Sustainability in Developing Countries

This book uses Botswana as an African case study to provide a new approach to an African country's "state of sustainability" reporting by including contributions and topics from a wide variety of stakeholders that enables a cross-sectoral and multi-disciplinary analysis of state of sustainability reporting in a country. The volume provides an example of how academia can supplement African governments' existing forms of reporting on sustainability in a country such as Botswana. By engaging academic publishing in sustainability reporting, more detailed descriptions and experiences of not only milestones, but also experiences towards achieving SDGs are provided, and a variety of stakeholders who participate in reporting on sustainability are increased. This approach resonates with the building of local strategies towards achievement of the various sustainable development goals (SGDs) outlined by the United Nations (UN). Publishing a 'sustainability report' in a somewhat academic format also enables temporal comparison of sustainability reporting exercise across scholarship lines. Conventional reporting on sustainability by most African countries like Botswana is an exercise that is predominantly the preserve of a designated Government ministries where generalized policy directions are commonly presented. While this form of reporting provides one platform for tracking the 2030 sustainable development goals, it falls short of providing in-depth descriptions and experiences of the wider stakeholders contributing to achievement of SDGs. Academia, through publishing provides the framework for situation-analysis and in-depth descriptions of grass-root experiences, offering an opportunity for the Sustainable Development milestones to be monitored at a more intimate level. As this volume illustrates, publishing experiences from various stakeholders of a country like Botswana provides a different point of departure for documenting, monitoring/tracking the 2030 sustainable development Agenda of an African country like Botswana. The contributing sectors include academic researchers, environmental NGOs; institutional approaches and local actors in Botswana and the region. Topics discussed include biodiversity, water management, world heritage, education, tourism, gender, institutional approaches to SDGs achievement, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGO)'s experiences amongst others.