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Cairo meeting counsels African states
2006-03-30 07:46:55
By Idda Mushi, PST, Cairo
Goverments in Africa have been urged to take urgent steps that will ensure their nations own development processes if they are to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
African Policymakers gathered here from Sunday resolved that it was urgent for governments in Africa to own the development processes for the fight against poverty to register success.
In the three-day meeting which ended yesterday, Tanzania was represented by the Minister of Planning and Economic Empowerment Dr Juma Ngasongwa.
To stop lagging behind, the continent, they said must apply lessons learned in the past in the areas of development and use the same to reduce poverty.
They said MDGs were about poverty reduction.
To achieve MDGs in the wake of increasing poverty in the continent, nations must be ready to implement bold national policies.
They pointed out that strategies to deal with HIV/Aids, conflicts, food insecurity, gender inequality, employment, regional integration and trade would determine whether MDGs would be met or not.
The central theme of the meeting was the issue of ownership of the African development process, which was extensively debated.
’’Poverty eradication is more than ever our overarching goal in Africa,’’Abdoulie Janneh, UN under Secretary General and Executive Secretary of he Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), said in his opening speech.
’’The lessons of the past and the challenges of today present us with a focused and difficult task, how can second generation of poverty reduction strategies build on the successes of the first generation and at the same time avoid the constraints and limitations of the first,’’ he asked rhetorically.
Africa Union Commissioner for Economic Affairs Maxwel Mkwezalamba stressed the importance of African ownership of regional development agenda in order to improve progress towards meeting the MDGs targets.
’’Progress depends on real ownership of the poverty reduction and wealth creation agenda,’’ he said adding that African leaders must articulate, implement and monitor their strategic frameworks, programme and project within the continent with wide and articulate vision of development.
Entitled African plenary on national strategies for poverty reduction and the implementation of MDGs, the meeting was jointly organised by the African Union and the United Nations Economic commission for Africa in Collaboration with the United Nations development Programme (UNDP).
Ministers from over 37 African sates attended the meeting as well as representatives from African civil society, United Nations sister agencies, the World Bank and UK’s department for International Development (DFID).
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