ABSTRACT
A huge literature has emerged concerning sustainability and development, prompted first by the World Summit at Rio and again in the build-up to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg, and its outcomes. I do not attempt a review here. Rather, I am concerned to explore how the concept of sustainability is being elaborated around the Millennium Development Goal, and the targets and strategies and programmes to achieve them, considering this particularly in relation to Africa. The main argument is that its elaboration in documentation and initiatives minimises or obscures the way local issues are linked to global forces, whether economic or environmental. Crucial aspects concerning the transnational corporate and global dimensions to current resource uses and their sustainability are rendered marginal, not centre stage, in the focus on country policies and programmes of the Millennium Development Goals. In particular, I argue that the impact both of the ‘new scramble for Africa’ by transnational corporations, and of impending global climate change on African environmental resources, threatens to undermine or override country policies for sustainability.
