Accelerating Africa’s Growth and Development to meet the

Millennium Development Goals: Emerging Challenges and the

Way Forward

Presentation on behalf of the Secretariat by

Kasirim NWUKEChief, MDGs/Poverty Analysis &

Monitoring Section

The Issues Paper

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Outline

• Context

• Objectives of the Paper

• Challenges

• Issues for Discussion

• Conclusion

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Context• Africa is growing but not at the rate required to

reach the MDGs• There is a reasonable degree of cross-country

variation in within region growth performance which is masked by the continental average

• There is progress on the MDGs but the rate of progress is very slow

• The combination of impressive growth and slow progress intersects with two aspirations:

• Accelerating economic growth, and • Accelerating development

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Objectives of the Issues Paper

• To surface and spell out some of the emerging challenges to accelerating growth and development to meet the MDGs by the target date; and

• To propose issues for debate and options for consideration by Ministers, agreement on which will map out a way forward

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Challenges

• Five broad groups of Challenges:– Growth, Employment and Inequality– Scaling up financing for public sector

investments– Policy Environment– Partnerships and Globalization– Peace and Security

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Challenges 1Growth, Employment and Inequality

• Sustaining and boosting Economic Growth;

• Raising Agricultural Productivity and achieving rural transformation

• Climate change (and climate variability)

• Employment

• Rising Inequality

• Social Transformation

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Challenges 2Scaling up financing and public sector

investments

• Mobilizing financing for public sector investments and MDG-related expenditure

• Addressing key infrastructure bottlenecks

• Scaling up investments in human capacities/capital;

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Challenges 3:The Planning and Policy Environment

• Weak planning framework• MDG Needs Assessment

• Better alignment of PRS with the MDGs

• Managing newly emerging fiscal/policy space

• Monitoring, tracking, and evaluating progress

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Challenges (4 &5)• Peace and Security

• Estimated cost of conflict to growth: According to Collier & Hoeffler, one year of conflict reduces economic growth rate by 2.2% and it would take a post-conflict country roughly 21 years to achieve the GDP level it would have achieved had there been no war.

• Partnerships and Globalization• Effects of openness• Brian Drain• Managing relationship with emerging global actors –

China, India, and Brazil

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Way Forward/Issues for Discussion 1

• On Growth, employment and Inequality• How ambitious should national development strategies be?

• Quick impact initiatives – What specific projects, policies, and programmes should countries consider as the minimum essential components of a scaled up agenda?

• What financing mechanisms should countries consider in order to increase the provision of regional infrastructure and other regional public goods?

• How feasible is land policy reform in general (and land distribution in particular) and is it critically important for accelerating growth and development to reach the MDGs?

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Way Forward/Issues for Discussion 2

• On scaling up financing and public sector investments

• What is the scope for public-private partnerships and outright private financing of development projects in Africa? What incentives should Ministers adopt to spur private financing of projects and increase private provision of public as well as merit goods? How should they be priced in order that the poor are not excluded?

• What possible new domestic financing mechanisms (e.g. infrastructure bonds) can countries consider to fund the critical interventions necessary for scaling up?

• What other measures should countries consider to increase domestic resource mobilization?

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Way Forward/Issues for Discussion 3

• On Governance, institutional innovations, peace & security– Broadening the base of domestic actors through

incentives• What is the scope for fiscal federalism/decentralization to

contribute to accelerating growth and development? How can sub-national units best be harnessed to achieve the MDGs?

• How can the contribution of the private sector and other non-governmental actors be best leveraged?

• What is the scope of social transfer programmes (as an incentive for individual action) and what are the possible financing implications?

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Way Forward/Issues for Discussion 4

• On Governance, institutional innovations, peace & security– Institutional innovations and improving governance

and accountability• What changes can countries make to improve the effectiveness

of instruments/institutions for tracking and monitoring MDG-specific and MDGs-related expenditures?

• How useful are the APRM and annual MDG Reports for galvanizing public action in support of the MDGs? What more can be done?

• Given growing concerns about funding for the APRM process, can the mainstreaming of APRM indicators into the MDGs strengthen the credibility of the Mechanism as an important complementary instrument for achieving the MDGs?

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Way Forward/Issues for Discussion 5

• Partnerships, Fulfilling Commitments security

• How can countries ensure that the principles and indicators of the Paris Declaration are operationalized?

• How can the G-8 be encouraged to fulfill their commitments to Africa, including the commitments of 2005?

• ECA, ADB, AUC and the RECs: What roles should they play, beyond the ones that they are playing now in mobilizing international (and domestic action) to scale up interventions to meet the MDGs by the target date?

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Conclusion

• Political will an important precondition for scaling up to reach the MDGs;

• The State has an important role to play;

• Individual/household will – ultimately, the individual/household is responsible for meeting the MDGs, especially the education and health MDGs.

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The End

THANK YOU!