2025 Annual Meetings: Africa's Vast Human and Natural Capital Key to Achieving African Union's Agenda 2063, experts affirm
Africa, the world's youngest continent with immeasurable natural resources, has all it needs to achieve the African Union's Agenda 2063, provided the right public policies are implemented, according to government officials and development experts.
The experts expressed this shared conviction on Monday during the 2025 Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank Group, taking place in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, under the theme 'Making Africa's Capital Work Better for Africa's Development.'
Speaking at a knowledge event titled 'Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan for Agenda 2063: An Opportunity to Develop and Finance Africa's Capital,' Koffi N'Guessan, Ivorian Minister of Vocational Training and Apprenticeships, reaffirmed that Agenda 2063 -- adopted in January 2015 by the African Union – remains the strategic framework for the continent's economic and social transformation.
N'Guessan noted that, despite a challenging global environment, the last decade has seen notable progress in Africa, particularly in economic and political integration, gender equality, and access to employment opportunities.
However, he acknowledged that previous efforts have often fallen short of addressing the continent's structural transformation needs, including job creation for youth and poverty reduction.
'The second Agenda 2063 implementation plan, adopted in February 2024 by the African Union, offers a crucial opportunity to tackle these challenges and accelerate development outcomes,' he said.
According to the Ivorian Minister, Africa is poised to become a major global power, alongside China and India, due to its demographic potential. However, he stressed that African countries should prioritize vocational and technical training to fully harness this demographic dividend.
He highlighted a worrying trend: approximately 22.5 percent of young people aged 15 to 24 are unemployed with no education or training. Additionally, 250 million children and young people in low-income countries are not in school, underlining the disconnect between education systems and labor market needs. 'Youth can become a liability if robust training policies are not implemented - from nursery school through to university,' he warned.
Taking natural capital into account when calculating GDP
Hervé Lohouès, Division Manager in the Country Economics Department at the African Development Bank, emphasized the importance of natural wealth in calculating the GDP of African countries.
'The GDP of a country like the Central African Republic would increase by 300 percent if its natural resources were taken into account in the calculation of its GDP,' he asserted.
He added: 'It is essential to go beyond natural enhancement and ensure that all African countries adopt a compulsory development plan. We also need to ensure that governments provide incentives for transformation while considering accountability that can directly help the transition from natural to social infrastructure.'
Jide Okeke, Regional Program Coordinator for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme, and Dagmawit Moges Bekele, former Eritrean Minister of Transport and Director of the Peace Fund at the African Union Commission, both stressed the need to leverage human, financial, natural and digital resources to drive inclusive and sustainable development -- key to achieving the objectives outlined in the second decade of Agenda 2063.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Zawya
3 hours ago
- Zawya
Congolese rapper and influencer joins United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) family as champion for nutrition
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announces its partnership with rising Congolese music star Sista Becky (Rebecca Kalonji) as a High-Level Supporter, advocating for nutrition and healthy eating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). With 28 million people facing severe hunger and 4.75 million children suffering from acute malnutrition in the country, Sista Becky's influence and support will be instrumental in inspiring young people to take action against food insecurity and participate in community development. 'Through my voice and my work, I want to challenge young people to not only raise their voices but also to take action on the issues that directly impact their future, including access to nutritious food and better opportunities for women and girls,' said Sista Becky. Sista Becky is gaining increasing recognition in the global music scene, with her socially conscious lyrics. Her debut single 'Mr Rap' launched her career in 2016, while her album 'Apéritif' (2021) established her as a leading artist in Congolese music. She has recently released a new single, 'Kimpa vita', adding to her growing reputation as a voice for social change in the DRC. As a High-Level Supporter, Sista Becky joins Innoss'B and Distel Zola in playing a key role in furthering WFP's mission to do more on school feeding, support healthy foods and prevent malnutrition across the country. 'We are thrilled to have Sista Becky join us in our mission to combat hunger and promote nutrition in DRC,' said Elvira Pruscini, WFP's Representative and Country Director a.i. in DRC. 'Her influence and dedication to social issues align perfectly with WFP's objectives, and we look forward to the impact we can achieve together.' Sista Becky joins WFP at a critical time as the organization continues to face a severe funding shortfalls. WFP needs US$433 million over the next six months to meet the growing humanitarian needs in the DRC. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Food Programme (WFP).
