Discussion: The ‘green agenda’ – lost in translation?
The examples of Kenya and Tanzania give evidence of a huge gap between the rhetoric of the green agenda and the reality of what is actually achieved in these two countries. The case studies show that green development is not at all a harmonious and peaceful transition towards a better world, as the concept itself would promise, but that these processes are on the contrary quite conflict-ridden and even violent. They go along with the establishment of large dams and irrigated farms, the eviction and marginalisation of smallholders, and a massive transformation of rural livelihoods. This is exactly the opposite of the original philosophy, which envisioned green transformation as an approach intended to harmonise environmental, economic, and social objectives. The East African examples do not stand for harmony, but rather for attempts to hide the contradictions between the three cornerstones of the green philosophy. The examples have shown that the emphasis of Green Growth is on growth, whereas the social and environmental dimensions are often not given the same attention, or they are merely treated as side effects. The cases of Kenya and Tanzania reveal a striking difference between the two countries. While the Kenyan government really made efforts to transform the country into a green economy, the Magufuli government in Tanzania clearly set its priorities on industry-led growth, with little concern for agriculture or anything that looks green.
This observation brings us back to our initial question concerning the purpose of green visions in the context of development and future-making. Quite obviously, many of the visionary policy papers of recent years have been collections of promises and wishful thinking rather than feasible programmes. The green agenda is therefore highly contested in public debates as well as in the scientific literature. Some hope that green approaches can provide feasible alternatives to current destructive tendencies, believing they will help to solve some of the existential challenges already being faced by African societies now, and even more so in the coming years (OECD 2010, Auktor et al. 2020). Others view the talk of green futures as just another ‘empty signifier’ in the context of international development, a ‘green-washing’ to disguise the neoliberal interests that are driving the dynamics of resource use in Africa (Buseth 2017, Bergius et al. 2017).
The comparison between the two neighbouring East African countries is interesting because it shows how differently rural areas and agricultural development may be treated in national planning. The succession from President Jakaya Kikwete (2005–2015) to President John Magufuli (2015–2021) meant a radical shift from ‘agriculture first!’ to industry-led development, or in other words, from green to brown growth. Green Economy concepts made their entry into Kenya and Tanzania more or less at the same time in the 2010s, when they featured in the specific country reports in the run up to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20 (United Republic of Tanzania 2011a, Akinyi Kaudia et al. 2012). However, Kenya and Tanzania show differential treatment of these concepts with regard to translation, modification, and implementation. Kenya indicates practices of adoption at both national and local levels while Tanzania indicates practices of rejection at the national level. In both countries, international actors and their local affiliates continue to push the Green Growth and Green Economy ideas, irrespective of their taste at national and local levels and despite the implementation challenges that emerge from the conflict between ‘green’ initiatives and country-specific development priorities.
We propose that concepts of green futures should be understood as travelling models which are translated into African contexts from abroad, similar to the paradigms of adaptation to climate change (Weisser et al. 2014). The cases presented in this chapter give evidence of the green agenda as a travelling model that is translated into national planning in Kenya and Tanzania. The reason why the model is adopted by African politicians and inscribed into national planning is often not simply its suitability for local conditions, but the support it gets from international donors. Green models of development go along with substantial funds, which attract the interest of influential policymakers and therefore make them a target for elite capture. Green Growth and Green Economy approaches promise not only to be in everyone’s interest in Africa, but to serve a global common good. The case studies illustrate that the green model of development does not travel easily from the North to the South, but rather is translated, modified, locally appropriated, or rejected. The travelling model undergoes a rough journey, which has diverse consequences in the places where it eventually arrives. The adoption of this model has multiple impacts on rural development, which are often far away from what had originally been envisioned.