Economic Report in Africa UNECA

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Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
in Africa An Issues Paper
For presentation at the Conference of African
Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic
Development, 11-13 May 2005, Abuja, Nigeria
by Prof. Augustin Fosu Director, Economic and
Social Policy Division, ECA
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Outline

• Critical Development Challenges
• Why the MDGs?
• Progress toward meeting the MDGs
• Conceptual Framework
• Implementation Framework The Second Generation
  PRS
• Monitoring Framework The Mutual Review
• Conclusion
• Issues for Discussion

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Critical challenges in Africa

• Poverty and hunger
• Joblessness
• Diseases
• Lack of shelter
• Environmental deterioration
• Gender inequality

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Why the MDGs?

• African leaders adopted the
• MDGs to address the above
• challenges

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Progress towards achieving the MDGs

• While the world made significant progress towards
  achieving the MDGs between 1990 and 2002, Africa
  fared worst among the regions
• Africa saw the slowest overall progress
  suffered reversals in some crucial areas
• In SSA, the of people living in extreme
  poverty rose from 217m in 1990 to 290m in 2000
• Adult life expectancy declined from a little
  over 50 years to 46 years

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Aggregate progress goal by goal
Contd
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Contd
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Aggregate story masks country differences
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Contd
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In short,

• North Africa has been making significant progress
  towards achieving most of the MDGs
• Progress in SSA remains unsatisfactory even
  though a few of them have already made concrete
  progress (Botswana Mauritius) and some 20
  others are on track to meet one or more of the
  targets
• Global partnership
• ODA to Africa has increased more recently but far
  from the 0.7 of donors GNI
• Need for more development-oriented trade agenda

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Why Africa, particularly SSA, is lagging behind
in achieving the MDGs?

• Range of factors
• Weak economic growth
• Although governance is improving, much remains to
  be done especially with regard to
• accountability
• the rule of law
• corruption
• creating a business environment friendly to
  domestic and foreign investors
• social or ethnic exclusion

Contd
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Why Africa is lagging behind Contd

• The challenge of HIV/AIDS looms large
• Gender inequality remains a big challenge
• Violent conflicts disrupt livelihoods, destroy
  infrastructure, reverse gains and damage the
  investment climate.
• Weak capacity to carry out basic functions of
  government e.g., education, health, water and
  sanitation, as well as the provision of public
  goods (roads, harbours, etc)

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Can Africa get back on track? Yes, but

• There is still a chance for African countries to
  achieve the MDGs through (A Conceptual Framework)
• High and sustained growth in labour-intensive
  sectors agriculture, construction, textiles,
  tourism
• High-quality growth pro-poor and gender
  sensitive
• Equitable distribution of income
• Second generation of poverty reduction strategies
  (that focus on the MDGs)

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Implementation Framework Second Generation
Poverty Reduction Strategies (SGPRS)

• Broader longer-term PRS Planning in the context
  of MDGs, with emphasis on growth and employment
  (including non-PRSP countries)
• Deeper ownership through meaningful stakeholder
  consultation
• Attention toward gender-equality issues
• Improvement of governance capacity
• Widening of Fiscal Space based on
  country-specific realities, with special
  attention to post-conflict and other fragile
  economies
• Regional dimensions Exploitation of potential
  regional economic synergies

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Critical drivers of high sustainable growth

• Human capital and technology
• Investment in human capital through high levels
  of education improved health facilities
• Mitigating brain drain through better
  governance economic policies
• Harnessing technological progress
• Enabling environment
• Peace security, quality institutions,
  infrastructure support for the private sector
• Improving institutional quality
• reducing corruption, ensuring political rights,
  improving the efficiency of the public sector,
  removing regulatory burdens, providing legal
  protection of private property, enforcing laws
  in an equitable manner

Contd
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Growth drivers, contd

• For an inclusive development strategy,
  governments should also
• recognize and support the entrepreneurial spirit
  of their nationals
• readdress
• the inadequacy of irrigation and transport for
  farmers
• the serious difficulties that farmers and SMEs
  face in accessing finance,
• information inadequacy
• the lack of critical skills

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Monitoring Framework The Mutual Review

• Commitments are required of
• African governments
• To improve governance, including institutional
  reforms for effective management of domestic
  resources
• To create jobs reduce poverty within the
  framework of the comprehensive SGPRS
• Development partners
• To increase quality quantity of development
  assistance
• To effect a more development-oriented trade
  system
• To widen and deepen debt relief

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Conclusion

• MDGs are tools through which African governments
  can advance and even fast-track their national
  development agendas
• Critical actions open to policy makers to achieve
  the MDGs include
• Embracing the need for faster, broadly shared,
  jobs-promoting growth
• Designing the Second Generation of Poverty
  Reduction Strategies to prioritize growth and
  employment, addressing more deeply the issues of
  governance, capacity, ownership
• Using mutual accountability as a monitoring
  framework for development partnerships

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Issues for discussion

• What can be done to strengthen political
  commitment to growth and poverty reduction
  strategies?
• How should capacity issues be addressed in SGPRS?
  
• How do we best integrate regional economic
  communities in national PRS?
• What is the role of the RECs in achieving the
  MDGs?
• What are the first priorities for African
  countries to tackle the issue of human capital
  formation retention?
• What are the appropriate policies for reversing
  the brain drain?

Contd
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Contd

• How can African countries and their partners
  harness technology?
• What concrete steps should be taken to deal with
  the weak infrastructure at both the national and
  regional levels?
• What priority steps should be taken in creating
  an enabling environment for private investors for
  SMEs and small farmers?
• What strategies will be best for tackling youth
  unemployment in Africa what contribution can
  public-private partnerships make?
• How should the APRM process feed into the Mutual
  Review?

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Thank you!