Kaberuka: Africa is on the right track

The President of African Development Bank (AfDB) has expressed optimism that the continent will achieve economic structural transformation in the next few years, if the leaders focus on empowering citizens to reach their goals.Dr. Donald Kaberuka made the remarks yesterday while addressing a news conference at the sidelines of the ongoing 48th Annual Meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Marrakech, Morocco.“Africa needs accelerated structural transformation in order to take the bulk of its population out of poverty. This requires deeper investment in factors leading to growth-boosting structural change,” he said.Kaberuka stated that the continent has doubled its Gross Domestic Product in ten years, an indication that Africa was on the right move to achieve economic transformation, if the governments keep the momentum,“In the next 50 years there will be major trends that will influence what Africa does to achieve inclusive growth, for instance population and demographics, natural resources, young population, however this needs to be planned carefully for the betterment of every citizen,” he said.“We Africans need to ensure that generated revenues are invested in people and infrastructure development.”Dr Kaberuka stated that despite the slowdown in the global economy, Africa reports 6.6 per cent growth in 2013. Sub Saharan African growth alone stands at 5.7 percent. “And if you exclude the region’s largest and most complex economy, Sub Saharan Africa’s performance is actually 6.7 per cent.”According to Kaberuka, for the first time, Africa’s per capita GDP has crossed the 1000 US dollar barrier; infant and maternal mortality is down by a half while life expectancy is up from 40 to 60 years.And there are more children in school than at any time in recent history.“We need to know how to invest in education, infrastructure, health of the people and ensure that investment takes place, how do we accelerate technical training and regional integration, how do we deal with fragile states that are holding others back,” Kaberuka noted.The transformation we are looking at, he said, is not simply becoming a place where we have got more mobile phones than Europe and North America combined, but a place where we manufacture the mobile phone components. “It will not happen miraculously, it needs careful planning by the private and public sector combined efforts.According to Ali Bongo Ondimba, the Gabonese President, African governments should ensure that growth becomes more inclusive, while maximising natural resource use efficiency.“We should appreciate what has been achieved in the last decade and now it’s time to join our efforts and integrate to realise our continent’s potential,” he said.Appearing on the discussion Panel on Wednesday President Paul Kagame called on Africans to do things right to position the continent in its deserved place, saying that there was a favorable platform to make it happen.Rwanda, among few countries in Africa, has registered substantial progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) within in the period of three years.Since 2007, the Government of Rwanda has made achieving the MDGs fundamental to its policy framework. Within the last five years Rwanda poverty reduced by 13 per cent with one million Rwandans lifted out of poverty.

National

Kaberuka: Africa is on the right track