By Adedapo Adesanya
The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) has launched Country Focus Reports to deepen specific dynamics and macroeconomic insights of individual countries on the continent.
According to a statement, the reports will act as an indispensable tool for policymakers, government, and development partners by providing deeper country-by-country-specific dynamics and insights.
African policymakers need to make informed decisions and with growth performance and outlook varying across the 54 African countries of the report, there will be a need for documents that reflect differences in economic structure, commodity dependence, and policies.
According to the Abidjan-based lender, these reports contain pragmatic policies (short, medium and long-term) to accelerate African countries’ economic growth and structural transformation.
“They also provide governments and potential investors with up-to-date, accurate data to inform policy and investment decisions,” AfDB said.
Speaking on this, Kevin Chika Urama, Chief Economist & Vice President for Economic Governance and Knowledge Management at AfDB said: “The reports make bold recommendations for financing structural transformation at the country level through reforms of the global financial architecture to better respond to African countries’ growing development financing needs, exacerbated by recurrent global and domestic shocks.”
All 54 reports document funding needs and gaps as well as inadequacies of the current global financial system in supporting Africa’s structural transformation up to 2063.
The reports make recommendations across five key areas including leveraging private sector financing, ramping up climate finance, reforming Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), reforming debt resolution mechanisms, enhancing domestic resource mobilization through tax policies, enhancing efficiency in government revenue collection and combatting challenges.