Mr Ato Haliemariam Dessalegn – Ethiopian Prime Minister
The Prime Minister for Ethiopia, Mr. Ato Haliemariam Dessalegn, has urged African leaders to make domestic resource mobilization its topmost priority towards achieving a remarkable economic growth.
He said Africa’s strategy to optimize the use of its resources for the benefits of all Africans will require substantial financial resources and African leaders must look at domestic sources to fund this. Mr Dessalegn said this when he addressed African leaders at the 2015 conference of Ministers in Addis Ababa.“I am sure that Africa has untapped public and private resources that should be sufficient to meet the needs”, he said.
He also pointed out that, the potential for increased domestic resource mobilization is enormous considering the current low levels of taxation in Africa. “Tax as a share of GDP has only increased marginally over recent years and many countries are recording a tax ratio of less than 10 per cent”, he explained.
He said domestic resource mobilization in the form of private savings is mainly hampered by lack of access to financial services in rural areas.According to him, large parts of populations have limited access to financial access as they are considered too poor to be able to save money and too risky to lend money to.
The President of Rwanda, HE Paul Kagame in his keynote address also stated that a unified Africa requires urgent collaboration towards regional integration and the political will to make it happen. Highlighting the importance of self-reliance and better use of domestic resources, he said, the conference was a good starting point if it is used wisely to determine where Africa goes next.
He also called for the need for African leaders to review their plans to see why Africahas not yetachieve the consistent results itwants.“Building new momentum requires that we stop thinking about development as something we do with external resources. We must focus on making better use of what we already have, domestically, in terms of our national and regional markets”, said HE Kagame.
Linking industrialization to trade
The Executive Secretary, UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Mr Carlos Lopes, also highlighted the need to link industrialization to trade to meet the needs of Agenda 2063.
“Agenda 2063” is an approach to how the continent should effectively learn from the lessons of the past, build on the progress now underway and strategically exploit all possible opportunities available in the short, medium and long term, so as to ensure positive socioeconomic transformation within the next 50 years.
MR Lopes explained that, while the last 15 years have seen relatively high levels of growth driven by a commodity super-cycle and strong internal demand from a growing middle class, Africa is still dependent on commodities for most of its export earnings.
“There is now broad consensus that, without diversified economies, Africa will remain prone to exogenous shocks and trapped in the paradox of high growth rates, coexisting with high levels of unemployment and extreme poverty”, he stated.
He mentioned that the key factors constraining trade and industrialization in Africa are related to Africa’s narrow production and export base, which is dominated by low-value products such as raw materials and primary commodities.
According to him, this is compounded by very high trade costs, tariffs and non-tariff barriers to intra-African trade and Africa’s access to international markets. He said Africa has no alternative but to increase its share of global exports. “The time has come for us to awake. Africa’s current trade policy plays a major role in our inability to excel”, he disclosed.
Skills revolution
Chairperson, African Union Commission (AUC), DrNkosazanaDlamini-Zuma also called for a skills revolution to make the Agenda 2063 work. She said the people living in Africa will be the ones to drive the agenda, and therefore called for the need to invest in the people.
“Africa is rich, but the Africans are poor. We have abundant human, mineral and natural resources and land – so why are we poor? We need to shift our focus to areas where the skills revolution has been critical as this is critical to Agenda 2063, she explained”
