The United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General for African Affairs criticised Africa’s “near subservience” to public development aid when the continent already finances more than 75% of its growth.
“Africa already finances more than 75% of its development, between income and, let’s say, savings in general. It’s not public development aid, and it’s not foreign direct investment that is financing growth and development,” which is why the “mindset has to change,” said Cristina Duarte in an interview with the Lusa news agency.
Why “this attitude of almost subservience towards public development aid, when this aid is not the driving force behind this funding?” asked the special adviser to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on African Affairs and former finance minister of Cabo Verde.
Changing the mentality is the first step towards changing the paradigm of development funding in Africa, argued the UN Under-Secretary-General, emphasising that the change is up to “everyone”, whether “African policy-makers and policy-makers in Africa, or partners”.
Cristina Duarte considered that the mentality is “excessively focused on managing poverty”, and what needs to happen is to “try to concentrate, to focus, on managing development”, emphasising that “they are two different things, managing poverty and managing development”.
Africa loses $500 billion every year
The special adviser insisted on the idea she has been defending that “Africa loses $500 billion [around €457 billion] every year” and that it is necessary to help African countries “to be able to better control their economic and financial flows”.
With this, she said, African countries will have more space to formulate policies, and the risk profile of these countries will change, with Africa gaining access to external financing where “the country risk assessment is not low and distorted”.
Cristina Duarte also emphasised the priorities set by Secretary-General António Guterres for Africa, highlighting “selfless support” for the implementation of “sustainable development” in an effective and efficient manner.
The United Nations system has a role to play, which is to help African countries promote their own development, but it is not the United Nations system “that reaches Africa and has to promote development”, she pointed out.
The instability, aggravated by recent coups in several African countries, was also commented on to Lusa by the UN Under-Secretary-General, who asked for “great care” and appealed for common sense “so as not to generalise”.
Africa has different geographies and cultures that have overlapped and are the focus of instability, she said, and “formal democracies”, she said, emphasising that “formal democracies” in some countries, “not all, have not been able to offer social inclusion, economic inclusion, cultural inclusion”.
“We have to understand why this is happening and not make an assessment based on stereotypes,” according to Cristina Duarte, who was taking part in the Estoril Conferences on Friday, which was held at Nova SBE in Carcavelos, Portugal.
Lusa
