Editor’s Note: Happy International Youth Day! This year’s theme is in line with the Sustainable Development Goal with the theme: “The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Production and Consumption”
YPARD Zimbabwe Representative, Raymond Erick Zvavanyange in this special post on International Youth Day reminds us that whatever sustainable practice (choices) we make at the local level (our country/community) affects the global outcome of Sustainable Agricultural practices on Production and Consumption”
By Raymond Erick Zvavanyange, @zvavanyanger3, Zimbabwe
Choices are local. Yet they stubbornly persist in our every day networked world.
We are beginning to actually detail the extent of the effects of our choices on a global scale – in food, water, energy, and climate. Leadership is more than ever needed to settle for hard choices to steer the human species on a sustainable consumption and production path. As we celebrate the International Youth Day 2016, let us take a moment to reflect on the choices that we make in our daily lives. I say so; because these are choices that current and future generation depends on. We are one big family of the human and animal species. How do we eradicate poverty? How do we achieve sustainable production and consumption? There are no easy answers here!
A firm foundation was laid during the consequential commitments made by World Leaders and Governments at the United Nations Headquarters, in New York, United States, in September 2015. The resulting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) bears testimony to creativity among the human species in global development. No one person or nation is an island. As entities we can initiate local efforts to implement the Global Development Agenda. We can start by lobbying for truly sustainable lifestyles that derive from hard choices. Past great men and women taught us that each generation must discover its purpose. Resolving to make hard choices, which lead to a better future, is in tandem with the object lesson. Hard choices require a posture and creativity as well.
Creativity – the ability to transcend the norms, ideas, patterns, and relations – should compel us as a species to discover ways to produce and consume in sustainable ways. With creativity, as the center piece of dialogue and interaction, it is possible to link different areas around the globe and congregate around important issues. Let every individual derive inspiration to make, if necessary, the hard choices in our networked world as we move towards the 2030: Agenda for Sustainable Development. Practical wisdom can take us to make better choices. Better choices, which are not only personal and local, are already shaping the next years for the human species. Make them rich in thought and evidence.
About the Author:
Raymond Erick Zvavanyange is one of On-Site Social Reporters at the 7th Africa Agriculture Science Week (#AASW7) and FARA General Assembly to be held during 13th – 16th June, 2016, in Kigali, Rwanda. He is a Country Representative under the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development, and is enthusiastic about Foresight in Science and Agriculture in Africa.