: The Case of the Smartbite Project

    By
    Brinda Ramasawmy
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    Dr Brinda Ramasawmy, Senior Lecturer in Agricultural Economics and Management at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius

    Dr Hudaa Neetoo, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology and Food Safety at the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Mauritius

     

    In this article, Brinda Ramasawmy and Hudaa Neetoo present a research project aimed at developing a food solution addressing contemporary malnutrition trends in Mauritius. Their research sought to bring theory into practice beyond the prime objective of food product research and development. The project encompassed 1) the commercialisation of the product, 2) wider community impact trough a nutrition sensitisation campaign and 3) the development of a Food Innovation Laboratory to support entrepreneurial research within the University. For the authors, their project is evidence that universities can, and, need to wield a greater role in supporting research with turnkey solutions that have a direct relevance for the local community.

     

    SIDS and the triple burden of malnutrition

    Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are geographically and economically isolated countries with a narrow resource base , making them highly reliant on remote markets for their food supplies. Some of the unique challenges faced by SIDS which threaten their food and nutrition security needs include:

    1. scarcity of arable land for food production;
    2. an ageing population with decreasing productive labour;
    3. high vulnerability to external economic shocks and natural disasters (cyclones, flash floods, droughts etc.);
    4. dependence on limited number of economic pillars; and
    5. distance from regional and international markets.

    SIDS are also plagued by the triple burden of malnutrition – undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity. Although there has been a fall in undernutrition for the past three decades, obesity has increased sharply with about one-third of obese adults in the Caribbean countries and over 40% in many of the AIMS nations (Africa, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and South China Sea) and is prominent among women.

    The nutrition transition in Mauritius

    Mauritius, a nation belonging to the AIMS group of SIDS, has been undergoing a nutrition transition that started about 25 years ago. This has led to a concomitant shift in consumption from low caloric, nutrient-rich foods to energy-dense products which are devoid of nutrients, often referred to as “empty calories”. Hence consumers have slowly moved away from traditional foods which have been consumed by previous generations. This phenomenon has been compounded by trade liberalisation policies which have led to the introduction of an array of imported highly refined and processed food products that are high in sugar, salt and fats, resulting in an upward trend in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and most specifically diabetes.

    Moreover, with the change in lifestyle and more disposable income, consumers across age groups (children, teenagers, and adults) are increasingly making unhealthy food choices, directly contributing to a rise of diet-related NCDs.  Indeed, evidence suggests that a rise in income leads to consumers spending more on food items high in sugar, animal and vegetable fats and less on complex carbohydrates. This nutrition transition from traditional foods to a Westernised diet takes a toll on health care costs for the country resulting in an additional stress on the governmental budget.

    Food insecurity & COVID-19

    The unprecedented occurrence of the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown measures adopted by the Mauritian government also had an impact on the food security of a number of households. According to a telephone survey carried out by Statistics Mauritius, the country’s national statistical agency, from May to July 2020, households reduced their food consumption (27% in May to almost 40% in July 2020) due to a decrease in their monthly income. In September 2020, 80% of households were facing difficulties to meet their basic expenses and about 4 percent of households had at least one member skipping meals for a whole day as a negative coping strategy [8]. It is therefore reasonable to believe that the pandemic’s impact on the Mauritian economy is widening gaps in the food and nutrition security of its population.

    The SmartBite project

    One of the current strategies of the World Health Organization (WHO) is the “reformulation of food products to reduce the total fats, free sugars and salt content and to virtually eliminate industrial trans fats from processed foods”. In the face of the growing food and nutrition security problem in Mauritius, a team of researchers from the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius (Public University), worked on the formulation of a healthy snack bar made from pulses and other low-cost natural ingredients as a healthier alternative to currently available energy dense snack bars that are imported and highly processed. In addition to having a higher protein and fibre content compared to commercially available counterparts, the SmartBite snack bar is also considerably lower in fat (table 1). The product was developed to respond to all consumer segments requirements including vegetarians and vegans. Various savoury and sweet flavours of the snack bar prototype were subsequently developed by the team. Sensory trials carried out with consumers provided a positive feedback both on the palatability of the prototype and its acceptability as a healthy snack. After optimising the formulation, the prototype was subjected to a series of laboratory tests to ascertain its nutritional profile, safety and shelf-life. Last year, the team got the product registered under the trademark of Smartbite. The team is currently approaching various SMEs involved in cereal production for potential partnership for the commercial uptake and upscaling of the product.

     

    Table 1. Calories and nutritional values per serving of 1 Bar

    The Smartbite project, however, has not only been about a product innovation. The project also led to two upcoming important outcomes:

    1) a nutrition sensitisation campaign with pulses as sustainable protein alternatives; and

    2) the development of a Food Innovation Laboratory for the University of Mauritius.

