The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has said that industrialisation is the top strategy for achieving structural transformation in Africa’s economies which remains the highest priority.
Director, Macroeconomic Policy Division, Dr Adam Elhiraika, said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the launch of the Economic Report on Africa 2016 titled “Greening Africa’s Industrialisation.’’
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the launch was part of activities at the ongoing 11th African Economic Conference 2016 with the theme, “Feed Africa: Towards agro-allied industrialisation for inclusive growth.’’
The conference was organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
Elhiraika, while presenting the report, said the big opportunity for Africa in 2016, as a latecomer to industrialisation was in adopting alternative economic pathways to industrialization.
This, he said, would require governments to take on-board the drivers, challenges and trade-offs in pushing for a greening of industrialization and to build them into the vision and route-map for action.
Elhiraika said that Africa’s growth had been characterized by heavy reliance on natural resources and low productivity across most sectors and that this had been accompanied by high energy, material intensities and waste generation.
According to him, greening industrialization is an opportunity for Africa to achieve the type of structural transformation that yields sustainable and inclusive growth, creating jobs while safeguarding the productivity of natural resource assets.
“There is now a growing commitment among African countries to pursue inclusive green development.
“Governments are central in mapping out the pathway to green industrialization.
“Long term, consistent and clear directions are required of policy makers to provide the institutional design and credible incentives at the heart of this structural transformation.’’
He said that Africa’s move to greener industrialization was not just a step towards meeting global carbon emission targets, but a precondition for sustainable and inclusive growth.
Speaking on the topic, “Targeting agro-allied industrialisation’’, Mr William Davis, Regional Integration and Trade Division, said that the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) had the potential to significantly add to its industrial sector.
He added that the CFTA Intra-Africa trade presented an opportunity to accelerate the rate of transformation in Africa.
According to him, to achieve this, agreements were currently being negotiated and that the negotiations were expected to be concluded by the end of 2018.
He, however, said that there were certain barriers to intra-Africa trade that should be addressed if this opportunity was going to be seized.
He said that only nine per cent of Africa’s total trade in goods was within the continent.
Davis said that intra-African quarantine protection was still high, particularly based on the various regional differences.
He also said that there was limited progress in harmonising foreign exchange standards and regulations in Africa.
He was optimistic that with the political will shown by leaders of African countries, there would be very large increase in intra-Africa trade due to the CFTA.
NAN reports that the three-day conference will end on Wednesday. (NAN)