The need for African countries to mobilize domestic resources for the implementation of the Africa's Agenda 2063 is now widely accepted.
A high-level policy dialogue taking place as part of the eighth Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development called for countries to integrate the agenda into national plans and appealed for greater domestic investment in achieving its targets.
Minister of Finance and Economic Development of Ethiopia, Mr. Sufian Ahmed said that in the case of his country, the objectives and the content of the national plan and those of the agenda 2063 are more or less similar. "It is the ultimate responsibility of each African country to mobilize internal resources to implement the national plans and agenda 2063 too. For Ethiopia, we have already said that it is ultimately the domestic resources that matter though we might also get other resources".
Minister of Planning and Administrative Reform of Egypt, Mr. Ashraf al-Araby said that what is really more important and even more difficult is to have an action plan to implement this vision at the national level. "In Egypt, we are working to have a detailed plan for this strategy," he said. "I can reassure our commitment to support Agenda 2063 and to work closely under the umbrella of the African Union to achieve the targets".
The question of popularizing Agenda 2063 came to the surface during the discussions. Participants debated how grassroots communities of Africa could fully be engaged and mobilized around the Agenda.
The chairperson of "Femmes Africa Solidarité," Ms. Bineta Diop affirmed that there is a need to disseminate and translate the vision in local languages to make sure that ordinary citizens of understand its development.
"The agenda 2063 states that the development of Africa will not happen if we don't use the women and the young people's potential. This can only be done through mobilizing communities", she said adding that the youth should be the implementers, the movers and the shakers of the agenda 2063.
Global support of the agenda 2063
The Director of the Africa Department at the International Monetary Fund, Ms. Antoinette Sayeh said that the Fund could do a lot by way of technical assistance, helping to build the capacity of countries as that is critical.
"I think the Fund can really be helpful in supporting the countries to achieve the objective and raise domestic resources", she said. Sayey also underscored the need to create the fiscal space that Africa needs to invest in infrastructure and human capital development in order to drive the agenda in a sustainable way.
Speaking on behalf of the United Nations, Mr. Maged Abdelaziz, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Africa also committed that the UN will continue to support most of the projects in the 2063 Agenda.
"We only need to ensure coherence and complementarily in the implementation of the projects of agenda 2063 and those of the post-2015 development agenda" he said.
Notes to Editors
If you need more information, please contact:
IC Publications: Ishara Callan - i.callan[at]icpublications[dot]com and Audrey Mpunzwana - a.mpunzwana[at]icpublications[dot]com
AUC: Tankou Azaa Esther: Head of Information and Communication Directorate, AUC - YambouE[at]africa-union[dot]org
ECA: Sophia Denekew, ECA Media Relations, Communications Section, denekews[at]uneca[dot]org
For more information, please go to http://www.uneca.org/cfm2015
Jointly issued by the ECA and the AUC
