Yaounde — At the launch of the ECA-AU Economic Report on Africa 2013, in Central Africa, today, a college of university dons expressed their satisfaction at the quality and relevance of the document and said they were quite ready to support governments across Africa, and that of Cameroon in particular, to implement the recommendations of the Report. Launched at the University of Yaounde II, in Soa, Cameroon, the Report urges African countries to engage in commodity-based industrialisation in order to accelerate the continent's growth, solve its problems of unemployment and quicken its economic transformation.

At the launch, Cameroon's Minister Delegate in the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, in Charge of Planning, Mr Yaouba Abdoulaye, described the report as timely and said his country's Government will heed the prescriptions from ECA and the AU Commission. He said several aspects of the Report's recommendations were already being executed within the framework of the county's Growth and Employment Strategy which is already in its fourth year of execution.

"The Economic Report on Africa 2013 is a formidable piece of research," said Ms Marie Delaventure Amougou, who represented the Association of Employers (GICAM) to review the publication in the context of Cameroon. She said the country required huge investments to kick start real work in the manufacturing sector. She blamed the slack nature of the sector on a poor enabling environment for business, the absence of economic zones and the gaps in the development and distribution of modern technologies including Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

The Rector of the University of Yaounde II in Soa, Prof Oumarou Bouba said the Report was of strategic relevance to the current areas of research of lecturers and students of the Faculty of Economics and Management of his institution. He saluted the partnership between ECA and the University of Yaounde II, particularly thanking ECA for furnishing the University's library with a package of 89 books from its collection of publications.

Following a heated debate on merits and implications of the Economic Report on Africa 2013, the Director of the Sub-regional Office for Central Africa of ECA, Mr Emile Ahohe reiterated the optimism of ECA and the AU on the transformation of Africa's economies. "We need to sensitise our policy makers to see the urgency of structurally transforming the continent's economies through a commodity-based industrialisation in order to also avoid the commodity trap associated with an over-dependence of the exportation of raw materials," he added.

The Central Africa launch of the Economic Report on Africa was attended by members of the Cameroon Government, members of the diplomatic community, researchers from academia, students and media professionals.