Twenty-third Meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development

Opening Remarks

By Ms. Kamilla Gumede, the Outgoing Chair 

Kampala, Uganda 18 May 2004

Good morning colleagues,
Executive Secretary,
Honourable Minister,
Ladies and Gentlemen

I have the honour of welcoming you to Kampala for the 23^rd meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

It has been a great pleasure for South Africa to chair this important event at the occasion of the past two conferences. I therefore like to start by thanking the Economic Commission for Africa for the privilege afford to us - both in Sandton at the end of 2002, and again last year in Addis Ababa.

As the outgoing chair, South Africa looks back upon these meetings with satisfaction and excitement. When we met in South Africa, almost 2 years ago, we were fresh out of a number of international conferences: in particular Monterrey, Doha and Johannesburg. On the Continent, we had just launched the New Partnership for Africa's Development and a newly constituted African Union.

Out of these initiatives and conferences emerged a strong impediment for changes in the global development architecture. Because the processes were new and the issues challenging, the ECA meetings of experts became a useful and timely platform to unpack and understand the challenges in front of us. Our meeting in South Africa enabled a frank discussion about NEPAD and convinced us of the importance of rapidly implementing the African Peer Review Mechanism.

It is therefore encouraging that as we meet here in Kampala, the first country review of the African Peer Review Mechanism is soon coming underway in Ghana. With that, we have embarked on a path of peer learning and capacity building towards a collective goal of ensuring that we emulate African success stories and correct one another in our effort to improve the lives of our people.

With Egypt, Benin and hopefully soon, Lesotho and Angola acceding to the African Peer Review Mechanism, no less than twenty countries will take part in this exciting initiative. This truly bears testimony to the fact that our collective commitment to home-grown economic development and to the Monterrey Consensus is now starting to resonate in the way we do things.

When we met in Addis Ababa a year ago, we took our deliberations one step further and reiterated our joint commitment to building productive global partnerships based on the premises of mutual accountability. It is therefore no surprise to us that the Global Monitoring Report 2004, which was presented to the Spring Meeting of the Development Committee just last month, concluded that developing countries, including those in Africa, have made significant progress in improving the policy environment and their capacity to effectively use resources to fight poverty.

The report goes on to note that these efforts have so far not been matched by our partners in the North. While there has been an increase in official development flows from the OECD countries to the developing world since Monterrey, these resources have benefited only a few countries and have fallen far short of the target of 0.7 percent of GDP. The findings of the Global Monitoring Report, to me, signify not only a historical shift in the relations with our development partners. It also constitutes an opportunity - an opportunity that we need to capitalize on.

The fact is that though the economic outlook for Africa is increasingly positive, substantially faster growth will be needed to reduce poverty and to meet the Millennium Development Goals in Africa. This requires stronger policy frameworks and institutions, improved capital flows and better market access.

The theme of this Conference is therefore, once again, very timely, and I hope we will make good use of this opportunity to think deeply about regional integration in Africa and the reasons why the benefits thereof in so many parts of our Continent have been so scarce.

As we near 2005 and the first targets of the Millennium Development Goals, all indications suggest that only a few African countries will meet these goals. Neither are we on track for 2015. Next year therefore marks an important milestone in our effort to meet the Millennium Development Goals. It offers an opportunity to review progress and to critically assess the successes and failures we have encountered so far. As African policy-makers, we should capitalize on this opportunity. We cannot allow ourselves to sit back and wait for the international community to drive this debate. Neither can we allow ourselves to react only when it is already too late.

Let us already now engage in the processes and initiatives that stand a chance of unleashing global interest and support for renewed efforts towards the Millennium Development Goals. But first of all, let us start by developing a common strategy that can maximize the potential outcome for Africa as we enter 2005. I sincerely hope that this Conference of experts will offer exactly such an opportunity.

With that proposal, I like to wish us all success in our deliberations over the next three days.

Thank you