High-Level Event: African Economic Outlook 2026 Launch – Financing Africa at Scale

Ajouté : 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]that can attract this is a huge revenue potential for the continent and again our institutional investors has significant assets under management up to 4 trillion you have seen that figure before but only 2.7% of that is currently being utilized and Africa's high net worth individuals control over 2.5 uh trillion US dollars as well so we can do much by just bringing together basically implement NAFAD the new African financing architecture for development and we will be able to mobilize the capital we need to do our development. And finally, regulatory quality and is very very important for attracting the private sector. And here we see that countries with strong and predictable regulatory frameworks tend to have higher uh credit to the private se credit to the private sector. And that is very key in one of the findings that we have. And then finally is what I've already said that economic governance improving economic governance delivers a a a virtual cycle in Africa's DRM arena because economic governance improves the social contact with citizens. It helps to create resources for bankable producing bankable projects. Basically is a circular flow of positives if we focus on economic governance. In chapter three, we then look at what do we need to do with existing African infra um uh financing architecture in order to be able to mobilize that domestic revenue. And here we're seeing that every indicator we looked at whether it is financial development index or gross savings, no bank deposits and domestic private sector investments, Africa is performing way below its peers and also way below its potential. and sovereign world funds. Uh President City talked about it as well. But our uh uh national development banks and also the insurance sector and other innovative climate uh finance options, climate finance, Islamic finance and so on are critical and has huge potentials on the continent for us to be able to mobilize that. But to do that, we basically need to accelerate the implementation of NAFAD, the new African financing architecture for development through the principles of coordination, subsidiarity, complimentarity, and disciplined risk transformation. There's quite a lot in the report that can explain all this, but because of time, I'm trying to rush through all the slides. So, what recommendations do we have? Again for time I'm not going to pick on all of them but deepening domestic capital mobilization remains central. This is the foundation for development everywhere and Africa will not be different. We need to also deepen and integrate in uh integrate our domestic and regional financing systems in order to create that interoperability and cooperation so that we can achieve cap mobilize capital at scale. drisk at scale, manage risk at scale and so on and so forth. So we need to strengthen the social contract between citizens and uh governments by improving public service delivery, fighting corruption, addressing leakages and several other issues that you'll find in the report.

[00:03:28]again in the medium term we need to expand Africa's um structural reforms continue to uh because in many African countries a number of structural reforms are already delivering dividends so despite the shocks that we see countries need to continue to stay the course of those reforms we need to mainstream and accelerate the reform of the African financial architecture NAFA but also implementing the African financing stability mechanism which will help address the uh the the debt refinancing challenges on the continent and the African monetary institute which will help in monetary stability to getting towards monetary stability on the continent. So we need to find an a system to leverage Africa's um diaspora better for investments not for remittances for commission uh consumption smooning and the high note work individuals and philanthropies as well. What can development partners do?

[00:04:25]Crisis response programs that have been delivered by development partners, African Development Bank, Africa Exim, the World Bank and the rest has been central to Africa's resilience during shocks. So we need to always try to help to come with a lot of things. Trade finance, emergency budget support, there are several instruments that we can use and you'll find in the report. But we need to coordinate our technical assistance better as we are trying to coordinate the African financing systems. The development partners need also to work better together in providing assistance uh to them especially deepening the uh support for domestic revenue mobilization which a lot of our de development partners are already doing and MDBs and regional de development banks need to consider better how we manage risk. basically de-risking mechanisms, partial credit guarantees at scale in order that to attract private sector capital into development on the continent and reforming the national development banks. The potentials of these banks are huge, but they need to be properly capitalized and coordinated and with other development finance institutions on the continent in order to be able to drive that transformation we're looking for. And again, this is part of NAFAD.

[00:05:44]uh we need innovative instruments to build long-term economic resilience and in doing so there are several you know innovative financing instruments that were are identified in the report that have provide lowhanging fruits for the continent. Ladies and gentlemen with this I would bring my presentation to a close to make way to the panel. Thank you so much.

[00:06:13]>> Thank you very much uh Professor Uramama Kevin Uramama, Chief Economist at the African Development Bank Group. Um it is now my honor to invite our esteemed panelists to join us here on the on the podium. We will start with Dr. Migulu Lamemed and Chamba, Prime Minister, United Republic of Tanzania. Please join us here. Um, we also have his excellency Mossinati Kate, governor, Republic of Botswana.

[00:06:45]We have honorable Baroness Chapman, Governor of the United Kingdom. Please join us.

[00:06:54]We have uh um Mr. Clavier Gatee who's a executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

[00:07:05]He's followed by Miss Dian Ka, executive director, United Nations Population Fund.

[00:07:13]We then have honorable Emmy Oari, temporary governor, uh, Republic of Finland.

[00:07:23]And then we have Miss Hilda Sandberg, temporary governor, Sweden.

[00:07:33]Excellencies, distinguished panelists, thank you very much for joining what we hope will be a fascinating conversation.

[00:07:40]Um because we've heard the tone, we've gotten the highlights of the report. We now want to get on the practice side. on the practice side at the country level but also in our regional institutions to see how we go about activating this.

