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AFRICA: No more talk, act now - Sachs

02 Apr 2007 15:36:01 GMT
Source: IRIN

ADDIS ABABA, 2 April 2007 (IRIN) - ADDIS ABABA, 2 April 2007 (IRIN) - September marks the halfway point in the deadline for the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but Africa is nowhere near halfway to achieving them, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs said on Monday.

Sachs, director of the Columbia University Earth Institute and one time special adviser to former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, was speaking to African planning ministers at the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

"We have been held back by such difficult international processes, so much talk, so many missions, so many commitments that have not been fulfilled that this has to be a time for decisive action," the author of 'The End of Poverty' (2005) said. "No more talk, no more studies, we need to act right now."

The key to such a breakthrough is securing the aid that has been promised but not Delivered, he told the conference, whose theme is 'Accelerating Africa's growth and development to meet the MDGs: Emerging challenges and the way forward'.

Public spending capacity, he added, is limited, thus the funding gap has to be filled by debt cancellation and increased donor funding if the MDGs are to be met. Adamant that there could be no piecemeal approaches, he said: "The key ... is a massive scaling-up of targeted investments in ... health, education, agriculture and infrastructure ... meaning roads, power, internet connectivity, water and sanitation. All four are critical to success. No one of them alone can do it."

Such public sector investment was critical to securing private sector growth and a way out of the poverty trap, said Sachs. The principal private economic enterprise in Africa is agriculture - increasing public sector spending with vouchers for fertilizers and high-yield seeds and a 'green revolution', as happened in India and China, could realise food surpluses, as in Malawi last year.

Similarly, school-feeding schemes encourage parents to send children to school, improve health and attendance; paved roads enable trade; a steady electricity supply means keeping vaccinations cold.

"Unless you can bring the bed nets [against malaria], unless you can build the school, unless you can fund the school-feeding programmes ... pave the roads, extend the power bridge, make sure that farmers can have access to fertilizer and high-yield seed, it is all on paper," he added.

Sachs said an average of US $110 was needed per person, per year, between now and 2015 for African countries to achieve the MDGs. The funding gap should come from development assistance - the European Union promised aid would reach 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) by 2015 and 0.51 percent by 2010. The G8 has said it would double aid flows to Africa from $25 billion a year in 2004 to at least $50 billion in 2010. But so far "it is words. So far, it is promises."

He called on the donor community to provide aid in 'real time' so that governments could plan on a medium-term expenditure framework that enabled such a scaling-up of public spending. In this context, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank should support public spending that focused on meeting the MDGs, in turn mobilising the donors to meet their aid commitments.

In the meantime, governments could provide a 'quick fix', supplying bed nets against malaria, and fertilizer and seeds to help break the cycle of disease, chronic hunger and poverty on the continent.

"It's time to plan for success, aim for success, invest for success, receive the financing that you have been promised ... and I believe this is the chance and the time for Africa to escape from poverty," he said.

mw/jm

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Last updated:Mon Apr 2 15:41:06 2007