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Note to the reader from the UNU
This book is based on papers presented to a conference on "Sustainable Environmental and Resource Management Futures for Sub-Saharan Africa" held under the auspices of the United Nations University programme on "Sustainable Environmental Futures." The programme formed a part of the United Nations University Programme on Sustainable Environmental and Energy Futures, which is a response to the United Nations' Agenda 21. The programme focused on the complex interactions of physical and human activities in changing the environment, especially in the tropical regions of the world. The overall aim of the programme was to promote ecologically as well as socially and economically sustainable development through basic and applied research, training, and dissemination of research findings to policy makers. An earlier regional volume emanating from the research, entitled South East Asia's Environmental Future: The Search for Sustainability, was published in 1993.
The authors were given the objectives of analysing the trends and processes of environmental change in Sub-Saharan Africa, and of identifying key issues for reaching sustainable environmental and resource management in the region within the medium-term future until around the year 2005. The aim was to provide policy relevant conclusions for the benefit of decision makers in the countries concerned and in international agencies and other bodies concerned with African development. The work covered studies on how natural, socio-economic, cultural, and political causes affect the environmental future of Sub-Saharan Africa.