ADDIS-ABABA - African countries have zeroed in on a continental joint forum to harmonise the work of their researchers and policymakers.

The 2nd Africa Economic Conference (AEC) that ended last week in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia echoed the need for such forum to overcome the continent’s development challenges.
Rwanda’s Finance Minister, James Musoni (right) who was among the delegates, said the joint forum would address the issue of limited expertise in the development sphere.

"We need to recapture the lost expertise that will be helpful in addressing the main developmental opportunities and challenges,” Musoni said.

Lack of harmonised researched information was perceived by participants as one of the leading challenges retarding the continent’s ability to exploit its abundant economic resources.

Addressing participants during the opening session, ECA Executive-Secretary, Abdoulie Janneh, said the event came at a time the continent was facing daunting challenges and offered an opportunity for informed economic knowledge to be shared.

Janneh noted that collaboration between the continent and Africans living abroad was necessary for knowledge generation and dissemination.

"We need to be more creative in knowledge production and dissemination. Today, knowledge is considered as valuable as public goods,” he said.

He urged African experts to actively participate in knowledge-sharing initiatives, stressing that the continent needed home-grown knowledge in order to attain its development objectives.

He, however, said that contributions from external experts were also very necessary for the continent.

Africa Development Bank (AfDB) Chief Economist, Louis Kasekende, said the AfDB and ECA had come to a conclusion that knowledge was critical to enhance growth and poverty reduction.

Kasekende, who spoke on behalf of President Donald Kaberuka, pointed out that both institutions recognized the importance of knowledge management.

"The new focus on knowledge management in these institutions has also led to increased and renewed emphasis on technical assistance and capacity building, especially on economic research as an aid to policy formulation and implementation,” he said.

He added: "In order to maximise our efforts in research, policy analyses and information dissemination, we need to make more use of the skills of African academics and researchers, both within and outside the continent.”

He said the AEC is a forum for the exchange of ideas among economists and policymakers, which provides economic specialists access to information and research on economic issues.

The two-day meeting, which brought together African and other researchers and policymakers, was held under the theme ‘Opportunities and Challenges of Development for Africa in the Global Arena.’

Ends