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A future of Africa beyond aid is not far-fetched – UNDP

By
Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Nov. 09, GNA
– A future of Africa beyond aid is not far-fetched, Madam Ahunna Eziakonwa,
Assistant Secretary General and Director, Regional Bureau for Africa, United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has said.

She noted that
unlike the situation two decades ago, most Sub-Saharan African countries
currently depended on remittances and foreign direct investment for the bulk of
their financial inflows.

“Since the
mid-1990s, aid has fallen as a share of Gross National Income across Africa,
from 6.5 per cent in 1994 to 3.0 per cent in 2017,” Madam Eziakonwa said at the
opening of the UNDP’s High Level Dialogue in Accra.

She noted that at
the same time, African countries were doing much more to enhance domestic
resource mobilisation and foreign direct investment.

The two-day meeting
on the theme: “Africa’s Money for African Development – A Future Beyond Aid”,
was formally opened by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The dialogue brought
together leading actors in business, culture, media, arts, technology,
innovation, traditional leaders as well as youth, women entrepreneurs, traders
and environmentalists.

It aimed to support
thought leadership about Africa’s development towards a self-sustaining future,
focusing on “Africa Beyond Aid”.

Madam Eziakonwa said
as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), domestic revenue mobilization had
risen steadily on the continent from 13.1 per cent in 2000 to 18.2 per cent in
2016.

“This is important
because as the share of domestic revenue mobilization rises, so does the
accountability of leaders to their citizens, critical for fight against
inequality,” she stated.

“Market-based
mechanisms are also increasingly the norm for financing domestic fiscal gaps.
However, economic policies and programmes are still largely tethered to
aid-driven frameworks of the past.”

She said in some
African countries, there was a dominant dependency mind-set that stifled
creativity and a greater sense of personal responsibility and ownership of the
development agenda.

She said Africa was
already taking steps towards reducing aid dependency, irrevocably, however,
there was much more to be done in ensuring that the aid currently collected was
used strategically, and Africa’s resources were used optimally.

Madam Eziakonwa
said: “Africa’s wealth of natural resources must become true national assets;
benefiting all and not just a few”.

“Africa must focus
attention on enhancing natural resource governance, rebalancing related
value-chains, using smart technology and anchoring natural resource use on
principles and practice that are environmentally-sound.”

Madam Eziakonwa
noted that stakeholders must ensure that regional and global initiatives
adequately supported this move to sustainable and sustained economic
development that would deliver prosperity, opportunity and stability for all
citizens and should include the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agenda
2030, and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

She urged African
countries to reverse the mentality that views foreign aid as a permanent life
support mechanism and explained that aid must be viewed as an enabler; a tool
to get Africa to the next level.

Dr Oyo Nyimba
Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, King of Tooro Kingdom in Uganda, said the inclusion of
traditional leaders and cultural institutions, in the drive to achieve a future
for Africa beyond aid was both necessary and invaluable.

He said in Africa,
monarchs and cultural leaders played a unifying role among people across
kingdoms and chiefdoms and for a long time these traditional leaders were
looked at as a bonding factor in the socio-economic development of their
nations.

GNA

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