    Promoting food and nutrition security in Mauritius

    This project has been a stepping stone to shedding light on other aspects of food and nutrition security in Mauritius. Two years ago, the team decided to investigate the food and nutrition needs of children from vulnerable areas of Mauritius, where pockets of poor communities are concentrated. A major finding that emanated from this survey was that 40% of children aged < 12 years reported often skipping breakfast and 60% of those having a breakfast meal, mentioned not feeling “full” afterwards.  The survey additionally indicated that the majority consumed a snack daily and 16% of the children were overweight or obese. These findings clearly point to the need for concentrating more efforts towards alleviating the nutrition security problem in these areas. As such, the project includes a sensitisation campaign, currently underway, to promote the consumption of pulses as a sustainable source of protein.

    The role of public universities in supporting translational research

    Mainstream research done at public universities, especially in developing countries, often culminate as reports, conference presentations and publications in prestigious journals that eventually stay within the academic community. However, taking science “out of the lab”, through development of healthy food prototypes that have a commercial potential or research with a strong community outreach dimension, is a path that few researchers are willing to take. The Smartbite project is a testament to the fact that public universities in SIDS, in spite of limited research funding, can do translational research (bringing theory to practice) with entrepreneurial or social outcomes.

    Funding from the project has also been used to set up a Food Innovation Laboratory (FIL) within the AgriTech Park of University of Mauritius for use by students and researchers for new food product development trials. The FIL, with its training facilities, also purports to act as an incubator space for food businesses wishing to “try out” new prototypes. The idea behind the FIL is to promote research that has an entrepreneurial outcome as well as provide the necessary capacity-building for start-ups and medium food businesses, especially in the area of food safety and agripreneurship. By interfacing with food businesses, the FIL can provide the necessary technical and logistical support and facilitate the penetration of healthier and more sustainable food products on the Mauritian market, all with a positive impact on the local food system. In addition, universities with their important role in knowledge creation as well as diffusion can help in educating local consumers on healthier and wiser food choices.

    The Smartbite project is also in line with the vision of the University of Mauritius to contribute towards addressing specific UN SDGs. This project directly speaks to the importance of ensuring responsible and sustainable food production patterns (SDG-12: Responsible consumption and production) and alleviating hunger (SDG-2: Zero Hunger). According to the United Nations, “the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030”, hence, enhancing more sustainable food production can help alleviate the perils of hunger and nutrient deficiencies locally.

    A paradigm shift towards tangible innovations 

    Taken together, universities need to wield a greater role in supporting research with turnkey solutions that have a direct relevance for the local community. University researchers especially those in science related disciplines need to be sensitised on the fact that there are so many opportunities to apply the results of their research to the immediate and day to day challenges faced by local communities. The paradigm shift from a research publication-centric approach to a community-engagement centric approach can lead to various innovations arising from university-led research work. Hence, public universities should be encouraged to optimise the use of their research infrastructures to produce tangible innovations which, when transformed into marketable products, can become major game changers in the landscape of developing countries as they are focused on solutions to real-life problems faced by local communities.

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Main Photo by Bee Naturalles on Unsplash  

     

    Africa’s “Model T” Business Model

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
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    Efosa Ojomo, Senior Research Fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute, is a co-author of The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty.

    Lincoln Wilcox, Research Associate at the Clayton Christensen Institute.

     

    BOSTON – Africa is often regarded as a risky place to do business. There are success stories, like Safaricom, Flutterwave, and Kobo360. But investors tend to view them as anomalies: the fact that they are thriving, despite pervasive poverty, political instability, and widespread corruption, is a matter of luck, not proof that Africa is a “safe” investment destination.

    These perceptions explain why, though Africa is home to 17% of the world’s population, its innovators received just 4.4% of global foreign direct investment in 2020. Unless they change, Africa will continue to suffer – and investors will miss lucrative opportunities.

    It is true that the African business environment is challenging. But that is true of all low- and middle-income countries, including the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. When Henry Ford proposed his Model T – an affordable car for the masses – many of his investors balked. The US lacked the necessary infrastructure, including paved roads, gas stations, and repair shops. And the average American couldn’t afford a car, anyway.

    The investors who pulled out of Ford’s project probably lived to regret it. Ford didn’t simply manage to overcome the obstacles they had cited; he leveraged them to his advantage. Instead of fighting for a share of an existing market, he created a new one out of consumers who hadn’t traditionally purchased cars. And he generated countless jobs in the process.

    Market-creating innovations like the Model T thus create prosperity for both the organizations behind them and the societies in which they are launched. Because they democratize access to previously exclusive products, investors, entrepreneurs, and consumers all have an interest in their success.

    Africa today is rife with opportunities for market-creating innovations. The question is whether seizing them requires betting on luck, as investors seem to assume, or on strategies that can reliably enable companies to avoid the pitfalls of the operating environment. Our research points to the latter.

