Opening remarks at the Launch of the African Economic Outlook 2009/10

by Mr. Emmanuel Nnadozie, Director, Economic Development and NEPAD Division

 24 May 2010, Abidjan

Ladies and gentlemen,

The launch of the third jointly prepared edition of the African Economic Outlook 2009/10 by the African Development Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the OECD Center is a great and remarkable event for us at ECA and indeed for Africa as a whole.

As we have repeatedly emphasized since ECA has joined the partnership with AfDB and OECD back in 2007, AEO is an important and unique publication that provides comparable statistical information and authoritative analyses of economic, social and governance developments across Africa. More importantly, AEO is the only recurrent report on Africa that provides country-by-country analysis of recent political, economic and social performance, structural change as well as forecasts on medium-term outlook.

Indeed, AEO proved t o be an effective means for the three institutions to address Africa’s special development needs and challenges through evidence-based and country-specific policy analysis. In this regard, the first jointly prepared edition of AEO (2007/08) focused on the theme of technical skills development in Africa, the 2nd edition (2008/09) on innovation and information and communication technology in Africa and the current edition (2009/10) concentrated on the theme of Public resource mobilization and aid.

This theme could not be more timely and relevant in view of the adverse impact of the recent global financial and economic crises on Africa and the rest of the world and the increasing development financing needs of African countries. Even before the crisis, African countries have realized the need to mobilize more domestic revenue and depend more on domestic sources of revenue given the well-known problems of aid dependence. The crises have provided a stronger impetus for this to happen as aid flows to Africa have already started to decline owing to the difficult economic conditions currently faced by many donor countries.

The report provides insightful analysis and policy recommendations on this important issue of Public resource mobilization and aid. As in previous years, the Africa-wide and country-level analyses and policy recommendations contained in the report will be very useful to a wide range of users including member States and national policy makers, international donors and development community, researchers, civil society and journalists.  In this regard I am pleased to note that AEO coverage has increased from 22 in 2002 to 35 in 2008; 47 in 2009 and 50 in 2010.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to reiterate that while various annual reports are published by international organisations on Africa, the continent is seldom covered on a country-by-country comparative basis. As noted by AEO 2002, a common concern of donors, private investors and local policy makers about African countries is the lack of consistent, reliable, and timely information on their economic, political and social developments. African countries show a high degree of diversity among themselves and across time and the need of periodic reviews of their situation and short-term prospects is a necessary tool for good policymaking and economic development.

The Outlook is now a widely acclaimed annual report on African economies. It has gained this reputation by providing comparable statistical information and authoritative analyses of economic, social and governance developments across Africa. In addition to a comparative synthesis of African country prospects, each year the report focuses on a specific theme to highlight successful cases of policy reform in areas such as privatization, energy supply, private sector development, and transport infrastructure.  In the 2008 edition, the focus is on technical skills development in Africa. The 2009 edition focused on innovation and information and communication technology in Africa and the 2010 edition concentrated on domestic revenue mobilization and management. The number of countries covered has increased from 22 in 2002 to 35 in 2008; 47 in 2009 and 51 in 2010. All of the major African countries are now covered, including those experiencing particular difficulties such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Without further delay to the presentation and launch of AEO 22009/10, I wish to express my sincere appreciation for the exemplary partnership among AfDB, OECD and ECA in producing this report, among other areas in which our collaboration has been both successful and useful to member States. The collaboration on AEO brings together perspectives of experts from the three institutions and other African institutions and experts with rich and varied expertise in the development of the continent.

In addition to continuing to provide input to various Overview chapters in such areas as Governance, corruption, macroeconomic policies for growth, foreign trade, regional and intra-Africa trade, ECA is prepared to cover more countries for AEO 2010-2011 and provide more support to its dissemination.

I look forward to seeing the AEO reaching new heights by covering all African countries and improving the depth of analysis and impact on stakeholders.

Thank you