Tourism Governance and Attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa

ABSTRACT

Inclusiveness that improves tourism governance is significant for development if benefits from tourism are distributed equitably. Declaration of 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism and adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have seemingly brought tourism to the forefront of development even where the SDGs have limited tourism focus. This paper examines how tourism governance is poorly applied in Africa. It interrogates the challenges of integrating tourism governance, mining, and conservation within the SDGs framework in Africa. Sustainable tourism governance frameworks have not comprehensively inculcated trust, justice, social capital, power, and participation. Using mining and conservation in South Africa and Zimbabwe respectively, it analyses how mining affects sustainability, as actors in tourism are unable to conserve and protect tourism sites. Achieving the SDGs requires collaboration between international actors, governments, the private sector, and locals in an inclusive governance based on justice, inclusion trust and equitable power relations.

Highlights

• Improvement in tourism governance is important for development

• Challenges of integrating tourism in the SDGs in Africa

• Tourism governance is however poorly applied in Africa

• Sustainable tourism governance neglects trust, justice, power and participation.

• Mining and poor conservation undermines sustainable tourism

• To achieve the SDGs, collaboration among varied actors is critical

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism
• sustainability
• governance
• SDGs
• South Africa
• Zimbabwe

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the insightful comments from the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. These 17 goals build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while including new areas such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, peace, and justice, among other priorities. The SDGs also has 169 targets. The goals are interconnected – often the key to success on one will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another. These goals are extensively discussed here: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html. This paper does not aim to repeat them and their implications for sustainable development here.

2 https://tourism-sdg.nz/, Accessed on 6 December 2018.

3 Each year, the United Nations Development Programme publishes its HDI, ranking all the world’s countries according to life quality of its inhabitants. Major parameters include global access to education and health services, longevity and equal income opportunities.