Financing for Development in Africa: Expert Group meets in Abuja

ECA Press Release No. 5/2009

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 13 February 2009 – An ad-hoc expert group meeting on Financing for Development and Fiscal Policy in Africa opens in Abuja, Nigeria on Monday 16 February 2009.

The meeting, which is being organized by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will provide an opportunity for experts and African policymakers to dialogue on the challenges facing the region in development finance.

Representatives of the African Union (AU), African Ministries of Finance and Central Banks, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the OECD, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the African Development Bank (AfDB) are expected to participate in various capacities.

It will give experts some ideas on how to address the challenges, with a view to laying a solid foundation for boosting resources available for development in the region, according Mr. Patrick N. Osakwe, Chief, Financing Development at the ECA, and one of the organizers of the meeting.

“The outcome of the meeting will feed into the documents to be prepared for the 2009 ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development’, says Mr. Osakwe.

For two days, experts will discuss issues ranging from Financing Development in Africa: Assessment and Progress; review Development Finance in Africa; Fiscal Policies in Africa: Recent Developments, Challenges and Emerging Issues; Financing Development and Fiscal Policy in Africa; Trade Liberalization and Tax Revenue Relationships in Sub-Saharan Africa; Mobilizing Resources for Financing Development in Nigeria; Capital Flight and Resource Mobilization in Africa; The Pan African Stock Exchange; Microfinance in Africa: Trends, Opportunities and Challenges.
During the meeting there will be a promotional session on the ECA’s latest report on “Assessing Regional Integration in Africa”, whose theme for this year is: “ Towards Monetary Integration in Africa”.
It is the third in a series of reports that provides empirical evidence on the progress and prospects of the African integration process, by measuring the level and rate of convergence of the macroeconomic and financial components on the continent, according to Mr. Joseph Atta-Mensah, Chief, Regional Integration at the UNECA.
The report establishes that, although monetary union has its costs and benefits, the theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that, if established and sustained, regional currencies among developing country groupings can bring considerable benefits, similar to those expected from the introduction of the Euro.
The opening session of the Abuja meeting will be presided over by the Minister of Finance of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The meeting comes at a particularly difficult period in Africa’s development, marked by growing concern that the current global financial crises would have negative effects on development finance in the region. There is already evidence that trade credit is drying up in several countries and all indications are that the slowdown in economic activity in the industrial countries resulting from the crises will reduce foreign direct investment flows, exports, remittances and tourism with serious negative effects on growth.

This changing external environment has put pressure on African governments to search for alternative sources of financing for development as well as implement policies that would boost resource flows to the region.

Africa entered the new Millennium with an improvement in economic performance as well as renewed optimism regarding the development prospects for the region.

However, there is growing recognition that if African countries are to sustain the current growth momentum, or improve upon their recent performance, there has to be significant efforts to mobilize adequate resources to make public and private investments necessary to accelerate growth and engender development.

Experts agree that any long-run strategy to increase the resources available for development in Africa must be anchored on boosting domestic resource mobilization because it is the only meaningful way to achieve long-run sustained growth and development.

Issued by the ECA Information and Communication Service
P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 5445098
Fax: +251-11-551 03 65
E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org
Web: www.uneca.org.