Download Vitalice Meja

Vitalice Meja
Africa’s Agenda on Sustainable
Development
• The negative effects of the triple crisis of 2007–2009—
food, energy and finance—still linger, and the euro area
sovereign debt crisis has aggravated the structural
imbalances in the world economy and cast doubt on the
prospects for sustained growth and a quick recovery.
• African economies however rebounded quickly from the
2008 financial crisis as commodity prices rose and
export revenues returned to pre-crisis levels, enabling
them to finance the necessary investments.
• In 2011 Africa’s growth fell from 4.6 per cent in 2010 to
2.7 per cent in 2011 - Mainly owing to the political
turbulence in North Africa and severe drought in other
parts of the continent
• We however note that the economic growth of Africa as
a continent has been much higher only behind Asia on a
comparative basis over the last 6 years.
• Despite the acceleration of economic growth in Africa
over the past decade, Africans’ welfare has generally
failed to improve
• Social indicators have picked up only modestly,
unemployment, particularly among youth, remain high,
while income inequalities have widened.
• Higher inflation also remain a characteristic of the
continent. This is largely due to low global interest rates
and high food and fuel prices
• Africa lags behind on most of the MDG indicators
• The index for world commodity prices
approached a historical high in April 2011,
and apart from crude oil, all major
commodity category price indices
registered record highs in the first half of
2011
World Comodity Prices
Comments on Africa’s Rio+ 20
Agenda
• Africa’s Position is not guided by a balanced integration economic,
social and environmental
• There are no clear suggestions/ proposals on how to address the
conflict that arise from the three pillars
• The position seems to be based on the need for fundraising rather
than addressing the challenges affecting the continent
• Emphasis seem to be on how the continent can be helped rather
than what it is going to do for itself and its proposal to the rest of the
world
• There seems to be fighting for mandates on issues of
implementation between the countries and regional organisation
• Key negotiating points are very few
– Additionality
– Conditionality
– Indicator Development