UN chief calls for creative ways to finance Africa’s recovery

BUSINESS REPORTER

Africa has a unique opportunity to do things differently to attain sustainable growth as the one linked intrinsically to commodity prices “cannot be the growth of the future,” UN Under-Secretary General and Executive  Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Vera Songwe has said.

Songwe told delegates at an expert group meeting at the ECA’s 54th Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to share their experiences and ideas to “break the cycle of solely donor contributed aid” in Africa.

She said Africa’s growth must be “great, sustainable and inclusive”.

“As we look at the gains we have made in the last decade and the gains that have been taken away by the Ukraine crisis, we can rethink what kind of growth Africa can have, she said, adding that “We must do this as a continent, not as individual countries.”

The experts meeting sets the tone for the ministerial sessions of CoM2022 on May 16 to 17.

Speaking from the floor,  a member of the Egyptian delegation to CoM2022 said any recovery from the pandemic and the Ukraine crisis should be environmentally sustainable. He said that as Africa is hosting the environmental summit CoP27 in November, the continent had a good opportunity to focus on how to achieve a “green” recovery and sustainable solutions.

A delegate from Tanzanian suggested that the final recommendations of the conference should include a call for member states to unpack any issues standing in the way of a fully operational African free trade agreement, AfCFTA.

He said a completed AfCFTA would boost trade and investment among member states, helping member countries “easily rebound” from the economic contraction caused by Covid-19.

Trading under the AfCFTA began in January last year. The AfCFTA is the largest trading bloc outside the World Trade Organisation. It connects 1.3bn people in 54 countries with a combined GDP of US$3.4 trillion.

As of January 2022, all but one of the 55 countries on the continent had signed the agreement and 40 had deposited their instruments of ratification.

Africa has been rattled by two shocks in the past three years: the Covid-19 pandemic and the effects of the Russia invasion of Ukraine.

Presenting stark data on where the twin crises of the pandemic and Ukraine have brought Africa, ECA’s Deputy Executive Secretary, Hanan Morsy, said “we do not know the length and the breadth of the crisis”.

She said Africa needed things to get better, and “we need to make sure they don’t get worse”.