African leaders call for increased ownership, continental integration

PRIME Minister of Ethiopia, Haliemariam Dessalegn and Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda joined Carlos Lopes, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson, African Union Commission (AUC), and Mr. El Moctar Djay, Minister of Tax, Mauritania in the opening of the Conference of Ministers 2015 at the United Nat conference centre in Addis Ababa.

There was a strong call for action to the ministers of finance present for policy makers to do more to push for industrialisation. For this they called for more integration, less dependent on others and more ownership of our project. This was in line with the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063 vision and action plan, and a need for a common African position leading up to the third Financing for Development conference, COP21 and the Post-2015 socialdevelopment goals.

A unified Africa requires urgent collaboration towards regional integration and the political will to make it happen, announced, President Kagame in his keynote address.

Highlighting the importance of self-reliance and better use of domestic resources, he said, “This gathering is a good starting point if we use it wisely to determine where Africa goes next. There is value in once more reviewing the plans to see why we are not there yet in achieving the consistent results we want. Building new momentum requires that we stop thinking about development as something we do with external resources. We must focus on making better use of what we already have, domestically, in terms of our national and regional markets.”

Reiterating the sentiment, Dessalegn said that financing transformative development agenda would require substantial levels of resource. “To do so, it is imperative that available resources are used more effectively and strategically to catalyze additional financing from official and private sectors.”

“Agenda 2063 will require substantial financial resources and we must look into domestic sources to fund this. I am sure that Africa has untapped public and private resources that should be sufficient to meet the needs. If we want to sustain the remarkable economic growth recorded in the Continent over the past decade, increased reliance on domestic resource is absolutely necessary and domestic resource mobilization (DRM) should get the first priority and greater attention in our discussions here and then after.”