External support should not be the determiner of Africa's development priorities, Rwandan President Paul Kagame told a gathering of finance and planning ministers and governors of central banks.
"We should first decide what we want to do and then apply the money to it, as oppose to doing what the money may dictate", Kagame said. He was speaking at the opening session of the Conference of Ministers during this year's annual meeting of the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
"When we are able to build something that works for ourselves and by ourselves, then we are in a better position to forge more meaningful partnerships" he went on, telling delegates that the continent can achieve its aim of a unified Africa "only if we collaborate our efforts towards regional integration".
He cited the example of the Northern Corridor Infrastructure Project in East Africa as one that has facilitated the free movement of citizens in the region. The project is a transport corridor that links the landlocked countries of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to Kenya's port of Mombasa.
Organizers say the conference, which is being held under the theme, Implementing Agenda 2063 - a new development strategy outlined at the AU's 50th anniversary - is part of activities leading up to the 2015 deadline of the Millennium Development Goals. The ministerial segment of the meetings is expected to adopt several resolutions coming out of a two-day session of technocrats, dubbed the committee of experts.
Kagame shared the platform with the Prime Minister of the host nation of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Desalegn, who admonished the delegates to make Agenda 2063 an opportunity for "Africa to regain its power and determine its own destiny". He said financing a transformative development agenda will require substantial amount of resources. "To do so, it is imperative that available resources are used more effectively and strategically to catalyze additional financing for official and private sectors".
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Desalegn said domestic resource mobilization in the form private savings is hampered by the lack of access to financial institutions in rural areas, because people living there are considered "too poor to be able to save money, and too risky to lend money to". He said experience in his country shows that rural areas can save "enormous amount" of money if given the access to financial services, but cautioned that because sustainable development cannot be accomplished through micro finance alone, "we must all continually search for new opportunities that meet the evolving financial needs of the bottom of the economic pyramid".
The AU Commission Chairperson, South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, highlighted the gender dimension of development.
She said this year is the year of women's empowerment, coming after a year which focused on Agriculture. "The women of Africa are the biggest work force in agriculture and they will like to have land rights", Dlamini-Zuma told the meeting of mostly of men. She said most African women don't have access to capital and technology, inadequacies which result in low productivity and poverty.
She reminded the body that for Agenda 2063 to be "practical", member states must invest in all of its human resources. The chairperson said the commission was beginning a new campaign to empower women, which will only succeed if ministers and heads of state support it. "Won't you"? She asked rhetorically, provoking laughter in the hall.
The conference, which ends on Tuesday following the ministers' meeting, witnessed the convening of about two-dozen side events, amongst them a meeting of the African Forum, an informal assembly of former African heads of state.
