BuaNews (Tshwane)
Shaun Benton
10 June 2008
Cape Town — President Thabo Mbeki on Monday urged delegates at a key international conference on development economics to put the poor at the centre of their considerations.
This was especially important considering the event's theme, People, Politics and Globalisation. The conference, known as the Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE), is a combined global and regional conference organised by the World Bank and National Treasury.
It is being held in Africa for the first time. Also attending was Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, who reminded delegates that they were part of an international partnership for development which began six years ago at a seminal development finance conference held in Monterrey, Mexico. He warned that, according to a recent international survey, the attitudes of people towards the globalisation process in developed and in some developing countries was hardening. "The questions before this conference relate to sustaining the growth momentum and ensuring that the benefits of growth are far more inclusive than what we have witnessed until now," Mr Manuel said.
President Mbeki, underscoring the minister's remarks, said "the poor are knocking at the gate". He urged the conference's participants from over 60 countries, many in Africa and Asia, to focus their deliberations on the removal of inequalities. He said there was a great need to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which include halving poverty and unemployment by 2015 as agreed to at the United Nations meeting in 2000. The President, who pointed out that he represents "desperately poor communities which absolutely cannot lift themselves out of poverty without the assistance of the rich countries", insisted that approaching global progress through a developmental perspective would lead to greater inclusion. A key question which needed to be considered was: what interventions should we make to respond to the high and rising food and fuel prices to guarantee food security?
Another question which should be raised was what practical measures needed to be taken to further integrate Africa into the world economy, other than simply as a producer and exporter of raw materials?
The World Bank's new Chief Economist Justin Lin pointed out that investment in localised technologies was necessary to heighten agricultural productivity on the continent. An amount of $1.2 billion has already been set aside as a fast-track facility to countries most vulnerable to soaring global food prices, such as Haiti, which is already receiving assistance, a World Bank official said.
Also present at the conference is Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist who participated along with Mr Manuel as a member of the Commission for Growth and Development. The commission recently completed a two-year study into the prerequisites for shared economic growth. Speaking on the reasons for the recent steep rises in food and oil prices, Mr Spence said that recent backing for biofuels was part of the mix of factors that had led to sharp food price increases. He estimated, however, that food price rises were expected to slow and return to "a reasonable level" before long. This presented an enormous opportunity which African farmers should take advantage of.
Mr Spence doubted that the oil price would drop significantly in the near future, if ever, but the global economy could use this as an incentive for investment in alternative energy technologies.
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