UNECA deplores Africa's low, volatile growth rate
UNECA deplores Africa's low, volatile growth rateBy Joan Chirwa
Friday September 26, 2008 [04:00]
THE United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has observed that Africa's overall economic growth rates still remain volatile and below the levels required to achieve MDGs by 2015. In a statement, UNECA states that Africa needs to promote broad-based growth in order to foster employment creation, poverty reduction and social development while working towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
“Africa needs to ensure that the current growth momentum can be sustained in the future,” stated UNECA’s Trade, Finance and Economic Development (TFED) division at the beginning of a workshop on Macroeconomic Policy and Convergence in Southern Africa which ends in Pretoria today. “Accelerating broad-based pro-poor growth requires not only effective national strategies but also the harmonisation of policies at the regional level to promote intra-Africa trade as well as international competitiveness and economic transformation. Macroeconomic policy convergence aims to compliment other regional integration measures, including the construction of infrastructure and energy projects.”
The meeting, which was held from Tuesday, is a component of a regional technical capacity building project currently being implemented by ECA entitled ‘Enhancing the capacity of member States to achieve macroeconomic policy convergence’.
The overall objective of this project is to enhance the capacity of African policymakers to design and implement macroeconomic policies that promote high, stable and pro-poor growth as well as regional macroeconomic convergence. The project also aims at facilitating exchange of experiences on how to design and implement such policies.
“Macroeconomic convergence is considered to be critically important in the overall mission to promote accelerated and sustained pro-poor growth in Southern Africa. African countries have, on average, sustained historically higher economic growth rates over the last few years,” stated UNECA.
posted by MrK @ 5:32 PM
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