Perspectives Sustainable Development and Bamboo Value Chains: Ethiopia’s Green Growth Opportunities Within the “Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19” by Dr. Edoardo Monaco
B
amboo is a versatile non-timber forest resource that is widely available across the world’s South. If harnessed properly, many of its over 1600 known species (Vorontsova et al., 2016) growing mostly in tropical and subtropical regions, could significantly contribute to the achievement of both Sustainable Development Goals (hereinafter SDGs) and Paris Agreement’s objectives. In particular, bamboo’s multiple uses and related value chains could promote poverty reduction (SDG 1), clean energy use (SDG 7), sustainable housing (SDG 11), efficient and sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), life on land (SDG 15), as well as effective global partnerships (SDG 17). UN Comtrade estimates the global market value of bamboo and rattan products to be at around USD 60 billion, including both domestic and international trade. China is by far the world’s largest producer of both bamboo and rattan products, as well as the leading exporter. The European Union (EU) as a whole is the second largest exporter of bamboo products (and the top importer ahead of USA and Japan), followed by Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines (INBAR, 2017). The ecological setting of East African nations such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, would be highly conducive to healthy growth of bamboo resources. Yet, their assets are largely untapped and bamboorelated economic sectors significantly underdeveloped. Ethiopia, above all, enjoys the largest bamboo resource
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endowment in the region. The present article briefly reviews the key opportunities and challenges of bamboo value chain management and upscaling in Ethiopia within the context of an ongoing trilateral development project—the “Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19”—that the International Network for Bamboo And Rattan (hereinafter INBAR) first brokered and now implements. INBAR is an intergovernmental development organization created in 1997 in Beijing to specifically promote the use of bamboo and rattan for sustainable development and green growth across its membership base, which comprises of 45 member countries, mostly from the Global South. The organization has grown to become the most relevant international body in its field, working closely with member countries’ governments, international development organizations and in particular with United Nations’ (UN) agencies such as the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). INBAR is also a member of UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and was granted Observer status to the UN’s General Assembly as well as Permanent Observer status to, among others, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC). This article is the product of a broader, ongoing study that intends to contribute to the public debate over the use of bamboo for sustainable development and to ultimately present the upscaling of bamboo value chains in Ethiopia (and beyond) as a major, yet often largely untapped, inclusive green growth opportunity. The article is based on data emerging, up until early 2019, from scholarly work, working papers, relevant reports as well as direct interviews mostly—but not exclusively—within INBAR’s repository and network of key stakeholders: it takes stock, in particular, of the market analyses and value chains assessments conducted by INBAR’s experts in Ethiopia during the implementation of the “Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19”. A follow-up article shall be produced for Solutions Journal upon the very conclusion of said Programme’s threeyear cycle (December 2019), to review its overall achievements, evaluate its broader significances and assess the possible “replicability” of such scheme elsewhere in the Global South*.
Why bamboo? As a woody grass—hence technically a plant, rather than a tree—bamboo is a natural resource that grows rapidly in much of the tropical world, over a total of about 40 million hectares globally (Lobovikov et al., 2007). Latest assessments (Vorontsova et al., 2016) have identified some 1642 species, many of which combine the characteristics of both