African countries have been advised to invest more in building capacities if they are to boost their growth and sustain it. The call was made, yesterday, by the Executive Secretary of the African Capacity Building Foundation, Dr Frannie Léautier.She said that Africa needs to leverage on its natural resources and a youthful labour force to spur economic transformation. Léautier was addressing the 5 Annual Meeting of the African Union Conference of Ministers of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Addis Ababa. “Africa is well on its way towards sustainable growth but needs critical capacities in three key areas, political and social stability for transformational change, capacity to engage, guide and regulate the productive sector and capacity to track policy impact,” she said“The capacity to deliver public services in areas with potential for multiplier effects like educating girls and capacity to deliver platforms for creativity, innovation, discovery and learning to tap into ideas such as those that link science and research to farmers and support youth in self-created jobs should be encouraged” “Leadership that seeks improved legitimacy of strategies for development and accountability in the use of resources, and that can secure economic and financial governance. And lastly, a state with institutions capable of guiding strategic sectors and improving responsiveness to uncertainties and resilience in managing risks” “Just like growth, capacity development is a long term process requiring flexibility, patience, attention to results and strategic partnerships for learning and achieving results at scale,” Léautier said. The latest report by Public Sector Capacity Building (PSCBS) indicates that though there were some challenges, capacity building was on track. The report covered five sectors that included Health, Agriculture, Education, Decentralisation and Infrastructure. Oxford Policy Management (OPM) from the United Kingdom was commissioned to draft the report.According to statistics, in the agricultural sector, US$ 2 million was spent on capacity building as part of the Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation (PSTA) with 70 percent focusing on organisational strengthening, and another 18 percent on long-term overseas academic training programmes.“We are on the right track of increasing capacity building in our country, but the challenge we still face is that of local experts who are moving to the regional and international level,” Stella Ford Mugabo the Executive Secretary of PSCBS said during the launch of the report in Kigali recently.
