Business
Africa benefits from global slowdown – attracting more investment
The United Nations estimates it will cost between US$3.3 trillion and US$4.5 trillion a year to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to end poverty and hunger, combat climate change and achieve gender equality by 2030.
Development aid accounts for only 22 percent of external flows to Africa, less than half the percentage of gross private capital flows, Desalegn said.
Investment in infrastructure, industrialization and agriculture are critical to transforming Africa the experts said.
Sub-Saharan Africa needs to spend US$93 billion a year over the next 10 years on infrastructure, but less than half of that is currently being provided, according to the AfDB.
It is working to close this US$50 billion a year gap and has, through its new Africa50 fund, raised almost US$1 billion from regional governments to develop roads, ports and energy projects across the continent.
“It is very difficult to do manufacturing when your power keeps cutting out,” said AfDB Vice President Solomon Asamoah. The potential is huge as Africa tends to add little value to its exports. Most African oil-producing states export crude oil and then import refined petroleum products.
Africa imported 83 percent of its food in 2013, said Carlos Lopes, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa.
Anti-poverty groups question the private sector’s increasingly prominent role in development, saying its projects are often costly and secretive.
Source: Reuters