Khaleej Times
6 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
From Nigeria to Pakistan, TB testing 'in a coma' after US aid cuts
A t a tense meeting in Nigeria's capital Abuja, health workers poured over drug registers and testing records to gauge whether US aid cuts would unravel years of painstaking work against tuberculosis in one of Africa's hardest hit countries. For several days in May, they brainstormed ways to limit the fallout from a halt to US funding for the TB Local Network (TB LON), which delivers screening, diagnosis and treatment. "To tackle the spread of TB, you must identify cases and that is in a coma because of the aid cuts," said Ibrahim Umoru, coordinator of the African TB Coalition civil society network, who was at the Abuja meeting. "This means more cases will be missed and disaster is looming." This desperate struggle to save endangered programmes is being replicated from the Philippines to South Africa as experts warn that U.S. aid cuts risk reviving a deadly infectious disease that kills around one million people every year. President Donald Trump's gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development has put TB testing and tracing on hold in Pakistan and Nigeria, stalled vital research in South Africa and left TB survivors lacking support in India. The World Health Organisation says "the drastic and abrupt cuts in global health funding" threaten to reverse the gains made by global efforts to fight the disease - namely 79 million lives saved since 2000 - with rising drug resistance and conflicts exacerbating the risks. In Nigeria, TB LON is in the firing line. The project was set up in 2020, during Trump's first term, and received $45 million worth of funding from USAID. The U.S. development agency said at the time it was committed to a "TB free Nigeria". Five years later and with the same president back in charge but now with a more radical "America first" agenda, USAID support for TB LON's community testing work was terminated in February, according to a TB LON official. The official did not want to be named because he was not authorised to speak on behalf of the project. 'HARD WORK IN JEOPARDY' TB kills 268 Nigerians every day and cases have historically been under-reported increasing the risk of transmission. If one case is missed, that person can transmit TB to 15 people over a year, according to the World Health Organization. The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to half a dozen health workers who collect TB test samples for TB LON but had stopped doing so in January due to the U.S. aid freeze. Between 2020-2024, TB LON screened around 20 million people in southwestern states in Nigeria, and more than 100,000 patients were treated as a result. "All that hard work is in jeopardy if we don't act quickly," Umoru said, adding that non-profits working with TB LON had laid off more than 1,000 contract workers who used to do TB screening. Nigeria's health ministry did not respond to request for comment on the effect of the USAID cuts on TB programmes. In March, First Lady Oluremi Tinubu declared TB a national emergency and donated 1 billion naira ($630,680) to efforts to eradicate the disease by 2030. In South Africa, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said TB and HIV programmes had been disrupted across the country, making patient tracking and testing more difficult, according to a statement sent to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. South Africa had a TB incidence rate of 427 per 100,000 people in 2023, government data showed, down 57% from 2015. TB-related deaths in South Africa dropped 16% over that period, the data showed. Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi said in May that the government would launch an End TB campaign to screen and test 5 million people, and was also seeking new donor funding. "Under no circumstances will we allow this massive work performed over a period of more than a decade and half to collapse and go up in smoke," he said at the time, referring to efforts to tackle TB and HIV. BLOW TO CRITICAL RESEARCH South Africa is also a hub for research into both TB and HIV and the health experts say funding cuts risk derailing this vital work. The Treatment Action Group (TAG), a community-based research and policy think tank, says around 39 clinical research sites and at least 20 TB trials and 24 HIV trials are at risk. "Every major TB treatment and vaccine advance in the past two decades has relied on research carried out in South Africa," said TAG TB project co-director Lindsay McKenna in a March statement. People struggling with poor nutrition and those living with HIV -- the latter affects 8 million people in South Africa -- were also more at risk of contracting TB as aid cuts made them more vulnerable by derailing nutrition programmes, community outreach and testing, said Cathy Hewison, head of MSF's TB working group. "It's the number one killer of people with HIV," she said. In the Philippines, U.S. cuts have disrupted TB testing in four USAID-funded projects, and affected the supply of drugs, Stop TB Partnership, a U.N.-funded agency said. "The country has a nationwide problem with recurrent drug shortages, which is leading to a direct impact on efforts to eliminate TB," said Ghazali Babiker, head of mission for MSF Philippines. In Pakistan, which sees 510,000 TB infections each year, MSF said US cuts had disrupted TB screening in communities and other services in the hard-hit southeastern province of Sindh. "We are worried that the U.S. funding cuts that have impacted the community-based services will have a disproportionate effect on children, leading to more children with TB and more avoidable deaths," said Ei Hnin Hnin Phyu, medical coordinator with MSF in Pakistan.