[00:07:55]We're actually going to start off with um with the Gav with Governor Baroness um of the United Kingdom because I know you do have a flight to catch so we'll give you some preferential treatment.

[00:08:09]Um, kicking off with you, the UK's 2025 new approach to Africa signals a shift from Donna to investment framework. So, what concrete actions is FCDO taking to unlock private capital and scale up financing for inclusive growth?

[00:08:28]>> Well, thank you very much for your question and for assembling this panel.

[00:08:33]And I I don't have a flight to catch, but I do have a meeting with the president which I cannot miss. Um, so if you see me around tomorrow, you will um know that I didn't have a flight to catch. So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear. Um, but I think the way that we look at this is looking at the scale of ambition of what countries want to achieve and how much is need investment is needed to deliver that.

[00:08:58]Compare that to the um the money that is moving into African economies right now and there is a mismatch. So the idea that we can just carry on in the way that we have um doesn't seem to me to make much sense. So when we had the opportunity last year to listen really hard to what our partners were asking of us and to look at the resources that we had and look at the institutions that we can work alongside. Um, the African Development Bank seemed to us a very very obvious partner because it African-led, Africanowned and it seems to us to be really delivering. Some of the problems that we think we can assist in making better are the issues that have been raised a few times this morning around risk perception and the way that that impacts the costs of borrowing. And we have work that we're doing with the credit agencies um to try and make this better. There's a project too that we heard from the African Union about having an African um credit rating agency which makes sense but I think is probably not going to be enough and actually we need all of the agencies to up their game and to really look hard at what they're doing. The big barrier to this is data. So we have a project to try and collect some of the the private sector investment return data anonymized, hold that and to be able to publish it so that risk can be accurately assessed and therefore the cost of investment can be um and cost of borrowing can be more reflect reality which is fairer for countries but also it's great for investors who need a return. And so we think that that's that's one practical thing that we can do. Another thing we've just heard a lot about domestic resource mobilization.

[00:10:56]As my citizens in the UK will tell you, we know how to tax people and they it's something that we have, I think, successfully worked alongside governments to support. I think we need to do a huge amount more of that. the data in the report makes that abundantly clear and we we're very very keen to do that. But as far as the bank goes, we've just um we put in um 70 million pounds hybrid capital. I think we're the first shareholder um to make this type of investment in an MDB. We've also done $3 billion of guarantees. Um my good friend Gordon Brown who is constantly sit you have when you've had a mentor in life they sit on your shoulder for the rest of your entire life and tell you what to do. He's there. So we're doing $3 billion in guarantees which I think um will help. We also did 650 million into the ADF. So we really believe in this institution um but it needs to be bigger and you need to be able to act at greater scale. So we think those are the main challenges. There's just a couple of the things that we're doing which are really sort of practical and we can get on and do today. But this and that's the sort of technical money side of this. I think there's a huge part of this which is about the politics of it. And I think the politics of from the UK's perspective um failing to work completely properly in a long-term very close partnership.

[00:12:29]>> That's no longer acceptable. and our our desire to work I mean partnership we've been talking about it for a very long time but actually to do it for real I think now is the time you and we we've heard that loud and clear and that is that is what we are determined to do >> thank you very much for that Baroness Chapman um and as you as you prepare to leave just one question around what is that one action that for you must be a deliverable on this issue we're talking about by the next annual meetings.

[00:13:02]>> Yeah, I think the test of this probably won't won't it's not something where you get a very quick success and we need to be honest about that. I think in development often we want uh because we have to measure everything we do and publish it and be accountable for it.

[00:13:16]There is this need to you know we've supported this many people into school, we've delivered this many vaccinations.

[00:13:22]It's that mindset that does not work for this kind of um partnership. Partnership is long-term. It can be slow. It can be frustrating and it can take time for those results to show. We will know I think I mean the the plan we've just seen talked about three year fiveyear horizons. I think that's what we're looking at. But the scale of change we need to see needs to be in the high billions if not trillions of of dollars moving into African economies.

[00:13:52]>> I think that that is when you know that you've actually made a difference.

[00:13:56]>> Thank you. Thank you very much. um very hopeful but also a lot of commitment coming from the FCDO. Thank you for that. I know you have to go.

[00:14:05]>> No, I'm so sorry. This is very rude and my my mother would be ashamed of me for leaving so quickly, but but >> thank you very much and safe travels.

[00:14:14]>> Thank you very much.

[00:14:15]>> So, Prime Minister Namba of Tanzania, we're coming to you, sir.

[00:14:22]Tanzania has financed over 70% of its national budget from domestic resources while sustaining growth of above 6%.

[00:14:32]How did you do it? What are the main conditions that made that possible and how do we replicate that to the rest of Africa?

[00:14:41]>> Uh thank you very much uh madame moderator for giving me the opportunity.

[00:14:49]Uh it is true that we Tanzanians have managed to finance our domestic budget by over 70%.

[00:15:02]It it was a long journey which started with the with the strategy of building a strong institution responsible for tax collection that is the Tanzania Revenue Authority.

