UNIDO decries Africa's growth rate
SUB-SAHARAN Africa yet scored another first though uncomplimentary yesterday when it ranked the most retrogressive region in the world.
The region was adjudged the only one in the world where extreme poverty has been steadily spreading for the last 20 years.
Agency reports disclosed that the revelation was made at launching of the 2004 United Nations International Development Organisation (UNIDO) Industrial Development Report yesterday in Abuja. The report described Sub-Saharan Africa the development challenge of the 21st century.
It disclosed that while other developing regions, particularly East Asia had made great strides towards poverty reduction through rapid economic growth, the reverse was the case in Sub-Sahara Africa.
The report noted that the strides made by Asia would enable the region to meet or surpass the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
"The economic decline in SSA has to be arrested and reversed if the region hopes to record such stride before 2015," it added.
The report further said that attaining the MDGs in thre region means reaching the thresholds in such areas as health, nutrition, education, gender equality, infrastructure provision and environmental sustainability.
For poverty to be halved in most countries South of the Sahara by 2015, it said that per capital income must grow by between four and five per cent annually with the greatest efforts in the region's landlocked and resources-poor economies.
The report also showed that manufacturing industries in the region had stagnated and lost global market share since 1980.
It said that Africa's weak industrial performance reflected a deep-rooted problem in economic structure and governance.
The report urged African policy makers to address these underlying structural problems to overcome them. SSA, the report added, must shed its pessimism over its ability to industrialise and improve its investment climate while striving to overcome its structural problems and create capabilities for sustained growth.