The National
7 hours ago
- The National
Number of refugees who fled Sudan to escape war passes 4 million, UN agency says
More than four million people have fled Sudan since the start of the conflict in April 2023, the UN said on Tuesday, underlining the heavy toll the war has exacted on the impoverished nation of 50 million. The UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said that the figure, recorded on Monday, was a 'devastating milestone' and warned the continuing outflow of people would threaten regional and global stability. Besides the four million who left the country, the war has internally displaced about 10 million, giving the Afro-Arab nation the unenviable label of being home to the world's worst displacement crisis. Moreover, the war has left about 26 million people facing acute hunger, with pockets of famine surfacing in several parts of the country, mostly in the west. Apart from displacement, the war pitting the national army against the paramilitary Rapid Support forces has killed tens of thousands and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure. Both sides of the war are accused by the UN and other groups of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The latest displacement figure was released at a time when the prospects for a negotiated settlement have become more remote. Late on Monday, RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo ruled out any negotiations with the army, saying he would not talk with 'murderers' and 'criminals'. Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, the army chief and Sudan's de facto leader, has repeatedly stated his intention to fight on until the RSF is vanquished. The stalemate leaves the country effectively divided between the two sides, with the army controlling the capital Khartoum as well as central, northern and eastern Sudan. The RSF controls all of the western Darfur region save for the army-held city of El Fasher and parts of Kordofan and the southern region. 'Four million people now have fled Sudan into neighbouring countries since the start of the war, now in it's third year,' UNHCR spokeswoman Eujin Byun said at a press briefing in Geneva. 'It's a devastating milestone in what is the world's most damaging displacement crisis,' Ms Byun added. 'If the conflict continues, thousands more people will continue to flee, putting regional and global stability at stake.' UNHCR figures showed that 4,003,385 people had fled Sudan as refugees, asylum seekers, and returnees as of Monday. Of those, 1.5 million have fled to Egypt; more than 1.1 million to South Sudan, including nearly 800,000 returnees who had been refugees themselves in Sudan; and more than 850,000 to Chad. The UNHCR described a deepening humanitarian emergency in eastern Chad, where the number of Sudanese refugees has more than tripled since the war broke out. Chad was already hosting more than 400,000 Sudanese refugees before the conflict began, and the figure has now passed 1.2 million. This is placing 'unsustainable pressure on Chad's ability to respond', said Dossou Patrice Ahouansou, UNHCR's principal situation co-ordinator in Chad, speaking from Amdjarass in the country's east. He said there had been an influx across the border since late April following violent attacks in Sudan's North Darfur region, including assaults on displacement camps. In just over a month, 68,556 refugees have arrived in Chad's Wadi Fira and Ennedi Est provinces, with an average of 1,400 people crossing the border daily in recent days, he said. 'These civilians are fleeing in terror, many under fire, navigating armed checkpoints, extortion, and tight restrictions imposed by armed groups,' Mr Ahouansou said. He said the emergency response was 'dangerously underfunded', with people living in 'dire' shelter conditions, and tens of thousands exposed to extreme weather, insecurity and water shortages. UNHCR said there was an urgent need for the international community 'to acknowledge, and act to eradicate, the grave human rights abuses being endured in Sudan'. 'Without a significant increase in funding, life-saving assistance cannot be delivered at the scale and speed required,' Mr Ahouansou said.
