Mobilizing Domestic Financing key to Improving Africa’s SDGs Performance

Addis Ababa, March 7/2022/ENA/  African countries need to move forward on financing to improve their performance on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa’s transformation Agenda 2063.

This is according to panelists at a session to highlight progress made at regional and sub-regional levels in the implementation of Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063 in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.

The session was held at the opening of the Eighth session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD 2022) in Kigali, Rwanda.

Acting Director of Macroeconomics and Governance at the ECA, Bartholomew Armah, who presented the 2020 Sustainable Development Report (SDR) report findings at the session, said domestic resource mobilization needs to be improved, as the share of domestic debt to GDP has increased.

“The reliance on raising resources from outside the continent results in higher debt servicing costs due to a high “African premium” - compared to other regions. The special drawing rights (SDR) amounting to 650 billion recently approved by the IMF provides an important source of non-debt resources because the cost of using SDRs is relatively low,” he said.

He outlined other modalities, such as broadening tax bases and stemming corruption, redoubling digitization of economies, enhancing support to social services and creating an enabling policy environment to spur private investments and innovation.​

“Building back better requires smart financing that can blend with our domestic resources and external financing. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will help us leverage on the African financing initiatives,” Armah added.

He stressed the need to invest in data, and the capacity for monitoring and evaluation, as well as risk identification in national development plans noting that measuring the implementation of the SDGs and Agenda 2063 should be based on sound data and deeper analysis.

The 2020 Africa Sustainable Development Report provides a comprehensive analysis of Africa’s progress on the 2030 agenda and Agenda 2063. It notes that the Continent is lagging behind other regions.