    We studied 100 market-creating organizations (39 African), and found remarkable similarities in their strategies. A core challenge is figuring out how to serve populations that historically haven’t been able to purchase certain products. Every organization we studied overcame that challenge by identifying traditional barriers to consumption – such as cost, inconvenience, or complexity – and actively dismantling them.

    In every case, success depended on a willingness to defy convention. Innovative business models accompanied innovative products, with companies devising targeted strategies that enabled them to meet their customers’ needs and keep their own costs down, thereby clearing a path toward profitability.

    Copia, a Kenyan e-commerce start-up, is a case in point. Copia’s founders recognized that rural populations in their country were often unable to purchase even basic goods, because supermarkets were too far away and the products they sold were often too expensive. Rural consumers didn’t have the time or money to spare.

    So, Copia created a business model tailored to consumers’ specific needs: it purchases supplies directly from manufacturers and distributes them through a network of agents based in rural areas, such as hairdressers or tailors. To avoid tying up money in inventory, Copia purchases only what consumers have preordered via their local agent. Transactions take place through mobile money platforms. All of this enables Copia to keep prices low and turn a profit.

    To make its business model work, Copia had to take on tasks that conventional supermarkets do not, such as finding and training local agents, navigating poorly developed infrastructure, and advertising via radio. But, just like Ford, its reward is the creation of a new market with no real competition. “There are a number of great e-commerce businesses, but their focus is on the urban, salaried consumer,” CEO Tim Steel said in a recent interview. “Our focus is, and will always be, the underserved low-to-middle-income consumer. We want to make sure our model works for them.”

    Another commonality among market-creating companies is their willingness to take responsibility for gaps in infrastructure that might hinder their ability to reach new consumers. In fact, 87% of the organizations in low-income countries we studied integrated tasks that might ordinarily be undertaken by other companies or the government.

    Metro African Express, a Nigerian ride-hailing company that uses motorcycles, actually turned infrastructure gaps into a competitive advantage, as co-founder Adetayo Bamiduro put it. Unlike conventional ride-hailing companies, MAX had to create a powerful support system, in order to secure enough drivers.

    For starters, MAX created a system for drivers to become licensed. Moreover, by using its own transaction data to build credit histories for its drivers, and creating a network of credit providers, MAX helps its drivers to access financial services – which in turn can enable them to purchase their own motorbikes.

    Yes, being the first to arrive in an untapped market of middle-class consumers would be a great way for a business to make a lot of money. But, as countless firms have shown, it is hardly the only way. By developing innovative business models – which dismantle or surmount barriers to consumption and integrate unconventional activities – companies can meet customers where they are and create lucrative markets.

    The narrative about doing business in Africa needs to be revised. Given the myriad products and services that remain unattainable, opportunities for market-creating innovation abound. Africa’s innovators are working hard to seize those opportunities. Investors would do well to support them.

     

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    This article was originally published by © Project Syndicate 2021 and is not under a Creative Commons Licence.

    Main Photo by Frederik Schweiger on Unsplash  

     

    From Hook to Cook – Reimagining Artisanal Fisheries in Mauritius

    By
    Catherine Ward
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    Dr Greg Duggan, Strategic Projects & Support Lead Abalobi ICT4FISHERIES NPC (ABALOBI)

    Ms Josheena Naggea, PhD Candidate at Stanford University

    Dr Catherine Ward, Environmental Sustainability Consultant

     

    In this article, Greg Duggan, Josheena Naggea and Catherine Ward  present the first stage of a project to unlock the potential of artisanal fishery in Mauritius through the integration of three  technologies that have the potential to improve the value chain, increase safety at sea and improve traceability. Through a participatory and co-design approach to the project, the authors show the potential of these technologies in supporting the often marginalised artisanal fishing communities as well as encouraging sustainability by focusing on the health and resilience of local social-ecological systems.

       

    A Fishy Conundrum

    For many communities along the Mauritian coastline, artisanal fishing forms an integral part of local livelihoods and culture. The Mauritian artisanal fishery is the primary source of fresh fish supplied to the local market and also provides employment within coastal regions, contributing to food security and poverty reduction [1].

    Artisanal fishers, who fish within or near lagoon areas, come from mostly marginalised communities at the forefront of climate change, threatened by coastal erosion, rising sea-levels and cyclones. Further, coastal habitats of Mauritius, such as lagoons and coral reefs, have increasingly degraded in recent decades due to human activities associated with overfishing, agricultural run-off and urban pollution. The production of the artisanal fishery has therefore steadily decreased over the last decade, despite an increase in total fish consumption in Mauritius.

