Mavilde de Assunção Alves has been a beekeeper for almost 15 years. Every week she sets up a table to sell honey on the main road or at the local market in Bailundo, a town in Angola’s central Huambo province. “I have many customers,” she says with a smile, although she admits that the work is challenging. Like most beekeepers in Angola, Ms. Alves walks many kilometres to tend to her hives dotted across the hilly landscape of her 45 hectares of farmland, where she also grows corn, beans, potatoes and other crops.
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and UNCTAD have extended to the Indo-Pacific region a joint programme that works with governments, researchers and businesses to reduce manufacturing’s environmental footprint in developing countries.
Project set to help Indo-Pacific region fight plastic pollution african.business - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from african.business Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Consumers have the right to safe products but this right is constantly under threat. In the European Union alone, unsafe products cause accidents and losses estimated at $34.4 billion per year, according to the European Commission. This trend, though less reported, is replicated in the developing world.
Markets are failing to ensure sustainable economic and social outcomes, slowing progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, experts said at UNCTAD’s ad hoc expert meeting on competition, consumer protection and sustainability on 28 September. To turn the tide of businesses maximizing profits to the detriment of the planet, countries should address market failures through public policies, including those on competition and consumer protection.