Joint ECA-ADB Symposium
“Capacity Development for Achieving the MDGs in Africa”

Opening Remarks

By K.Y. Amoako
Executive Secretary

Abuja, Nigeria
15 May 2005

Mr. Chairman,
His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Mr. Omar Kabbaj, President, African Development Bank,
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to welcome you all to the third African Development Bank Symposium jointly sponsored with the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

I would like to take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude to His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for being with us this morning.

The support and engagement of the Federal Republic of Nigeria throughout the past week has been first class and a testament to your country’s deep commitment to the development of our continent.

Through you, I also want to reiterate our thanks to the Government and people of Nigeria for your warm hospitality.

Mr. Chairman,

As in the past, when we focused on HIV/AIDS and Gender, this year’s theme- Capacity Development- addresses a critical issue. This meeting is therefore another valuable opportunity for a fruitful dialogue that can provide input to our quest to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.

It is clear, as has been repeatedly said in the past few days, during the ECA Conference of Ministers, that significant effort is needed to put Africa, as a whole, on track to meeting the Goals.

Although there are some bright spots in North Africa, and occasionally in specific countries such as Botswana, Mauritius and South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa has seen the least progress towards the goals and even suffered reverses in some crucial areas.

That does not mean, however, that genuine and tangible results have not been registered. Some countries have shown significant progress on goals such as achieving universal primary education; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; and ensuring environmental sustainability.

Several factors have contributed to the failure of African countries to make sufficient headway towards the MDGs.

They include conflict, bad governance, poor economic policies, the debt burden, unfair terms of trade in the global economy and the lack of access to developed world markets, as well as the devastating impact of the HIV/AID pandemic.

Although Africa has collectively been taking steps to address these concerns particularly through the African Union and New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) framework, it is imperative that much more be done to address the constraints hindering our progress.

It is for that reason that two recent reports “In Larger Freedom”, from the UN Secretary General, and “Our Common Interest” from the Commission for Africa, have called for a big push- a major scaling up- of effort and resources to help Africa achieve the Goals.

Furthermore, it is evident that there is a pressing need to tackle the various capacity deficits that have been a major contributing factor in the poor performance we are registering.

In that context, we at ECA and our colleagues at ADB were keen to focus on this theme today as we believe the issue deserves much greater attention from Africa’s policy makers, development analysts, and development partners.

Honourable Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The notion that Africa needs a major scaling up of public investment and that we need to build capacity is not new.

Considerable resources have been channeled into the public sector over the years with the expectation that poverty will be reduced.

The findings of recent studies point to the fact that the efficiency of public investment is dependent significantly on the quality and effectiveness of a country’s human capital, governance institutions, and policies.

Put positively, this means that where the human capacity exists to develop credible and well-researched and planned strategies for reducing poverty, good outcomes are likely.

Where public institutions are efficient, transparent and decentralized, where they consult effectively with both state and non-state stakeholders, and where there is accountability, the development outcomes are encouraging.

We often have insufficient human capital to implement our development strategies either because we have not trained enough people, or because those we have trained have left for better opportunities abroad. Stakeholders lack confidence in the relevant institutions and do not have the leverage or the access to hold those institutions to account. It is not surprising if, in that context, results fail to live up to expectations.

There are many reasons why our capacity – whether human or institutional – sometimes falls short. However, at the heart we are dealing with issues of governance and the challenge of creating the capable state in Africa.

This is the main finding of the ECA’s groundbreaking project to measure and monitor governance in Africa, which will be published in the forthcoming African Governance Report.

Our research has highlighted priority areas in need of critical attention.

For example, peace and security are essential elements in any national efforts to build and effectively utilize capacities but we have seen a great deal of conflict. Much of the “brain drain” which has occurred in Africa can be traced not only to poor economic conditions, but also to political violence, repression of human rights, and lack of a political atmosphere conducive to free and open debate.

In addition, poor economic policies have constrained capacity building, both by discouraging public investment in critical areas of training and education and by reinforcing under-utilization of some existing capacities. Major cuts in public expenditure under the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 90s also led to the loss of critical capacity. And we are still dealing with that legacy.

Then the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and other devastating diseases, malaria and TB, have cruelly hit the most productive and economically active members of our society.

Furthermore, past experience has shown the need for ‘national’ ownership of – and responsibility for - the building of capacities and their effective utilization. Yet too often, our partners’ agendas have driven the formulation of strategies and plans. And their technical assistance has greatly constrained the longterm development of indigenous capacity.

Finally, we have not always mainstreamed the MDGs throughout government policies, but assembled instead, a mix of strategies to tackle poverty and achieve development that may contradict or duplicate each other.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

All this matters because we are possibly at the threshold of a new period in which far greater sums of ODA will begin to flow. As I alluded to earlier, the UN Secretary General’s report, In larger Freedom calls for substantial increases in ODA, as does the Commission for Africa in its report.

And with the situation I have outlined above, it is not surprising that questions are being raised about our capacity to absorb and make good use of these additional funds.

The Commission for Africa, on which I serve, did address this issue in depth and concluded that there is indeed a capacity challenge that must be met.

However, our analysis noted that there is room for higher levels of ODA than are currently being delivered, as African countries have made significant strides in recent years to improve their absorptive capacity.

That said, our report also argued that a well-funded action plan must be developed to directly address Africa’s huge capacity deficits, including in area of macroeconomic policy implementation and aid management. This is, I believe critically important to the success of all our efforts.

As we move towards that vision, it is clear that certain key objectives need to be achieved on both sides of the development partnership.

Here in Africa, as we develop bold, innovative and holistic plans to build capacity there are a number of key areas that need focus.

These include:

§ Fostering a well paid, professional, civil service, that is resourced with training and solid statistical data.
§ Strengthening accountability mechanisms in institutions such as parliament and the judiciary.
§ Investment in intellectual capacities…. our universities, research institutes, scientists, artists and the media must be nurtured and respected.
§ And we must draw more on our wealth of talent and expertise in the Diaspora.

On our partners side we need to see an alignment of their support with our priorities and plans. Specifically, they can:

§ Work to stem the Brain drain, particularly in key areas such as health and education.
§ Make greater use of our research and think tanks and policy institutions here in Africa.
§ Make aid flows more predictable, and follow good practices on technical assistance and capacity building.

Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests, and
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The topics of the plenary and various panel sessions collectively encapsulate the key issues that need to be addressed. In short, these are as follows:

§ How best to develop capacity at the country-level in order to manage the process of scaling up efforts to achieve the MDGs.
§ What types of public private partnerships will be most effective for stimulating economic growth and poverty reduction?
§ What specific interventions are needed to improve capacity in essential sectors such as health, in particular scaling up the response to HIV/AIDs, and education?
§ How can partnerships between all stakeholders be best enhanced in order to enable the big push for the MDGs that we envisage?

In discussing them today, we should also look ahead to the operationalization of a comprehensive regional capacity-building action plan that focuses on national specificities while sharing core commitments and objectives, and which is developed, owned and led here in Africa, but backed by a consensus of support from the international community.

If this can be achieved, I believe we can successfully handle a massive scaling up of resources for public and private investments in physical infrastructure and human-capital intensive sectors such as education, health and agriculture.

In concluding, I sincerely want to thank you for being here. I have every confidence that our deliberations today and the set of recommendations we will develop will be invaluable input to ECA’s ongoing research about capacity-building at all levels, as well as for all institutions working in this area at this critical juncture. Here’s to a very productive day.

Thank you.