Environmental Change and Human Health in Countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific

While new environmental health risks dominate the world’s headlines, this report indicates that old diseases dominate the health statistics of countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). Although ACP residents are vulnerable to the health risks of global environmental change, the poor majority are already at risk from inadequate water, poor sanitation, smoky dwellings, and a lack of food. Changes in the world economy pose a more obvious threat to these local environmental and health conditions than does global climate change.

The report provides a companion to the World Resource Institute’s World Resources Report, 1998-99. While the World Resources Report focused on the global level, this report focuses on the ACP countries – the states in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific that are signatories to the Lomé Convention. The coverage of sub-Saharan Africa is far more complete than that of the island states of the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The findings of the report suggest that, while there is enormous variation among ACP countries, few contribute appreciably to global resource depletion and waste generation. On the other hand, the burden of disease in the ACP is among the highest in the world, and a particularly large share of this burden – about one third – is related to environmental conditions. Children are the worst affected.
The report demonstrates that these environmental conditions are, in turn, closely related to poverty, and the broader set of development challenges these countries face. However, what emerges is not an “old” agenda, requiring “more of the same,” but new challenges that call out for innovative forms of inter-sectoral collaboration, engagement with civil society, and an international agenda that responds to local concerns and priorities. The report identifies two key actions for the shared agenda of improving environmental health: improving food security and achieving healthy living environments. A number of other areas for intervention are also discussed.

The report includes chapters relating health to demography, the environmental context, agricultural change, urbanization and global environmental change, concluding with a chapter on ‘Health and Environment: the Common Agenda.’