[00:15:18]uh whereby at the time we were establishing the Tanzania Revenue Authority, we used to collect like uh 30 million Tanzanian shillings a month which is hardly less than than 10,000 so and then after the establishment of uh the Tanzania Revenue Authority which oversee had the opportunity to taking charge of the reforms of the tax systems and tax administrations.

[00:15:54]We managed now to increase the tax revenues from uh uh from the the tax sources whereby as we speak now we are ranging of over 13% of the GDP and we are even undertaking more reforms. So what is key in that one first is uh the presence of the institution itself whereby we have the Tanzania revenue authority responsible for tax revenues and we have the local authorities responsible for non- tax revenues and the the local authority and perals on the side of other non tax revenues we have done uh a lot in reforms to make the tax tax systems friendly to the taxpayers.

[00:16:50]Uh which has managed through we have managed that through uh digitalization the recent uh use of EFDs and the the the the growth of the of the digitalization in the financial system.

[00:17:11]And the second uh pillar is on the issue of uh prudence on the expenditure that whatever we collect the the citizens do see where is ending what is it affecting how is it affecting their local lives. For instance, we have managed to construct uh over 6.5 trillion Tanzanian shillings which is hardly 3 billion uh US dollars project the hydro power the maligner hydro power which is financed locally I mean domestically through the the domestic taxes and that one has managed the country to to ex expand the transmission of uh of electricity connectivity to almost throughout the country over 13 villages connected with with electricity from the national grid. So prudence in the use of the tax money has a direct relationship with uh with the the compliance of uh tax payment from from the taxpayers and uh the third pill I think is also the resilience of the financial sector.

[00:18:41]uh the financial sector has recently uh I mean for instance the banking sector has uh has doubled its uh banking assets >> uh the the financial inclusivity within the country has has made uh the modalities for paying taxes even more easier as we move to cash economy. So in a nutshell uh prudence in the use of the taxpayers money, the baldy and the solid institutions responsible for tax collection and also uh credibility on those projects which uh has been implemented through the taxpayers money and the resilience on the financial sector. I think uh these are a few among others uh which have made uh Tanzania to finance most of its projects of our projects through uh domestic uh collected revenue.

[00:19:47]>> I've just mentioned one of the project but we have also managed to construct a standard gauge railway running from Dleslam to the western part of Tanzania.

[00:19:57]uh one branch running to uh the border with Burundi and Rwanda. The other one running to the border Lake Victoria bordering Uganda and we have the other one revitalizing the Tazara running from Dalislam to Zambia. All these projects make uh the taxpayers see that look we are responsible for taxpaying for paying taxes and yet we are seeing the end results of our our our taxes.

[00:20:31]>> Thank you very much uh Mr. Prime Minister for those insights. It's interesting professor he talked about economic governance professor and the report you just presented to us actually talks about a 1.7 uh billion I think in addition of resources that can be got precisely when you tighten this economic governance point. So thank you very much also for the SG the bank is proudly one of the financiers behind that. Thank you very much Mr. Prime Minister uh Your Excellency Indosiate I'm coming to you from Botswana Botswana's 27 billion economic transformation program sets an ambitious 10-year blueprint for diversification and high income status. How does Botswana intend to mobilize the financing needed? And what are the early lessons you're seeing?

[00:21:26]Well, thank you very much uh for the opportunity to to share. Uh Botswana has what is called the Bhutzana economic transformation program and what that entails uh there was a process where we partnered with a strategy firm where we did a diagnosis of global mega trends uh continental uh mega trends and where Botswana uh feeds into these value chains.

[00:21:57]What this enabled us is we then to do is it it we we then had a an international and local call for investment proposals.

[00:22:10]We received about 7,000 of them around the world and from within Botswana.

[00:22:18]We had a very rigorous, if not ruthless, process that got us to filter these investment uh prospects from 7,000 to 186.

[00:22:34]Once we had filtered them down to 186, we then uh put them into what we call economic laboratories where we had all the stakeholders, decision makers on land, decision makers on permits, um the project sponsors, the financeers and we gave them four weeks of having them meet every day for four weeks. And we said to them after four weeks give us a rigorous um implementation map for each of these 186 projects. Uh after 4 weeks we had this map um of executable projects and in investment uh prospects.

[00:23:25]We then uh got parliament to endorse a rein a a reinfensed uh system of excellence within the government system that we will jealously protect from the rest of the government bureaucracy to implement this. So what has this done?

[00:23:47]What it has done is it has given Botswana what Botswana has never achieved before. uh we have always had if you look at our national development plan 12 now it has about 6,000 projects but we have decided deliberately that you can't be everything to everyone you have to ruthlessly prioritize which is what we have done the second is what it has given BAN which has never happened is that we now have on the table 186 six execution ready or near execution ready uh projects that finance years locally and internationally are very keen on financing and we can see uh we can see uh uh the momentum in the past we've always had thousands of projects but almost all of them have baked uh almost all of them high risk and not necessarily uh executable people.