    This fragile artisanal fishery is heavily impacted by the persisting outbreak of COVID-19 since early 2020, which has paralysed the tourism industry (further diminishing market and employment opportunities for artisanal fishers) and reduced the spending power of local consumers (decreasing the customer base of artisanal fishers). The impact of the catastrophic 2020 Wakashio oil spill has added more stressors on affected coastal communities in the south-east of Mauritius – resulting in environmental devastation, livelihood loss for artisanal fishers, and serious health implications from the 1000 tonnes of oil that leaked into local lagoons.

    In the past, the Mauritian government has responded to the plight of the artisanal fishery by introducing compensation schemes for bad weather days or encouraging alternative livelihoods such as off-lagoon fishing and aquaculture. However, these measures have historically faced implementation challenges, with missed opportunities to engage with the rich artisanal fishery heritage of the island. Only registered artisanal fishers benefit from government schemes, such as compensation measures rolled out during sea closures due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the subsequent oil spill in 2020. However, there is also a largely unrecognised informal sector within the artisanal fishery – revolving around subsistence activities involving women, who remain marginalised with limited opportunity to be officially registered.

     

    Exploring Opportunities in a Sea of Challenges 

    The potential of artisanal fisheries can be unlocked through tapping into local markets that support artisanal livelihoods and sustainable fishing practices. To explore challenges and opportunities within this sector, Market Evolution for Small-scale Fisheries in Africa (MESA) is a collaborative, international discovery phase research project that laid the groundwork for future collaborations with artisanal fishers to enhance their financial inclusion and visibility in the Mauritian seafood sector.

    Under Innovate UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Demonstrate Impact in Developing Countries Programme, the MESA Discovery Phase Project was conducted in Mauritius from November 2020 until April 2021. As illustrated below, the concept tested was based on the integration of three existing South African and United Kingdom developed technologies and approaches:

    1. ABALOBI’s Hook to Cook platform, comprising of the Fisher catch and expense logging smartphone application (that allows fishers to digitally log their catches and expenses, and access real time sea state and forecasting data) and digital Marketplace system (that connects fishers directly to markets and consumers);
    2. Stone Three Communications’ AngelFish small vessel tracking and safety transponder device; and
    3. exactEarth Europe’s exactTrax/exactSeNS satellite data communication and vessel tracking services.

     

    Figure 1: From hook to cook concept designed by ABALOBI and supporting partners.

     

    Selected artisanal fisher communities, fishmongers, and seafood consumers (both private individuals and commercial representatives from the hospitality sector) took part in this project to explore and co-design this integrated digital solution. Market needs were also assessed for both greater sustainability and food and livelihood security. Fisher communities were represented by three artisanal fisher cooperatives from the north, east and south-east of Mauritius. All participants gave their insights into challenges and opportunities in the local seafood market, while giving inputs on how best to design a digital platform that can be used in the Mauritian context. Research was conducted via a series of training sessions for Mauritian research teams, workshops for fisher and consumer participants, virtual platforms for fishmonger participants, and individual meetings with government stakeholders.

     

    Strengthening Value Chains

    Key challenges highlighted by participants included limited resources and training available to fishers, difficult market access, and a lack of sufficient cold chain capacity – including a lack of consumer trust in the current cold chain system. The need for improved value chain traceability was emphasized, including the need to build trust and market connections between artisanal fishers, fishmongers, and consumers. The Hook to Cook concept has been very successful in addressing similar concerns in the South African context and is embraced by small-scale fishers and the restaurant market alike, with similar pilot projects successfully underway in Seychelles. The MESA Project demonstrated a strong desire and market readiness for the overall Hook to Cook concept among Mauritian artisanal fishers, fishmongers, and consumers.

    ABALOBI’s flagship Fisher smartphone application is very adaptable and can be easily configured to meet the unique requirements of the Mauritian context and language, allowing fishers to keep a record of fish caught and associated expenses (such as fuel, bait and other costs) per trip. Throughout the workshops, Mauritian fishers were enthusiastic about logging their catches and expenses to create a digital record that could potentially give them a way to apply for financial products such as bank loans and government fishing loans. In light of the recent Wakashio oil spill, participants also raised the value of this application in dealing with future oil spills or environmental disasters. As an example of this, fishers suggested they would benefit from logging their catches in the application as this digital record could help prove their work in future claims against oil spills and other environmental disasters.

     

    Enhancing Safety at Sea

    Tied to this, fishers voiced a strong desire for improved catch traceability and safety of life at sea – functions provided by the AngelFish device and associated satellite communication and vessel tracking services. Due to the Wakashio oil spill, many fishers have been forced to fish further offshore, placing them at risk of increased exposure to wind and waves. Many of these fishers do not carry satellite devices and have traditionally relied on landmarks to identify their position. Fishing further offshore requires enhanced safety of life at sea and most fishers welcomed the AngelFish device both for its safety at sea component and the associated traceability functions. Fishers were excited by the Fisher smartphone application’s weather forecasting functionality, suggesting that in combination with the AngelFish device, this would greatly improve their planning and safety at sea.

