A well-defined weighting system of the role of the environment on economic growth will ultimately result in more attention being conferred to environmental sustainability and development of appropriate policies necessary for effective environmental management to support sustainable economic growth. 7. Conclusion  While pollution largely affects developed countries, environmental degradation is a more pertinent feature for developing nations. Studies have shown that environmental sustainability is linked to factors of economic development. Therefore advancements in one cannot occur without advancements in the other. Environmental degradation in Africa is exacerbated by poverty due to the reliance of the majority of the poor on natural resources. In the world today, about 900 million people live in absolute poverty in rural areas and depend on the consumption of natural products for their livelihood (UNDP, 2003). Unfortunately, most of the activities and methods used in deriving economic value from natural resources are not environmentally sustainable. Moreover, the resultant economic benefits, in most instances, only accrue to current consumption and not sustainable development from which resources for addressing negative consequences on the environment could be drawn. In Africa, most activities include unplanned quarrying, spontaneous trench digging for small-scale mining, shifting cultivation, indiscriminate cutting of trees for energy, inappropriate small-scale mineral processing using water and poor waste management, including indiscriminate killing of wild animals (poaching) in game parks. The way forward in addressing these issues relates to the implementation of supportive government policies regarding environmental management and environmental sustainability.

Cecilia Skingsley: A year of negative interest rates. Where do we stand now? Speech by Ms Cecilia Skingsley, Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Danske Bank, Stockholm, 7 April 2016. *  *  *  Thank you to Christina Nyman, Ulf Söderström, Charlotta Edler, Marianne Sterner, Emil Brodin and Anders Vredin for useful comments and assistance. Thank you for inviting me here today. I intend to talk about three issues: Is it possible to conduct a national monetary policy in a complicated international environment? How has Swedish monetary policy been conducted in recent years? What considerations should govern our choice of future path? Is it possible to conduct a national monetary policy in a complicated international environment? I believe that most people will recognise the description of growth and the recovery following the global financial crisis as being a disappointment in most countries. In many cases the setbacks have been severe and prolonged, for instance, in southern Europe, while in other cases growth has been positive but low. Many central banks, wishing to live up to their price stability commitments, have implemented more far-reaching and long-term measures to stimulate monetary policy than have previously been imagined as possible. So how did we get to where we are now, with such low interest rates? In the long run, it is structural factors such as the conditions for growth and the willingness to save that determine the level of the real interest rate.