| Nav: Home > ECA Resources > Press Releases > Press Releases for 2004 |
| ECA Press Release No.
26/2004 FINDING FUNDS TO FIGHT POVERTY - AT HOME AND ABROAD Addis Ababa, 1 November 2004 (ECA) - Boosting finance for development tops the agenda at a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, this week. Specialists in development and finance from across Africa and abroad are attending the workshop, organized by the Economic and Social Policy Division of the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa, November 1-3. Participants will review the challenges facing African policy-makers trying to mobilise resources and will identify improved forms of financial intermediation by promoting sound, well functioning and resilient financial systems. They will also discuss broadening and deepening capital markets to exploit alternative sources of funding. African countries need to bridge a resource gap of resource gap of 12 per cent of GDP - US$64 billion - if they are to achieve the growth rate needed to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015. “These resources can be generated either domestically, through increased domestic savings and improvements in public revenue collection systems, or from external sources,” said Nii Wallace-Bruce, senior economist at the ECA’s Economic and Social Policy Division. However, he noted, that in several countries, scope for generating resources domestically is narrow and hampered by the lack of skilled human resources, inadequate infrastructure, high levels of illness and death due to diseases such as HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis and malaria. These factors weaken institutions, resulting in administrative inefficiencies and preventing stable, legal, economic and political governance frameworks from emerging. In extreme cases, political disintegration has led to instability and armed conflict, which is an additional drain on resources and an extra disincentive for domestic and foreign investment. To achieve substantial progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, African countries need to attain and sustain a GDP growth rate of at least seven percent per annum. However, during 2000-2003, only seven out of 53 countries for which data is available registered a real GDP growth rate of seven percent or slightly higher. Growth in 22 of the 53 countries was less than half the target rate, and was declining in 13 countries. The workshop, at the Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi, brings together experts and academics from Central Banks, Ministries of Finance, Ministries of Economic Planning, Non-Bank Financial Institutions, African Securities and Exchange Commissions and African Stock Exchanges. Ministries of Justice, Ministries of Health and Social Affairs, Social Security Insurance General Offices, the African Development Bank, the African Union, and African universities are also represented. (ENDS) For further information, please contact Mr. Nii Wallace-Bruce Coordinator Or Ms Cristina Muller Issued by the ECA Communication Team |