[00:24:52]What this process also assisted assisted us achieve is that we we realized that uh red tape the removal of red tape is actually uh the same thing as generation of new capital.

[00:25:09]Many of the projects um that are part of the uh Botswana economic transformation program have been in the system pillar to post for the last 7 years 10 years because they were not able to secure land or permits.

[00:25:28]But with this process uh we're able to solve land problems within 2 days 3 days and and that enables investment into those because the money is there is available is just waiting for bureaucratic man-made obstacles to come down. The other thing that uh we we cherish uh from this process is that it lended us the capacity which hasn't been there before to cherrypick uh candidates for triple peace. Uh so that uh we were able to identify with great deliberation which of these projects should be commercialized.

[00:26:14]uh and those have been identified and indeed those that have qualified uh are attracting uh additional capital.

[00:26:22]What this process also did is that uh we were very deliberate about identifying legislative obstacles in the system. Uh and the Bhutan economic transformation program has a long roster of legislative amendments, even the smallest amendments that uh had to be made in order to enable and facilitate including legislation amendments in in energy. And now you can um do direct PPAs, legislative amendments around breaking down energy generation from transmission and and all of that. Um through an all of government uh process, the last parliament is arguably the busiest parliament in the history of the country because of this deliberate uh process.

[00:27:20]But also um what we also are doing now is that in the past because Bosana uh traditionally has been was cash a wash diamond cash if I may say so myself but no longer the case you know the diamond market is under duress so we can't afford anymore as a government system to throw money at the problem uh we used to throw money at the problem.

[00:27:50]We used to uh we set up uh government financial institutions to financememes uh through one fit all uh system. We gave loans to everyone regardless of what type of funding you needed. But now we we are we we we have deliberately come up with an ecosystem uh for funding.

[00:28:16]uh which ecosystem now takes into account things we never used to take take account which is different types of sectors require different type of funding which is that government of Botswana should not be giving out uh loans directly to citizens but should be empowering uh organizations uh certified including cooperatives including uh communities.

[00:28:43]uh so this uh this uh ecosystem we're working together with the African Development Bank with their uh catalyst uh uh philosophy uh guarantees and other partners uh around around around the world. So um we we we we have also through this process realized that uh there's nothing that beats um crowdsourcing of ideas >> right.

[00:29:15]>> Yeah. allow people. You would be surprised the ideas that have come from communities and individuals uh from the ground. Uh they have come up with ideas that are transformational without requiring large quantum capital.

[00:29:34]>> Indeed.

[00:29:34]>> And we have found that crowdsourcing uh of of of of ideas actually releases uh releases uh capital. But if I may sum it all, I think what we need not just as Botswana but as the African continent is actually to build uh capacity uh capacity around uh the uh design uh of projects particularly projects uh at scale so that uh projects can be graduated to being execution ready or near execution already so that uh as as so so that it derisks so that it attracts uh capital different types of uh capital and and and partners so for me and for the Bosana government it's about building capacity >> capacity >> capacity is the number one issue the second issue is more capacity the third issue is ultra capacity the fourth issue is super capacity >> capacity issue is ultra capacity.

[00:30:46]>> Thank you so much. Thank you so much uh governor for those rich reflections. I heard a lot about preparedness, readiness, capacity as you said. I recognize in the audience his excellencies man dear of Civoir. If you could kindly join us on the podium please uh so that we can also hear your rich reflections. In the meantime, I would like to come to you um Hilda Sweden. In a world of growing geopolitical and geoeconomic fragmentation, how do you see the role of external development support evolving and how can more vulnerable African countries be best supported to mobilize capital at scale?

[00:31:34]>> Thanks.

[00:31:36]>> Thanks for that question. uh in terms of um external development support including um old schools basically aid ODA uh we all know that or we being told all the time ODA levels are going down and as if that was a fact but it's true that traditional donors uh to some extent some big traditional donors other small ones including Sweden had had certain ODA cuts but still that's not the real issue as far as I'm concerned The real issue is that the absolutely enormous amount of growth that this world, our globe, entire globe has experienced has not uh enabled enough or and for some reason has not created enough uh emerging economies that are willing to contribute to those vulnerable economies or very fragile economies that are still in need of ODA. And in that regard, I think the the ADF-17 replenishment was super encouraging that you had a number of African countries or increased number of African countries choosing to invest in their own neighborhood. That's really encouraging and it really makes us proud and it's excellent when we can tell our hierarchy that this is happening. Um in terms of other types of external financing for really uh vulnerable and fragile economies, I think we need to go back to basics and look at what the bank really can do in this regard. The reason it's very difficult to get um private financing to some of the most vulnerable economies are of course the issue of risk and the bank needs to be able to reduce risk for those countries and for the bank to do that it needs to be an absolutely risk-free institution. it needs to retain its AAA rating and I think that is what all shareholders represented here today should constantly watch and ensure that uh that the AAA standalone AAA rating is achieved by the bank as soon as possible because you don't know what is happening to all the AAA rated capital collable capital that the bank has and lastly one one note on fragmentation it's true we're living in an increasingly fragmented world but this is never was never inevitable I think there's a lot we can do to counter fragmentation. And I think that the African continent, the European Union for example, is now given fragmentation trying to deepen our internal market.

