COM2021: African countries search for ways to close financing development gap

Abstract

African countries are looking for inventive ways and means to fill the annual development-financing gap of US$92.8 billion to implement the 2030 Agenda, achieve Agenda 2063, and actualize the Paris Agreement as well as respond to the COVID-19 crisis whilst tackling the growing levels of inequality. This was the special message that Nassim Oulmane, Chief of Green and Blue Economy Section Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Management Division at the ECA, gave to delegates attending the meeting of experts of the 53 Conference of Ministers (COM) in Addis Ababa. According to the ECA expert, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, alongside climate change effects, has undermined development progress and the continent’s ability to finance the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the realization of Agenda 2063. The report notes that the hosting of ARFSD conferences had engendered strong collaboration and cemented relations between the ECA, host Governments of Morocco in 2019, Zimbabwe in 2020, Republic of Congo in 2021, the African Union Commission (AUC), African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations System.