African countries urged to leverage untapped potentials to eliminate “undeserved poverty”

Addis Ababa, March 20. 2023 (FBC) – Ethiopia’s Minister of Finance, Ahmed Shide, has urged all African countries and development partners to leverage untapped potentials to transform Africa and eliminate “undeserved poverty” mainly exacerbated by recent global crises.

He said Ethiopia has continued its second Home Grown Economic Reform in order to consolidate achievements and address current as well as emerging macroeconomic imbalances and challenges.

According to the Minister, Ethiopia’s recent experience of improving agricultural productivity to achieve food sovereignty can be a prime example of collective wisdom of African stakeholders.

“As Africans, it is important to recognize that we share the same destiny. Divided we remain fragmented, but united we rise strong and well integrated. Big achievement emanates from wise use of the available resources and opportunities at hand. The steps we take together both as individual country and as a continent will guarantee us a better and prosperous future”, Ahmed pointed out.

The theme of the fifty-fifth session of the Commission – “Fostering recovery and transformation in Africa to reduce inequalities and vulnerabilities” underlines that Africa has a lot to do to resolve its socio-economic challenges; including the widening income inequalities and extreme poverty across the continent, he noted.

The Minister recalled that African economy had been doing well in the past few decades that it was on track to meet most of the targets in SDG until multiple global and internal shocks threaten to unravel several years of socio-economic gains.

The combined impact of the multiple and recurring global shocks are causing hardships unprecedented in recent memories and led to a significant liquidity crunches in the economy of many African countries, Ahmed mentioned.

“Addressing the multiple economic challenges of Africa requires collaborative and concentrated effort which should be people-focused, sustainable in policy measures, and inclusive enough in addressing the most vulnerable people.

Our approaches to address economic shocks and poverty alleviation should balance between short-term response measures and lasting preventive solutions. Recovery and transformational efforts should target the most vulnerable sections of the society”, Ahmed underlined.

He stressed that Africa’s economy needs to adapt and grow in complexity, in value addition, and diversification so that the continet’s regional integration becomes an economic force to withstand future shocks.

In the face of mounting global crisis, which is testing the developed countries, creating wealth and increasing domestic resource is not an option for Africa; instead it is a necessity action to be taken more seriously, he further stressed.

The Finance Minister added that structural transformation of the economy is highly important mainly to lay the economy on a strong foundation and create decent jobs.