African countries are looking for inventive ways to close the annual development finance gap of US $ 92.8 billion to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, achieve Agenda 2063 and update the Accord. Paris as well as responding to the COVID-19 crisis while addressing increasing levels of inequality.
This is the special message sent this Thursday to delegates attending the expert meeting of the 53rd Conference of Ministers (COM), in Addis Ababa by Nassim Oulmane, Head of the Green and Blue Economy Section, of the Division of Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resource Management, ECA.
Mr. Oulmane, who presented the report on the fifth and sixth sessions of the African Regional Forum for Sustainable Development (FRADD), noted that Africa is not on track to achieve most of the Sustainable Development Goals given the current pace of implementation. Its report reiterates the call for Member States to strengthen regional and national innovation clusters and advance Science, Technology and Innovation (STI).
According to the ECA Expert, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, alongside the effects of climate change, has undermined development progress and the continent’s ability to finance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and achievement of the ‘Agenda 2063.
“Climate change is an existential threat,” says Oulmane. He continued by noting that it was decided during FRADD7 that strengthened ambitions, urgency and redoubled efforts in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, alongside the full, efficient and timely implementation of the SDGs, remain the best way to achieve shared prosperity, respond to COVID-19 and fight climate change. To this end, a key FRADD resolution affirms that it is essential to urgently strengthen systems to improve the collection, availability, accessibility, timeliness and use of disaggregated and quality data and statistics in the aim of strengthening monitoring and reporting on the two Development Agendas in the context of the Decade of Action and COVID-19.
These are the words of Mr. Oulmane to the high-level delegates of COM2021, following the FRADD7 which has just ended in Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo.
Another key resolution in its report urges African member states to take advantage of the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to support increased production, job creation, strengthening of chains values and develop resilience to external shocks and future crises.
The report notes that the organization of the FRADD sessions has generated strong collaboration and cemented relations between ECA, the host governments of Morocco in 2019, Zimbabwe in 2020, the Republic of Congo in 2021, the Union Commission. African Development Bank (AUC), the African Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations system.
African member states should take advantage of the Agreement Establishing the AfCFTA.
