Jonathan, Mahama, Others Insist On Inclusive Growth In Africa

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday in Davos, Switzerland said to avoid problems related to poverty and financial equality, African governments must accord the highest priority to inclusive economic growth on the continent.

Jonathan, who stated this in a live debate on CNN at the World Economic Forum, said his administration was already doing a lot to enhance inclusive growth in Nigeria by initiating policies and programmes that bordered on wealth creation rather than poverty alleviation.

Asked by the moderator to rank the current importance of inclusive growth in Africa on a scale of one to ten, President Jonathan and all the other participants in the debate said inclusive growth deserved a ranking of ten.

Jonathan said, “Economic inclusion is very important and we are already taking necessary steps to improve financial inclusion in our country. Transforming our agricultural sector is one way in which we are doing so.

“We are doing all that we can to transform agriculture in Nigeria into more productive and job creating sector. We are also working to create more inclusive wealth through better education, skills acquisition programmes and policies that encourage the addition of value to our primary products before exportation.”

He added that, with Africa’s population projected to exceed two billion persons by the year 2050, wealth creation and job creation must remain at the top of the continent’s developmental agenda.

Jonathan, his Ghanian counterpart Mahama and Nigerian business mogul, Aliko Dangote, as well as other participants in the debate agreed that the objective of achieving more inclusive economic growth would be better served if African leaders took more positive action towards boosting intra-African trade.

According to them, the current trend which entails that only eleven per cent of Africa’s total trade takes place within the continent was unacceptable.

To this effect, Jonathan noted that African leaders must do everything possible to remove all impediments to trade amongst African countries including inadequate air and ground transportation links between their countries.

President Jonathan called on all stakeholders in the continent to continue to work for greater security and political stability which, he said, were prerequisites for sustained socio-economic development.

His words: “Security and political stability are key to development. Investors will not come to any country that is insecure or politically unstable. Happily, many African countries now enjoy political stability.

“It is a major reason for the positive economic growth rates which we are now witnessing on the continent and we must continue do our best to maintain and expand the frontiers of political stability on our continent.”

He also said that while Africa’s private sector must play a greater role in driving economic growth on the continent, governments must remain proactively engaged in evolving and implementing policies that would enable businesses to thrive and create more wealth on the continent.

Source: Leadership