UNITED Nations (UN) Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Abdoulie Janneh, yesterday said while Africa is increasingly being recognised as a destination for foreign investment, the continent should not be "too sanguine" about this because its growth rate of 4.7 per cent last year and projected at 3.7 this year is far below the minimum growth rate estimated to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs.)
In an address to the 17th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Executive Council in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea on the eve of this year's African Union (AU) summit, Janneh said the downward revision of Africa's growth rate was partly due to global events like high food and fuel prices, the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, troubling fiscal conditions in Europe and political developments in North Africa.
He stressed that Africa's commitment to improving governance since the adoption of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was not misplaced and might even have provided a safety valve in some countries by helping to maintain political stability in the face of severe economic shocks.
In Janneh's thought provoking plenary remarks made available to The Guardian yesterday by the ECA's Information and Communications services on ground in Malabo, he said: "Indeed, I see the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and changes elsewhere in North Africa as evidence of the desire to upscale and improve governance.
"While youth unemployment was a factor, the desire for greater freedom, demands for greater accountability and distaste with the scale of corruption also played a significant role in the demand for change."
Stating that current economic and governance conditions were merely a snapshot, Janneh noted: "We now need to begin to connect the dots of several emerging trends which indicate that we are on the cusp of a new era whose final shape is yet to emerge. Globalisation has changed the nature of the world and we now have to contend with recurrent economic crisis, worsening environmental degradation and inadequate and jobless growth.
"When we factor in the rise of the emerging economies, faster ICT enabled flows and changing global demographics then it is obvious that we have to find new ways of coping with the world that we now live in."
Janneh held further that the choice of the theme of the Summit, "Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development", was "apt because of the worrying truth that Africa's young people lack adequate preparation and guidance to cope in a rapidly changing world."
"The life experience for a majority of them is of joblessness, poverty and instability aggravated by conflict, displacement and health pandemics such as HIV/AIDS," he said, adding that "Africa's youths live in such despair that they are vulnerable and likely targets for recruitment into militant activities." Janneh said a good starting point would be for African governments to provide a compelling vision and realisable plans for the future that would give hope to Africa's youths, recalling that the continent's Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, in March 2011, had pledged to develop inclusive policies to address widespread poverty and youth unemployment while continuing to mainstream related gender concerns.
"We must at the same time invest in the education of Africa's youths and equip them with skills in coping with today's world. With only five per cent of our populations enrolled in universities, every effort must be made to enable Africa's youths to become good entrepreneurs, managers or workers," he added.
The Guardian