[t]he Africa Environment Outlook (AEO) is a tool of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) for monitoring environmental management in Africa. It provides a framework for reporting at the national and subregional levels and seeks to enable AMCEN member countries to institute environmental management policies and programmes for the sustainable future of the continent. The AMCEN Secretariat partners with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), through its Regional Office for Africa (ROA) and the Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA), in producing periodic series of the report.
The current issue (AEO-3) focuses on the linkages between environment and health, largely because of the recognition that environmental factors contribute about 28 per cent of Africa’s disease burden. This disease burden is dominated by diarrhoea, respiratory infections and malaria which collectively account for 60 per cent of the known environmental health impacts in Africa. Accordingly, the Ministers of Environment and of Health at their 2008 joint meeting in Libreville, Gabon selected the linkages as the principal focus of joint actions. This focus was reemphasized at their 2010 joint meeting in Luanda, Angola and selected by the technical committee as the theme for AEO-3. It is envisaged that this Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) as well as the AEO-3 main report will provide information for evidence-based decision making and spur AMCEN member countries into strengthening their capacity for policy making and advocacy at the national, regional and global levels.