AfDB president: Better policies, aid independence key to resilient Africa

How can Africa go beyond crisis response and tackle its “next important agenda” of building resilience? Donald Kaberuka, head of the African Development Bank, has identified five elements.

It’s high time for Africa to move from managing the effects of the 2008 global financial crisis and start protecting itself from future ones, Kaberuka said in a Dec. 19 speech before the board of governors of the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank. He emphasized five key steps toward a more resilient Africa:

• Manage the region’s natural resource boom through better policies and the investment of revenues in infrastructure and human development.

• Build Africa’s internal market by promoting intraregional trade.

• Reduce Africa’s dependence on aid by making “Africa’s finance to work for Africa.”

• Strengthen Africa’s financial, governance and related institutions.

• Rethink existing policy paradigms and build independence from external economic thought models.

AfDB can be both a model and partner in helping the region accomplish these tasks, Kaberuka stressed. But partnerships and alliances would be just as important because “we cannot do it alone,” the president added.

Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.