Ougadougou— The African Development Bank ( ADB) has advised African countries to pursue prudent macroeconomic policies and improve the investment climate for domestic and foreign investors in order to create employment opportunities and reduce poverty especially in the rural areas.
The president of the ADB, Mr. Omar Kabbaj, who presented the organisation’s position on “Employment and Poverty Alleviation in Africa” at the just concluded summit in Ougadougou said majority of Africans live below the international poverty line of one dollar per day despite the formulation of Poverty Reduction Strategy ( PRSP) by about 20 African countries.
He said, “ while some countries have succeeded in significantly reducing the number of people living below poverty line, the overall progress however remains slow,” adding “this is primarily explained by the low average growth rate of the African economy, although Africa’s annual GDP growth rate has picked up in recent years- averaging 3.3 per cent in the last five years.”
He said, “ growth in per capita income remains depressed at around one per cent per annum and with African labour force growing at an average of 2.5% in the last few years, much of the employment creation continues to be in the non-wage and informal sectors, particularly for women”.
On the part of the ADB, Mr. Kabbaj said, “ the bank has provided its regional member countries technical assistance as well as substantial amount of resources amounting to close to $50 billion to finance development programs and projects. This includes debt relief amounting to $4 billion that the bank has extended to the 23 countries that have to date qualified for HIPC support”.
He said, “ in addition to its regular lending and grant operations, the bank has recently launched two important new initiatives. The first is its Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative that has as its objective accelerating access to sustainable water supply and sanitation to rural Africa by increasing coverage to 80% by 2015".
The second, he explained, “ aims at enabling countries coming out of conflict to re-engage with the international financial community by helping them clear their arrears with the Bank Group”.
Also speaking at the summit, the International Organization of Employers ( IOE) represented by its secretary-general, Mr. Anthonio Penalosa said “ human resource development is a necessary component of economic growth and high quality employment in Africa”.
He said, “ investors are usually attracted by the availability of a high quality and well trained workforce”.
Mr. Penalosa said the social partners; government, workers and employers needed to work together to ensure that vocational training in their countries responded to the needs of the job market.
He said governments must be determined to control the spread of the HIV/ AIDS scourge in Africa emphasizing “ we must recognise the fact that, business and other community efforts cannot replace those of governments”.
Meanwhile the Heads of State Summit chaired by President Olusegun Obasanjo agreed on the priority areas for the plan of action on employment generation and sustenance which includes, enhancement of integration and cooperation processes at the regional and continental levels, fair globalization for a new partnership and policy coherence at the national, regional and continental levels, enhancing ownership and participatory approaches to poverty reduction strategies, etc.