[00:34:02]And I know the same is happening in Africa and things like the Republic of Congo removing visa restrictions for a number of countries. That's that's way one way of countering fragmentation that should really be encouraged. Thank you.

[00:34:14]>> Thank you very much. Thank you very much for those reflections around the new generation of partnership in this dispensation.

[00:34:21]I'm not sure if I'm right, but I think I recognize uh Mr. Ludovich please come and join us on the podium as well because we'd like to hear your reflections. Please and as he does, I would like to come to you Emmy Oari.

[00:34:41]>> No, in fact, please forgive me Emmy.

[00:34:43]I've been told that Miss Dian Katera has a flight as well. So I'm going to come to you Dian and ask you your executive director of uh the UN population fund and we're really proud to see you there.

[00:34:56]So congratulations. Africa's demographic dividend depends on investing in women and girls in health, education, economic participation. How can development financing be better structured to make those investments central rather than peripheral to Africa's capital mobilization?

[00:35:18]>> Thank you so much uh Dr. Joy. It's a privilege and an honor to be here on this very high level panel. I think we heard it very earlier today. uh investing in human capital is absolutely essential and uh the the right way to do that it's if we look at today word at young people for their employability to look at their nutrition especially young girls nutrition to look at maternal and neonatal health to look at the life skill education that is different from higher education as well as to uh maternal health commodities and the supply chain all that contribute to transform economies and have an impact on economic infrastructure. So I think they always seen as secondary spending social spending but this should be really at the heart of uh all economies because future depend on the way cap human capital is being uh mentioned and work on at um new financing investment instrument. They really need to explicitly prioritize elimination of maternal mortality and maternal morbidity. Of course, you have social aspect into that linked very very much to school dropout. It's a smart investment to make sure that there is no school dropout while we are investing in human development because that has a cost and of course invest what we don't do much in Africa in care economy. care economy through life course is extremely important on what we do on this uh today. So for us it's so many mega trend um that are in to take into account more than population size is it's not more population side than it's about how population are where do they live and how do do we interact with them and how they are being taken into account. So those are all the way that need to be taken into consideration by macroeconomist and policy maker on the world today. So if Africa I want to invest, want inclusive group, want to fight against inequalities, really it's about human capital, human capital, it's about gender equality. Here we are mentioning women, girls. But it's much bigger than that. There's all those who need social protection really the disability etc that are not being seen in any economy today that need to be at the center of of it.

[00:37:52]>> Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Deian for reminding us on how we keep the people center of all of this and how we ensure financing touches them. I'm going to come to you uh uh because you have to go and organize yet another critical meeting as our host.

[00:38:15]Could you share with us Congo's experience on uh resource mobilization in your country and also within SEMA?

[00:38:26]Thank you very much.

[00:38:31]I my apologies. I have just come into this discussion and uh kind of late.

[00:38:43]Unfortunately, I am chairing a meeting of the boards of governors that is starting shortly. I will be dealing the discussion. So, I needed to uh do some preparatory work. Coming to Central Africa, Congo, Central Africa and Africa in general. The we noted that there is a financing gap of uh 4,000 billion that will have an average growth rate which is uh almost at the same level or higher than population growth but we we cannot uh reduce we cannot reduce poverty referring to Seak they have such high debt levels that in spite of uh the amount of financing 60% is born by the state. So there is an a problem of budget elbow room.

[00:39:45]So the ADB strategy uh aims at mobilizing African resources to finance Africa's development. So what can we do in this context? As the previous speaker has said, we need to carry out reforms particularly as concerns DRM that is from customs, from taxes and also we need to transform our economies so that they produce uh more resources. They generate more resources for our states through digitalization, through the deepening of our markets and uh new uh products from the green economy and carbon credits and so on. But this is not easy to implement. We saw uh uh one of the slides which um gave a three to five year uh timeline to obtain results but some of these countries are facing real difficulties today. So how do we come up with quick solutions you know we cannot do this by counting uh on the resources of the country alone. We are here with the ADB. We need to in emphasize the financing of of reforms that will improve the capacity of the state to deploy programs and projects.

[00:41:14]Uh that would lead to the transformation of its governance, the mobilization of domestic resources and also economic reform. Because once the states are so uh capacitated to handle their business not by giving them money directly but uh by improving their capacity to implement programs we will have more results. In any case we should know that uh the old world where we had all kinds of credits and assistance is behind us. efforts have to be efforts today focus on assisting states so that they are able to deploy consistent policies for their development. Now coming to Congo, the president said that in recent years we worked and we had a program with the IMF that helped to improve uh our governance and resource mobilization capacity. But that is a work in progress. We need we are doing this under the new national development plan. That is the Congo 2063 plan with emphasis on governance in domestic resource mobilization, human capital. We have infrastructure.