     

    Fishing for Traceability  

    Both commercial and home consumers highlighted the importance of the story of the fish and fisher, placing value on the Hook to Cook concept. There is a strong desire from consumers to directly access local seafood sourced from a robust, traceable cold chain. ABALOBI’s digital Marketplace platform and associated traceability, cold-chain and quality control protocols can address concerns of customer trust in the cold chain. However, further work will need to be done to overcome stigmas and stereotypes identified by participants. This digital platform also provides opportunities to integrate with cashless payment options (examples may include Juice by Mauritius Commercial Bank or My.t money) as a way for both fishers and customers to track their payments. Importantly, this digital Marketplace can be configured to include fishmongers, given their trusted position in this value chain and intimate knowledge of local fishing communities, purchasing and selling practices, and distribution with associated cold chains.

     

    Minding the Gender Gap

    The persistent marginalised status and lack of recognition of women’s roles in this sector remains a significant challenge. While fishing activities have become more accessible to women over time, most of their activities remain limited to maintaining fishing equipment, cleaning, sales (and associated logistics) and/or gleaning (i.e., the collection of shellfish) – largely for subsistence purposes. Women fishers are therefore not properly remunerated, and their work remains informal and unrecognised. Further research is required on how best to tailor these digital platforms to address their unique position and needs in the fishery.

     

    Changing with the Tides

    Within the Republic of Mauritius, fisheries is considered a priority sector as it provides an important source of income and nutrition – given their pivotal role in food security and livelihood creation, artisanal fishers should not be excluded from this important sector. Reimagining the artisanal fishery in Mauritius from the fish in the sea to the fish on your plate (and everything in between) is possible, as unequivocally demonstrated through the MESA Project. Using participatory and co-design approaches was vital for the MESA Project to encourage future buy-in from fishers, fishmongers and consumers as stakeholders should form an integral part of the creation process from the beginning. Gaining insights into challenges and opportunities from a diverse range of participants ensures that the digital applications and platforms can be configured to fit the local context. The Hook to Cook concept, supported by these digital applications/platforms and their accompanying traceability technologies, can offer elegant, locally relevant solutions to the dwindling artisanal fishery of Mauritius. This initiative is an important step towards encouraging sustainability by focusing on the health and resilience of local social-ecological systems, rather than exploiting far-away resources at the expense of local livelihoods.

     

    Acknowledgements:

    The authors would like to give special thanks to the participating fishing communities for giving their invaluable contributions to this research. We would also like to deeply thank all the other participants for their time and important contributions. The authors would like to express their deep appreciation to the supporting Mauritian research partners, with special thanks to Patrick Fortuno, Vishnu Soondron, Michael Didier and Ali Haydar (through the Fédération des Pêcheurs Artisans de l’Océan Indien); Karen Woomed-Petit (SoCha Ltd) and Amandine de Rosnay (Dynamia Associates & Developers Ltd). Finally, a special thank you to the project partners ABALOBI, Stone Three Communications and exactEarth Europe for their support and funding from Innovate UK.

    Main photo: Artisanal fisher boat in the lagoon at Trou-aux-Biches, Mauritius (photo taken by Catherine Ward)

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    The High Cost of Underrating Africa

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
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    0

     

    Hippolyte Fofack, Chief Economist of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).

     

    CAIRO – In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused Africa’s first recession in 25 years. The sharp tightening of global financial conditions triggered sudden stops in foreign direct investment and massive capital outflows, alongside one of the most dramatic global demand and supply shocks on record. The crisis intensified the continent’s liquidity constraints and compounded its existing macroeconomic management challenges.

    The pandemic-induced downturn has also amplified one of Africa’s biggest development challenges: the high cost of “perception premiums.” These premiums reflect the overinflated risks perennially assigned to Africa, irrespective of its improving macroeconomic fundamentals or the global economic environment.

    Fortunately, international leaders are finally discussing the problem. At last October’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva remarked that the world needs “to concentrate on reducing the perceived and real risk for investing in Africa so we can see this huge availability of financing for the rest of the world trickle down into Africa.”

    On May 18, French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called for “fairer financing rules for African economies,” will host an international summit on providing support to spur the region’s recovery. International coordination will be essential to equalize access to development financing and mitigate the risk of a divergent, two-speed global recovery, which threatens to exacerbate the income gap between Africa and other parts of the world.

    Galvanized by strong economic performance in countries like Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Ivory Coast, Sub-Saharan Africa has consistently been one of the world’s fastest-growing regions over the last two decades. Underscoring their resilience, several African countries expanded their output even during the pandemic, and two – Ethiopia and Guinea – were among the world’s five fastest-growing economies last year.

