Conceptual background: The ‘greening’ of development as a travelling model
‘Green’ has multiple meanings in policy debates, all of which refer in some way to ‘nature’ and human-environment relationships (Leach 2015). In this chapter, we focus on concepts that address the value of nature for human purposes in the context of agricultural development. The understanding of ‘green’ development in the scholarly literature has sparked controversial debates that see it either as an appropriate approach to bridge the gap between economic and environmental goals or as just another neoliberal strategy in a green disguise. We want to add another perspective to the critical debate by drawing attention to the performative dimension of ‘green’ futures. We propose to think of green development concepts as travelling models, i.e. as generalised ideas or blueprints designed by experts for particular conditions and then transferred to other situations and regional settings, where they are locally appropriated, adopted, and eventually modified to better fit the new situation (Behrends et al. 2014).
The concepts of ‘Green Growth’ and ‘Green Economy’ emerged in the early 2000s as a response to the multidimensional global crisis of sluggish economic growth, resource depletion, and climate change. The idea itself has deep historical roots, going back to the Club of Rome’s ‘Limits to Growth’ (Meadows et al. 1972) and the Brundtland Report on ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987. The critical understanding of human relations with nature influenced the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, the Rio Conference in 1992, the subsequent annual conferences of the parties to negotiate climate change mitigation and adaptation, and more recently the European Union’s call for a ‘New Green Deal’ (Wolf et al. 2021, Kemfert 2019). One of the early proponents of ‘Green Growth’ was the government of President Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) in South Korea, which used the concept as a blueprint for structural transformation and later supported its adoption in other countries (Hwang et al. 2017). In general, green transformations seek to influence development practices and discourses, making them particularly relevant for countries in the Global South (Scoones et al. 2015). It is therefore not surprising that Green Growth has become a buzzword in much of Africa, where it is being pushed through policy and local development plans as a crucial and immediate remedy to pressing economic, environmental and social challenges (Onuoha et al. 2017).
Proponents of the green development paradigm see it as a new blueprint for environment-friendly economic growth (Barbier and Markandya 2013). The concept is actively promoted by influential international institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), as well as by numerous development agencies. In addition, the conceptual framework is the subject of intensive discussions at development-oriented research centres such as the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex (Scoones et al. 2015), the Green Economics Institute in the UK (Onuoha et al. 2017), the German Institute of Development and Sustainability IDOS (Auktor et al. 2020), and many others.
The OECD (2010) defines Green Growth as ‘a way of pursuing economic growth and development while avoiding environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and unsustainable use of natural resources’. A report by United Nations (2008) states that ‘green growth aims to reconcile economic growth and environmental sustainability by promoting changes in the way societies produce and consume’. Since 2010, the OECD has introduced the Green Growth strategy to its member countries as a new approach to replace the ‘grow first, clean up later’ model, starting with Asia and the Pacific (see OECD 2011). The strategy also advocates that environmental protection should be seen as a driver of growth and essential for long-term economic sustainability, rather than a constraint on economic growth, and urges the creation of Green Growth policies, the adoption of green planning that improves eco-efficiency in production and consumption, and the development and strengthening of institutions for effective decision-making. In this sense, Green Growth is presented as a triple-win approach that helps reconcile competing development goals while supporting economic growth as a prerequisite for income generation.
At the global level, the establishment of the Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) in 2010/2011 created a collaborative platform to promote Green Growth by helping governments, businesses, and experts to shape the successful transition to a global Green Economy. The 3GF thus became an influential platform for the consistent adoption of the Green Growth strategy, broadly translated as the Green Economy, in low-income countries. By 2018, the concept had been mainstreamed across much of Africa, driven by platforms such as the Africa Green Growth Forum, the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, the Green Growth Knowledge Platform, the Green Industry Platform, and the Green Finance Platform. Sector-specific Green Growth initiatives in Africa include the Africa Green Revolution Forum, which focuses exclusively on African agriculture, and the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), a country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares of land in Africa by 2030. These steps have heralded the creation of many green funds, mainly through the Africa-OECD partnerships.
According to the OECD (2010), Green Growth strategies build on existing sustainable development initiatives in many countries and aim to identify greener sources of growth, including seizing opportunities to develop new green industries, jobs, and technologies, while managing the structural changes associated with the transition to a greener economy. For developing countries, it states that
the objective of green growth addresses priority environmental challenges, including biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate change, sustainable materials management and the sustainable use of natural resources, including forests and water. It does so by promoting sound natural resource management and governance, designing climate-resilient growth, and promoting low-carbon growth through incentives, institutional and regulatory reforms (see OECD 2011, 2013, 2015).
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has been particularly instrumental in Africa’s appreciation of the Green Growth strategy, following the publication of its discussion paper ‘Facilitating Green Growth in Africa’. The authors note that Green Growth is compatible with Africa’s priorities, adding that ‘green growth means pursuing inclusive economic growth through policies, programmes and projects that invest in sustainable infrastructure, better manage natural resources, build resilience to natural disasters and enhance food security’ (Sperling et al. 2012: 5).
This raises the question of how these concepts, promoted as a one-size-fits-all solution for the Global South, are appropriated in the target countries and how they influence local development planning. In what follows, we explore this question using the examples of Kenya and Tanzania. We want to show how Green Growth and Green Economy concepts are negotiated, modified, and resisted on the ground, and to what extent they are able to influence national planning and local development in reality. We suggest that Green Growth and Green Economy strategies reflect a form of colonisation of development planning in Africa, in so far as the green paradigm and the Green Growth ideology were not initially formulated in Africa, but were more or less willingly adopted by African politicians and project managers to modify the existing forms of planning. Yet the initiatives resulting from this adoption of the global paradigm serve various interests that often have relatively little to do with the ‘green’ philosophy.