[00:42:37]But that would not be enough if we do not have the right people who are able to manage them and implement policies that will allow the country to move from a normal growth strategy to one that integrates growth. I think that is important for our countries and improve we need to improve our capacity to effectively implement policies to accelerate development. The ADB is proposing avenues we can follow. We need to uh pursue these uh avenues with them to obtain short and medium-term results for our economy. Thank you honorable minister for sharing that perspective.

[00:43:18]>> Giving us it looks like when the government is actively intentionally pursuing the conditions for success.

[00:43:25]Emmy, I'm coming to you for two minutes and then I'll come to uh Mr. Gatee. He has to go.

[00:43:30]>> I have I have to leave. They have a bilateral.

[00:43:33]>> Okay. So, we changed the plot. Emmy, my my apologies.

[00:43:38]>> Mr. Clavit, no one understands the AFCA more than you in terms of UNCCA having been part of the brains behind it. So, what actions do African countries most urgently need to take to fasttrack this African continental free trade areas implementation?

[00:43:55]>> Yeah, thank you very much. Uh first of all it's unfortunate that the audience that was here in the morning could not listen to the presentation by Kevin which was very useful for everybody to understand and I'm sorry I have to leave because I have bilaterals that have been pending for you know since 2 hours ago.

[00:44:15]So I I just wanted just to make a few points. One I wish everybody understands that we're not in the same world as we were 10 years ago. is totally different.

[00:44:27]When we thought COVID was the worst shock of the century, afterwards we saw the war in Ukraine. We saw the climate change affecting uh almost the whole world including 5% of our GDP on the African continent. We saw the war in Ukraine uh sorry the war in the Middle East which had a huge impact on energy and fertilizers and we are still seeing more including the decline in ODA that we have seen the decline in the concessional resources that we have seen and all these things are happening at the same time in the context of high indebtedness and also in the current geopolitical situation. Now it's a short time for any country to organize itself and be able to handle the situation because we don't even know which another shock is going to come to affect us and that's why we need to look at it in a different way and to do this it's going to affect everything that we do uh about the decisions of energy and that's why there has been now improvements in terms of now uh energy uh I mean dealing with the issues of energy the issues of trade and also the destination of trade the trade uh supply chains everything is now changing and now what we need to do on our own continent and you mentioned the Africa continent of free trade earlier but let me start on domestic resource mobilization that our colleagues have said uh including the minister of finance uh of Tanzania sorry the minister of of finance of Botswana vice president and also the prime minister uh of Tanzania now this is something everybody will say in every Seeing it is one thing, doing it is another because it takes pain. You have to make sure that you have the right people. As you said, capacity, capacity, capacity. You must have the systems. You must have the digitization system that really ensures that everybody pays what they supposed to pay. You have to make sure that you understand the incentives you are giving and the return that you are getting. You have to involve the informal sector to become part of the former sector so that you can get more from the mass rather than from the few individuals. It takes pain. So domestic resource mobilization that is not only the taxation.

[00:46:45]>> It is also the capital market development. If you don't have the capital market, you don't have the long-term resources for the private sector. And that's where we are really feeling we are fairing badly on the African continent in terms of developing the capital market. And we are doing this one in the context where the tax to GDP ratio on the continent is 16%. It's the lowest in the whole world. In Europe it is 34%. We are supposed to be at the minimum at 25%.

[00:47:13]>> And that's where we are lagging behind.

[00:47:15]And to correct this one here in addition to this because this is a quick win in addition to the new uh Africa financial architecture that the African government bank is championing which is reorganization of what we have already when you are talking about pension you have it you are talking about funds we have it you are talking about the the whole banking system that have different resources but the way we have been working we have been working in a very disjointed way in a way that's fragmented and that's why putting all the resources together investing it through our own banks becomes very useful to South African countries.

[00:47:51]>> Thank you so much.

[00:47:53]>> Just on the on the CFTA >> which is a solution really for us. It is just implementation of the CFTA. We need to make sure that the tariff and untariff barriers are removed. We need to know that the trade barriers are removed. And of course you heard from the president of Congo who actually uh has already taken the lead in terms of removing the visas for the African countries but also we need to invest in the trade infrastructure. We need to address the issue of energy not at the country level but also at the regional level so that we look at energy at the country at the regional level. We need really to look at the development in terms of developing industries not only at the country level but also at the regional level and that's why regional value chains becomes very important regional value chains focusing specifically on agriculture and critical minerals of which you have the abundance is something very critical and that's what the ECA has been working on targeting 94 regional value chains and how we develop the industries so that we can risk and investors will come in and support the entire industrialization that on the continent rather than continue to export the unfinished goods which you have been doing. So I believe all this can be done within the context of the Africa continental free trade area which you are trying to implement on a day-to-day basis.

[00:49:10]>> Thank you very much. Thank you es gatee for situating the AFC in its right broader context. We need to build this productive capacity. It's time to come to you Emmy. But before that, I'd like to invite to join us uh honorable CDK who's in the room to please come and sit with us on the podium so that we can hear the great reflections from the Gambia. In the meantime, Emmy carrying on on this narrative we had before um from Baroness Chapman and also from Hilda. As developed countries, including Finland, as you reassess development financing amid geopolitical uncertainty, what strategic policy reforms can African countries pursue to leverage EU AU partnership and build resilience against shocks?