    Moreover, Africa’s advances transcend economics. As Georgieva has noted, “By improving policies and by strengthening institutions, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have made fundamental progress.” Over the past two decades, she said, extreme poverty in the region has declined by one-third, life expectancy has increased by a fifth, and real per capita income growth has averaged about 50%.

    But these successes appear to have had little to no impact on the dominant credit-rating agencies. They downgraded South Africa – which accounts for more than 20% of total intra-African trade and is the continent’s leading driver of cross-border investment – and several other African countries to “junk” status at the height of the pandemic last year. The downgrades extended the already long list of African sovereigns deemed to be highly risky and subject to default-driven borrowing rates.

    Some of these assessments seem erroneous in light of many African economies’ encouraging performance. Ethiopia’s GDP, for example, has increased more than tenfold since the turn of the century. And, in contrast to many other economies, the pandemic downturn did not entirely derail Ethiopia’s long-run growth trajectory. But it remains a sub-investment-grade borrower.

    With African governments’ borrowing costs so high, annual interest expenses have become one of their fastest-growing budgetary expenditures, in many cases exceeding health budgets. In Zambia, interest payments rose almost 13-fold within a decade, from around $63 million in 2010 to more than $804 million in 2019. Across Africa, annual interest payments more than tripled over the same period, from $8.1 billion to around $24.9 billion.

    Although interest expenses fell in 2020 (by 36.6% for Zambia and 26.6% for the region as a whole), they are expected to increase again after the crisis. This will reflect faster pandemic-triggered growth of external liabilities, as well as the expiration of temporary relief measures extended to vulnerable countries under the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative and the IMF’s Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust.

    In a 2015 study, researchers at the University of Michigan estimated that African sovereigns were paying an interest premium on their external borrowing of around 2.9%, or an extra $2.2 billion between 2006 and 2014. That figure has probably increased since then, especially in view of widening spreads and the avalanche of rating downgrades.

    This premium is a major impediment to African economies’ fiscal and debt sustainability and structural transformation. Africa’s total external debt is significantly lower in both absolute and per capita terms than that owed by advanced economies. But its ratio of external debt-service payments to budget revenues is significantly higher, reflecting the prohibitively high cost of default-driven rates.

    The region’s exposure to recurrent terms-of-trade shocks, which tend to increase trade and fiscal deficits and worsen liquidity constraints, has also amplified its high perception premiums. Structurally transforming African economies to diversify sources of growth and trade away from commodities will reduce this ancillary risk over time.

    This will require, as Macron and Georgieva have stressed, large and sustained sums of patient capital to drive investment beyond natural resources. But default-driven borrowing costs and high perception premiums are, in all likelihood, the most acute obstacles on the path toward such structural transformation.

    The international community responded rapidly to the pandemic, and introduced several initiatives to help low-income countries address acute liquidity constraints and mounting balance-of-payments pressures. In the short term, these measures will likely reduce eligible countries’ external debt-service payments and bolster their capacity to contend with COVID-19. But they do not address Africa’s fundamental development challenges.

    Until global investors and major rating agencies accurately integrate Africa’s brightening realities and diverse circumstances into their models, many countries will remain on the verge of debt distress, and structural transformation that is key to fiscal and debt sustainability will remain elusive. We must therefore hope that Macron’s May 18 summit will help to reduce Africa’s damaging perception premium, and compel international investors and policymakers to give the region an equal opportunity to access global finance.

     

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    This article was originally published by © Project Syndicate 2021 and is not under a Creative Commons Licence.

    Main Photo by Pixabay/Unsplash  

     

     

    What does the circular economy have to do with meeting climate goals?

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
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    Nikolaus Hastreiter, Researcher, Transition Pathway Initiative, Grantham Research Institute on the Environment and Climate Change, London School of Economics (LSE).

    Antonina Scheer, Researcher, Transition Pathway Initiative, Grantham Research Institute on the Environment and Climate Change, LSE.

    Beata Bienkowska, Deputy Research and Project Lead, Transition Pathway Initiative, Grantham Research Institute on the Environment and Climate Change, LSE.

    Simon Dietz, Professor of Environmental Policy, London School of Economics (LSE).

     

    Global demand for construction materials has risen substantially over the past decades. To keep global warming below 2°C, demand for steel and cement must peak by 2030 and fall below 2010 levels by 2070. The construction industry must make longer-lasting buildings and substitute low-carbon materials for high-carbon ones. Nikolaus Hastreiter, Antonina Scheer, Beata Bienkowska, and Simon Dietz (Transition Pathway Initiative, at LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment) write that the circular economy should be adopted as a comprehensive approach incorporated into each stage of these materials’ life cycles. In the short and medium-term, investing in zero emissions technologies in parallel to deploying circular economy solutions will be necessary to set construction materials on the path to a low carbon future.

