Margibi County – The West Africa Office of the Economic Committee for Africa (ECA) has identified the institutional capacity for evaluation and monitoring of development agendas as the “missing links” in developing the continent.
Report by Willie N. Tokpah / 00231777039231 (willie.tokpahonline.com)
The Director of ECA office in West Africa Bakary Dosso says countries in the subregion need to make major reforms to their macroeconomic and financial frameworks by investing in human capital as well as tackling infrastructure deficits.
The regional body also wants countries on the continent to improve the business climate to solve challenges.
“The success lies in the ability of the national leadership to execute on time, to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the different agendas to which it has committed for the transformation of their respective countries and the continent,” Mr. Dosso said Monday at the Farmington Hotel in Margibi County.
He was speaking during the opening session of the ad-hoc meeting of the expert group.
The meeting highlights capacity and national institutional arrangements for the evaluation of the implementation of 2030 and 2063 Agenda, challenges and prospect in West Africa.
Dosso quoting stats said in 2018 out of 377 million people in West Africa over 200 million live below poverty belt. He stressed that the Sustainable Development Goals is the best option for eliminating poverty from not only the region but the world.
The preliminary result of the studies has related challenges of Africa to the weakness of the statistical system, weakness of funding and institutional organization for monitoring the agendas, he said.
“After four years of implementing the SDGs, only three out of 15 of the ECOWAS countries have updated the reference year of a key indicator that is the poverty rate,” Dosso noted.
In the wake of these factors, Dosso has expressed the need for Africans to jointly take actions in implementing a road map that would improve the continent.
The ECA Director for West Africa believes the suitability of coordination mechanisms and the institutional organization to ensure national reporting of the two agendas is pivotal to effective monitoring and evaluation.
He assured participants that the Farmington Hotel event was intended to share experiences and good practices from both the subregion and the continent in evaluating the 2030 and 2063 agendas.
For her part, Deputy Finance Minister for Budget and Development Planning Tanneh Brunson stressed that Liberia remains committed to upholding her partnership with the ECA towards achieving the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and the African Union Agenda 2063.
“The Agenda 2063 is developed as a vision for Africa by African Union Heads of States in May 2013 and is a long term development framework that aims to materialize Africa’s vision of an integrated and prosperous Africa, driven by its own people,” Minister Brunson averred.
She recounted that the AU’s April 2016 discussion on domesticating Agenda 2030 speaks to socioeconomic development and reflect stronger environmental concerns.
“Today we are once again pledging the Government of Liberia unwavering commitment to development regardless of several challenges that we are faced with,” Brunson said.
Minister Brunson then encouraged participants to carefully review the statutory report prepared by the secretariat of ECA and provide directions. Meanwhile, Minister Brunson said the development of actionable and transformative steps aimed at reducing poverty and other forms of backwardness in Africa must be a priority.