[00:50:02]>> Thank you. And thank you very much. And uh thank you professor Ramar for really interesting presentation of the outlook um a African economic outlook. Um let me start by saying that um in this increasingly fragmented the world and world economy that we've discussed today, it is extremely important and increasingly important to reinforce the international rules-based system and um multilateral cooperation and African Development Bank of course has uh is is part of that vital system. Um then moving on to your questions and um on on um on policy reforms. I many many have mentioned already by colleagues here in the panel but I would also like to raise the domestic resource mobilization as it is so fundamental and uh especially taxation because that is really the most resilient source of financing for development and um according to some uh some estimates for example already in in the low inome countries if they can that or they can increase their GDP um uh by five percentage points >> uh with the additional tax revenues with the welldesigned tax reforms already. So this is something that we are as Finland very happy to support and uh and that would really be the the recommendation to focus focus on this. Then the second one is um uh creating um business conducive business environment and that of course has al also been discussed the investors value predictability.

[00:51:54]the investors both both in Africa and and in Europe and um they uh very much want to see reduced um uncertainty and also increased scale and this is where I would like to highlight um uh of course the uh regional integration. So if uh if Africa can uh regionally and and continentwide um strengthen the integration and and free trade area, this would of course maybe give a give possibilities as the investors very much value rules and standards uh that are applied and upheld and this uh of course has been one of the key successes for Finland. So I'm speaking on my from our experience as we joined the European Union and we have been able after that to attract more foreign uh investments. Uh so with these steps I hope uh we can really see the European Union and African Union um cooperation strengthen. Thanks.

[00:53:00]>> Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for that and thanks for your patience as well. Minister, >> I now come to you.

[00:53:12]>> You how is CO affected by the current crisis in supply world global supply chains? What steps the government has put in place to protect vulnerable households and uhmemes?

[00:53:26]>> Well, thank you.

[00:53:29]To start with, I'd like to acknowledge the report presented to us.

[00:53:35]Acknowledge it quality because beyond being a report, it's an actual tool for public decision making which is going to help us well orient and implementation of public policies.

[00:53:52]That's what we'll be doing in Kodiva.

[00:53:56]As far as the question put to me, I would say Kurway has been working towards securing its food sovereignty by implementing some policies for uh food commodity production but also for the processing of some items. It is true that with what has been going on in the Middle East, the impact of oil cost has led government as in many other countries to adjust about a month ago oil prices while taking steps to discuss with consumer associations and traders to avoid the impact of this rise having an impact on the cost of living.

[00:54:53]Concerning fertilizers, provisions were made.

[00:54:58]So that with our African partners, especially Morocco with a large fertilizer plant for these products to be available at very competitive costs so that people and farmers needing these fertilizers wouldn't be affected.

[00:55:19]All this to let you know that our strategy >> over the next five years will be once again to insist on uh sectors that are assets to us the agriculture sector agro industry so that within five years our country be a middle income country of um high level. We've developed a plan focused on this target costing 249 billions supported to the tune of centip for the private sector. The private sector is the engine of growth. So we're using all the levers to improve the business environment to increase domestic resources because we have a fiscal pressure rate of 1.9% this year. The purpose is to reach 18% by 2030. We have an increase of 6% per year peranom. So we moving steadily and smoothly. Doing so with spanning the tax base to be less dependent on debt.

[00:56:32]We also focus in the financial various investment investment in PPPs or direct private investment with public investment to support investment. We've just set up uh sovereign fund for development codivor have this vehicle which will help us mobilize capitals in order to continue financing our various infrastructures.

[00:57:00]This seems vital and we organizing on June 8th and 9th uh consultative group.

[00:57:09]It is going to be an excellence forum for balat organizations, mat organizations as well as the private sector be able to exchange with the government of kivo and see to what extent our national development plant may be financed in the next years and to land I'd like to acknowledge the African development bond group with which we have 44 running corporations for a portfolio of 44 billions. As I often said to President um Ta, we've doubled our national development plan. So we're expecting much from the uh African bong group for the next five years. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Minister.

[00:57:51]>> The role of the bank, but also giving us a perspective on how the government of Kivo is pushing. We have one more speaker and then we will please take a quick photo with the report. So honorable Ka, you are from the Gambia.

[00:58:04]If you could kindly tell us in about three minutes, Africa needs to improve the efficiency of how public investment is executed and the Gambia has some interesting strategies. So can you tell us some of those strategies that have been most critical in addressing absorptive capacity and ensuring public spending translates into productive capital?

[00:58:27]Thank you very much moderator and I thank my colleague panelist in terms of public expenditure efficiency in the Gambia. Uh we have done reforms in these areas starting from procurement. As we know almost 80% of the non-payroll expenditures go through the form of procurement. So in 2023 we have revamped a new public procurement called the Gambia public procurement authority act that has ensured through transparency value for money and public expenditure particularly in the area of procurement.

