http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/4b58b9004bb030ec92eaba7beb9ae60f/East-African-economies-booming,-says-Uneca-20160215
East African economies booming, says Uneca
Monday 15 February 2016 06:06
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) has urged African countries to develop innovative institutions, effective processes, and flexible mechanisms to achieve transformational change.
"Institutions are key to transformational change and to building a cohesive, resilient, competitive, and transformed Africa," Uneca sub-regional office for East Africa director Antonio Pedro told a meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) in Nairobi this week.
Noting that the 14 East African countries had recorded remarkable economic growth for more than a decade, Pedro said such success denoted that Africa was capable of taking charge of its own development.
"Overall the region has scored an impressive performance with an average GDP growth of 6.6 % per year, rapid urban development, new sectors emerging, and innovative technology being introduced,"he said.
East Africa had been among the best performing sub-regions in Africa in boosting employment and productivity in both manufacturing and modern services.
However, despite the progress, large segments of the population were still poor and vulnerable.
He warned that persisting inequalities could result in negative economic, social, and political consequences, such as conflict.
The ICE had the responsibility of identifying policy options to promote broad-based development and generate inclusive growth.
"We want a development that is people-driven. We need cohesive societies that fight exclusion and marginalisation,"Pedro said.
Regarding structural transformation, he said the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) was emphatic that Africa needed a paradigm shift that would require renewed developmental planning.
Noting that the continent’s growth prospects were threatened by "external head winds", such as the decline in commodity prices due to the slowdown of China’s economy, Pedro suggested that Africa needed to industrialise to sustain growth and create jobs.
"African economies need to be structurally transformed to reduce dependence on commodities and exposure to their associated vulnerabilities and uncertainties.'
Citing Africa’s Agenda 2063, which calls for the creation of "an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena", Pedro said Africa had to move away from heavily centralised societies to embrace development based on a “network model” where all stakeholders were heard and accounted for.
The ECA believed decentralisation should not just be "a linear process of power transfer from national to sub-national jurisdictions but an effective instrument to empower local institutions as the main drivers of development".
In 2016 the theme of the ICE meeting was "Institutions, Decentralisation, and Structural Transformation in East Africa".
Speaking at the same meeting, Mwangi Kiunjuri, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Devolution and planning, raised questions about the conflict between African countries having rapidly growing economies and at the same time registering some of the world’s largest inequalities in wealth and well-being.
Kiunjuri urged the ICE to come up with proposals that would make “economic growth.
The sub-regional office for East Africa is based in Kigali, Rwanda, and covers Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Received on Mon Feb 15 2016 - 12:06:28 EST