Africa needs fairer access to market, aid alone not enough – Dep. UN Chief
The Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Asha-Rose Migiro, has called on the international community to grant Africa fairer access to markets for its exports with the continent potentially on the eve of an economic renewal.
According to Ms Asha-Migiro, even though aid is still important for most African countries, post-independence period has clearly shown that aid alone is not enough.
“Even though aid is still important for most African countries, the post-independence period has clearly shown that aid alone is not enough…Africa also needs fairer access to markets to be able to export its products without unnecessary barriers, better access to Western technologies at a reasonable cost to build competitive industries, more investment in productive sectors and infrastructure, and more policy space to craft and perfect their own development path,” Ms Asha-Rose Migiro told the 12th World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, Republic of Korea (ROK), according to the UN News.
She told the forum that the continent needed to be recognized as a new investment frontier – where the returns are among the highest in the world adding, “the continent has some of the largest known reserves of mineral resources including diamonds and gold; growing oil potential as Ghana and Uganda join the list of exporters; and the largest amount of unexploited arable land, a strategic asset in a world where food crises are becoming recurrent.”
Ms. Migiro noted that increasing trade and investment with emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil and Turkey, will continue to have a positive effect on Africa’s growth over the coming years, although in terms of human development, growth has not been fully inclusive, with the continent figured lowest of any region on the UN Human Development Index (HDI) in 2010, even as all but one country improved its human development between 2000 and 2010, the UN News reported.
She therefore called on Africans to do their part by continuing reforms to make their economies even more attractive while ensuring that their populations benefit from foreign investment.
By Ekow Quandzie