[00:59:10]This is to make public expenditure not just as an expending expenditure exercise but to ensure that value for money is at the forefront. Uh this includes different categories of procurement but ensuring that only competent and able firms that have the capacity to deliver large scale projects uh in uh sort of screen through the process.

[00:59:44]We ensure that single source selection is the least preferred method of procurement and have put a maximum cap of it not exceeding 10% of our national procurement quarter for the year. Then also we go into the postimplementation review of public expenditure. For example, large infrastructure projects are subject to periodic reviews while the constructions are ongoing on. But also we work with our national audit office to ensure that post implementation these projects are subject to review so that the project objectives are realized and that the expenditure as otherwise expected at the commencement state of the procurement are observed. This is one area. Then another area also we look at is the efficacy of non-large public procurement such as uh recurrent expenditure. Here we look we conducted a public expenditure review >> to look at for every delacy of our expenditure what has been the efficiency gains or whether the process the purpose for which the procurement was conducted has been achieved. Uh we work with partners to carry out the overall public expenditure review and the reports are shared with the procuring entities and we also manage to ensure that the review process of the public procurement is robust.

[01:01:20]>> Thank you. Thank you.

[01:01:21]>> Those are some of the things we do and it's a work in progress but the early signs that we got are very positive. uh we've got less complaints and beneficiaries have indicated more value for money. Thank you.

[01:01:35]>> Okay. So, thank you very much honorable CD. I don't know about you, the audience, but I feel like we've gotten a rich rich set of perspectives that we can learn from. First from the report and secondly from the practice-driven perspective to help us go forward faster on this question of mobilizing financing. So I'd like to give five sum points five sum up points that I picked coming from all of your interventions. I think the first one is the preeminence of domestic resource mobilization and behind domestic resource mobilization is really this question of the government that's efficient. The government that's investing in the public investing public resources prudently and with purpose. So that's the first one. The second one is PPPs. Government cannot do it alone. So we need private sector. The third piece is around The third piece is around uh partnership. We need a new type of partnership that must be um really about thinking about how we almost elevate or evolve our traditional partnerships for example with Europe. We've had some interesting perspectives from the UK but also from Sweden and Finland. Uh the next point is that the regional dimension is critical. This is how we've heard about the AFCA. This is how we've heard about SEMA. This is how we've heard about enabling environments and so on. So I was summarizing but our distinguished representative from Germany will take a minute just to tell us what we've missed and as you do that I'll encourage the colleagues to bring the copies of the report over to you madam. Thank you very much and please excuse I was giving a keynote on another podium and thank you for your understanding and actually uh I was overhearing your summary of the discussion and you were indeed really telling my three points uh which were about um taking the opportunities uh unlocking the potential of Africa's youth, Africa's energy, Africa's resources and I heard today a lot about domestic resource mobilization, about private capital and how to get private capital to flow into Africa and to really harvest uh the best of private capital and last but not least the role of uh development, finance and the multilateral organizations and I always think uh it's yes it's about knowing what to do but it's also about doing it taking action and very briefly uh what we do and very often uh we don't listen enough and what we did back home we listened um and we reformed our system and we have four priorities and one of the priorities really is the private finance and how to get the private finance into the African continent and what we do very concretely just um I think four weeks ago we announced uh that we will contribute to RTD substantially because we really believe that we need to develop in the African capital market and we really want and we need uh to achieve that the African capital stays in Africa and works for Africa. Uh so we did join RTD as the largest non-African um participant in in the program. So we are a bit proud on that. Number two, thank you. And we very concretely announced also the number uh uh with which we will join. Uh number two, we also want to be very concrete when it comes to uh get the private capital to African markets. So together with institutional uh investors, we did create and are creating an investment vehicle called SCA called scaled. So we have big private investors and public investors which uh do the risk assessment and enable smaller investors uh to um to invest in in African markets in climate finance. My second point is on the domestic resource mobilization and this is really important after the sevillaa that African countries also become independent of external finance in order to be able to finance education resilient climate infrastructure and also health uh without the help of others and we do support that as well uh also financially from the German side and last but not least it's really about building um long-term resilience to be independent of others, to be independent of external shocks like we are um experiencing now uh with the blockage of the street of Hammoose. And this is why we explicit um support and we are also engaging in um uh energy, renewable energy resilient, climate resilient infrastructure because we believe this is the future. So thank you very much also for this great conference. This has been a really useful addition.

[01:06:37]Partnership of impact. So if I take two key words out of this, capacity, capacity, capacity, partnership, effective partnership, effective partnership. I'd like to invite the panelists to please join me now. Professor uh professor Rama, please join us here so we can take a nice photo to remember the moment of the launch of the Africa Economic Outlook 2026.

[01:07:03]Was that a bit What happen?

[01:07:38]Thank you so much your excellencies.

[01:07:41]Thank you so much for your time and your reflections. Thank you so much. Thank you for your patience. Thank you very much.

[01:08:56]Heat. Heat.

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[01:12:06]Heat. Hey, Heat.

[01:13:32]down.

[01:13:35]You got it.

[01:14:30]Heat. Heat.

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[01:16:58]Heat. Heat.

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