Invest in jobs, infrastructure and protecting development gains, African leaders urged

KIGALI, Rwanda (APO) – Opening an unprecedented gathering of experts here, present and former African Heads of State urged business, community and political leaders to help turn the continent’s impressive growth into economic opportunities for ordinary citizens.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, inaugurating the country’s first African Economic Conference, said, “In Rwanda, we understand that politics and economics go hand in hand and we have made a conscious and deliberate choice of inclusive development based on our political reality. By and large, they have produced positive results. Growth has been consistent and poverty levels considerably reduced by 12% from 56.9% to 44% in five years.”

Organised each year by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the theme for this year’s African Economic Conference will be “Inclusive and Sustainable Development in an Age of Economic Uncertainty”.

Africa has weathered the economic crisis and achieved considerable advances in the area of poverty reduction and human development. However, the region is still home to high levels of poverty, hunger, unemployment and inequality in political voice and access to resources.

“Over the first decade of this century, with the exception of 2008, Africa experienced exceptional economic performance and growth in GDP per capita,” said Helen Clark, the UNDP Administrator. “But there is a way to go in many countries to translate that growth into higher human development. Deliberate policy measures and targeted investments are needed to make growth not just fast, but also inclusive and sustainable.”

Participants on the opening day said that the key issue for the continent was to shift from commodity-based to innovative, diversified economies at a time when foreign direct investment, aid and remittances were drying up.

Donald Kaberuka, AfDB president, underscored the need for long-term solutions. He suggested that Africa’s growth should include doing research on solutions on how African countries could internally finance their development, and learning from what has gone wrong globally to redesign their policies.

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