    For an answer to the question in the title, you can look at heavy industry. Global demand for construction materials like cement and steel has risen substantially over the past decades and is expected to continue growing (International Energy Agency, 2020a). The cement and steel sectors are big energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gases; together they account for nearly 17% of global CO2 emissions. (Assuming global CO2 emissions of 36.8 gigatonnes (Gt), cement emissions of 2.4 Gt, steel emissions of 3.7 Gt.) They are also sectors where greenhouse gas emissions are particularly difficult to abate. The Transition Pathway Initiative showed in a recent report that only a minority of cement and steel producers are currently on track to keep the global temperature rise to below 2⁰C. Moreover, the few companies with ambitious long-term climate commitments mostly lack corresponding ambition in the shorter term. Only one out of five leading cement companies that are aligned with a 2⁰C emissions pathway in 2050 is also aligned in 2030.

    Investors and regulators should be wary of backloading emissions reductions until mid-century, as it creates the risk that companies will leave themselves too much to do at the end, like a runner leaving too big a gap to the leaders to catch up and win the race. In the long term, beyond 2030, green hydrogen, low-carbon fuels and zero emissions technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) are likely to be key in helping cement and steel companies reduce their emissions (International Energy Agency, 2020a). But in the short term (and beyond), the concept of the circular economy offers concrete solutions to drive emissions down.

    The circular economy aims to transform the current linear economic system into one that is based on ‘designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems’ (Ellen Macarthur Foundation). It is governed by three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. In the construction materials sector, this approach has great potential to lower emissions by bringing together producers, intermediate manufacturers and end users, and by strengthening collaboration between sectors. A net zero future cannot be achieved if all sectors’ decarbonisation pathways remain siloed.

    Figure 1. Circular economy components discussed here

    Industrial management – harnessing cross-sectoral collaboration: The circular economy unlocks cross-sectoral collaboration by making one sector’s waste into another’s industrial input. For example, cement producers could partially substitute clinker with steel blast-furnace slag and coal ash. Since clinker is the most carbon-intensive input of cement production, this would reduce emissions substantially. These waste materials could replace 15-25% of clinker in Europe (Material Economics, 2018). Meanwhile, waste fuels from other sectors, like tyres and paint residue, could replace coal and petcoke in cement kilns.

    Demand management – engaging the construction sector: To keep global warming below 2°C, demand for steel and cement must peak by 2030 and fall below 2010 levels by 2070 (International Energy Agency, 2020a). The construction sector consumes 50% of global cement production and 30% of global steel production, therefore its demand will need to decrease. From the perspective of construction companies, emissions from manufacturing these materials are upstream Scope 3 emissions. These emissions can be lowered through material efficiency measures, most importantly through making longer-lasting buildings by, for example, creating more modular spaces and prioritising renovation.

    In addition, high-carbon construction materials could also be substituted with low-carbon ones. Cross-laminated timber, if sourced from sustainable forestry, has a much lower emissions intensity, and offers better opportunities for reuse and energy recovery (Ramage et al., 2017). Pioneering projects include the completed Mjøstårnet tower in Norway as well as the W350 project in Tokyo to build a 90% wooden skyscraper by 2041.

    Figure 2. The tallest timber building
    Note: Mjøstårnet is an 18-storey mixed-use building in Brumunddal, Norway, completed in March 2019. It is currently the world’s tallest timber building. Source: Image by NinaRundsveen, under a CC-BY-SA-4.0 licence, via Wikimedia Commons.

    End-of-life management – reuse and recycling of materials: When buildings come to the end of their lives, the reuse and recycling of cement and steel are the shared responsibility of the materials and construction sectors. Steel-based structural elements can often be reused in new construction and otherwise recycled to make secondary steel. Global steel recycling rates are impressively high at 85% but can be pushed above 90% by targeting end users and regions with weaker recycling practices and infrastructure (International Energy Agency, 2020b). Recycling scrap steel is much less emissions-intensive than primary steelmaking.

    Recycling cement is more challenging. Mixed with water, cement binds sand and gravel to form concrete. This chemical reaction is irreversible. However, new ideas to recycle cement and its components are materialising (Material Economics, 2018). The start-up SmartCrushers has developed a technique to recover unreacted sand, gravel, and cement from crushed concrete rubble with promising results. It is also possible to explore reusing concrete components at buildings’ end-of-life. Lendager, a pioneer in this field, built a residential area in Copenhagen by reusing abandoned walls from rural dwellings.

    Interestingly, concrete re-absorbs CO2 from the surrounding air over its lifetime in buildings through recarbonation. Increasing the exposed surface area of concrete leads to increased CO2 absorption. Hence, it is recommended to expose crushed concrete to the air for several months before reusing it, for example, as road underlay. Up to 25% of the lifecycle emissions of cement can be reabsorbed through such recycling methods.

