African experts meet in Cairo to discuss fiscal policy for domestic resource mobilization
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2009-06Author(s)/Corporate Author (s)
United Nations. Economic Commission for Africa.;Metadata
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The Deputy Minister of Finance of the Arab Republic of Egypt, H.E. Mr. Hany K. Dimian, has called on African countries to use fiscal policy for contingency planning to cushion economies against crises. He made the remark Tuesday 2 June, while opening the committee of experts of the Second Joint Annual Meetings of the African Union (AU) Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance; and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, taking place in Cairo, Egypt. For Africa, the crisis is not only an economic crisis, but more importantly a crisis with long-lasting social implications with serious impacts on unemployment, poverty, education and health indicators, starvation, and income inequality. "We need a change. Not just in policies, or in programs, or in priorities. This is all important and indispensable. But what we need in fact, is a strategic change in the vision, a change in the way our fiscal policy is formulated. A vision that migrates our fiscal formulation to a more macro-based setting, putting growth and inter-temporal sustainability as its priority", he said.