The International Monetary Fund has called on African governments to get serious in fighting corruption and improving financial governance. “Ultimately the effective use of aid will require that African countries strengthen their financial governance system and reduce corruption, particularly in natural resource-rich countries,” remarked IMF Africa department director Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane. Although overall growth for the continent is expected to reach 7 percent this year, sub-Saharan Africa, according to the agency, will remain short of the threshold required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015. Bio-Tchane said the fund is tracking the way individual African governments are managing foreign aid and conjectured that more funding is required to enable low-income nations to meet the MDGs. (Source: IMF urges Africa to fight graft, improve governance/Reuters)