    Towards a balanced decarbonisation future

    None of these measures can decarbonise steel and cement in isolation. The circular economy should be adopted as a comprehensive approach incorporated into each stage of these materials’ life cycles. Not only do various measures and technologies need to be implemented, but relevant actors throughout the construction supply chain must be involved. In the short and medium-term, investing in zero emissions technologies in parallel to deploying circular economy solutions will be necessary to set construction materials on the path to a low carbon future.

     

    Charles Telfair Centre is an independent nonpartisan not for profit organisation and does not take specific positions. All views, positions, and conclusions expressed in our publications are solely those of the author(s).

    This article first appeared in the LSE Business Review

    Main Photo Pixabay/Pexels

    Measuring What Matters

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
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    Maxwell Gomera, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme in Rwanda, is a senior fellow of Aspen New Voices.

     

    KIGALI – As many as 150 million people globally, roughly the combined population of Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, may have fallen into pandemic-induced extreme poverty over the past year. Partly as a result, governments are currently pumping unprecedented amounts of money into their COVID-19 response, spending over $14.6 trillion on rescue and stimulus measures in 2020 alone.

    But a recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme and the University of Oxford indicates that only 18% of current recovery investments can be considered “green.” That’s a problem.

    As governments prime the pumps of economic recovery, they must change the yardsticks by which they measure human progress and welfare. Otherwise, their investments risk further fueling the inequalities and environmental destruction that prepared the ground for the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Environmental degradation and increasing contact between wildlife and humans enabled SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to jump from animals to people. And the conditions the virus encountered – shaped by vast social inequities – enabled it to erupt into a pandemic with devastating health, social, and economic consequences.

    Even in countries that have stated their intention to address both environmental destruction and inequality, rescue packages are dominated by spending that supports unsustainable pre-pandemic economic activities. These misguided investments reinforce the conditions that got us here in the first place.

    For example, countries such as India, Canada, South Africa, and China have set aside funding for green recoveries but are simultaneously propping up their fossil-fuel industries. While China has put forward an ambitious green recovery plan, construction of coal plants in its provinces surged in the first half of 2020.

    South Africa has earmarked $3.5 billion of investment in three new energy projects that will ostensibly “reduce the use of diesel-based peaking electrical generators.” But the state-owned electric utility, Eskom, previously built the world’s third- and fourth-largest coal-fired power plants. The industrial region around Middelburg, with a population of 4.7 million, includes 12 coal-fired power plants and a huge refinery that produces liquid petroleum from coal. This facility generates more greenhouse-gas emissions annually than entire countries such as Norway and Portugal. Respiratory diseases in the region likely cause more than 300 premature deaths per year.

    Other unsustainable activities – such as destroying forests, plowing and paving grasslands, and polluting fresh water – continue unabated. These natural resources sustain billions of people. They account for 47% of the rural poor’s household incomes in India, nearly 75% in Indonesia, and 89% in Brazil’s northern Amazon. Over 70% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa depend on forests and woodlands for their livelihoods.

    To correct our course, we must change the way we measure human development and social progress. Without the right signposts, we will be unable to achieve the transformation our economies and societies must undergo to ensure our survival. National gross domestic product, the most widely used economic-development measure, is useful and provides a great deal of information closely related to human welfare. But it offers no guidance regarding how to avoid unsustainable and unequal outcomes.

    Fortunately, as countries plan their post-pandemic recovery expenditures, they can consider a new tool: the Planetary-Pressures Adjusted Human Development Index (PHDI) developed by the United Nations Development Programme and its partners.

    The PHDI is a gauge of human progress that accounts for poverty, inequality, and planetary strains. It measures not only a country’s health, education, and living standards, but also its carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint. The resulting index gives policymakers an indication of how development priorities would change if the well-being of both people and the planet were central to defining humanity’s progress.

    Using this approach, more than 50 countries drop out of the very high human development group based on UNDP’s standard Human Development Index, while countries like Costa Rica, Moldova, and Panama rise at least 30 places. Planning that conserves nature would improve the well-being of billions of people.

    Some might argue that GDP is a well-established universal yardstick, and that the PHDI is too complicated for countries facing urgent and competing development priorities. But the new index enables us to identify and measure the sustainability problem, and offers a clear alternative to relying on one main indicator – GDP – as a gauge of a country’s progress.

    Without a different approach, we risk inviting the next pandemic by widening inequities and deepening the environmental crisis. The two go hand in hand. And when disaster ultimately strikes, the best we can hope for will be timely humanitarian relief.

    Instead, governments should adopt new measures to address the environmental crisis and growing inequality, and make these part of a longer-term strategy that begins now. By measuring what matters, governments will be able to deliver recovery plans that strengthen green stewardship and reduce inequities, improving the prospects for a healthier and more prosperous future for all.

     

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    This article was originally published by © Project Syndicate 2021 and is not under a Creative Commons Licence.

    Main Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash  

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