The focus of the conference is immensely relevant to SSA policy makers, who confront a number of intertwined issues in their effort to achieve sustainable development in our changing world. For one, globalization with its worldwide resource demands and opportunities has much accelerated in the past 50 years, resulting in impressive growth for a number of countries, with a paradoxical decline in economic performance of some of the world’s poorest, many of them in Africa. At the same time, the impact of climate change wrought by industrialization is recognized as one of the greatest threats to the continued development – some say existence – of our globalized world.

It is no longer possible for SSA to stay aloof from these processes. The threat globalization poses to African economies is the potential for marginalization, thus increasing the urgency of a more proactive stance towards policy interventions as a means of modifying the dynamics to better serve their interests. As for climate change, its impacts are seen across the continent and SSA faces the task of guaranteeing sustainable development under the constraints it imposes, coupled with effective management of natural resources in the context of huge global demand. AERC’s view is that these multifaceted challenges can be effectively addressed by African policy makers only if adequate capacity is built and retained to conduct rigorous inquiry into the interactions among them.

The intention of the conference is to bring together a significant body of information to illuminate the physical, socioeconomic and global impacts of climate change and resource management, and related policy issues. This is particularly relevant for the poor in SSA, who constitute over 60% of the continent’s population, because their livelihoods depend on agriculture. AERC’s long-term ambition focuses on a paradigm shift at the national level, so that Africa’s poor can become less vulnerable to drought-related food shortages and globalization on the whole. It is anticipated that through AERC’s broad research and policy network, the research papers and dissemination efforts will bring these issues to the fore so as to raise African policy makers’ awareness and enable them to take a proactive stance on behalf of their countries and nationals.

And for AERC’s own agenda, the economic policy aspects of natural resource management and climate change present opportunities and challenges in each of the areas of focus of AERC research and, indeed, training programmes. Thus, apart from the policy relevance, one expected outcome of the conference is the mainstreaming of the two issues into our thematic research activities and collaborative research projects. Similarly, the universities participating in AERC training programmes will be encouraged to factor these issues into their training programmes as appropriate.