Sustainability was not just an environmental need, it was an economic necessity. So asserted UN Development Programme resident representative in South Africa and director of the Africa Sustainable Development Hub Maxwell Gomera, in his keynote address at Africa’s Green Economy Summit 2025, being held at the Century City Conference Centre in Cape Town. The first issue facing Africa was how to move from a 20th century economy to a 21st century economy, he said. The second issue was how could Africa address inequality in the transition to a green economy?

“Africa has the resources, the ingenuity and the drive to be a world leader,” he affirmed. “But only of we make the right decisions.”

The new policies adopted by the US had undermined global carbon markets and green technologies, he warned. Billions of dollars in potential investment were now endangered. Africa could not just wait around. The continent had to develop its own financing means. “We have the resources, but do we have the will?”

Africa had to expand its sources of finance. One possibility were the remittances sent home by Africans living in a diaspora. Currently, these remittances were mainly spent on consumption. But there was “no law of physics” stopping remittances also being used by Africans abroad for investment back home.

The continent was hampered by outdated financial models which automatically imposed high risk premiums on investments into Africa. These models denied funding for lots of opportunities, especially for small, medium and micro enterprises. “We must change how we measure risk,” he said. New financial risk tools could be developed.

Africa should also seek to process its’ natural resources at home, and not export them in raw form.    

Further, serving the needs of ordinary Africans, particularly in rural areas, could create new industries. For example, clean cooking technologies, which would obviate the need for women and girls to spend hours collecting firewood every day (an activity which could be dangerous).

The UNDP was investing in solar-powered cooling technologies, for use by small and informal traders. This would allow them to preserve the food they sold and greatly reduce the risks of food poisoning, which could, and did, prove fatal for children.

“Poverty doesn’t just mean going to be hungry,” he highlighted. “It means being trapped. It means having no choices.” The green economy transition had to help with the elimination of poverty.

The choices Africans made today, he affirmed, would determine whether the continent remained a raw material exporter, which imported solutions, or became a leader in the global green economy.