ACCRA, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- For Africa to compensate for and lessen the impact of dwindling aid from development partners, there is the need to enhance its productive capacity, Vice-President of Ghana, Mahamudu Bawumia said here on Wednesday.
According to him, this is only possible with a robust private sector with infrastructure gaps being closed considerably.
Bawumia, who made this remark in his keynote address at the opening of a one-day First G-20 Compact With Africa (CWA) Finance Ministers Meeting, said that African countries needed to own and drive the CWA with ambitions and bold initiatives.
"We must create space for our private sector to thrive and provide the jobs and finance needed to grow our economies. And we must create the environment to mobilize domestic financing. This is a prospect that my President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is most keen to promote, and this meeting is an important step towards building that future," the Vice-President added.
"It makes sense for us to learn from each other. The CWA provides yet another opportunity for us to work together as CWA countries and also together with our international partners," he said.
He said the compact gave Ghana the opportunity to re-focus attention on areas where investment was badly needed and where positive business environment had been created.
"For our government, there is a sense of urgency for economic transformation in order to meet the needs of citizens in a rapidly changing world. Let us use the Compact to harness our transformational opportunities," Bawumia urged.
The CWA aims to develop comprehensive, coordinated, and country specific investment compacts among individual African countries, international organizations, and other partners.
"According to the African Development Bank, Africa needs to spend about 340 billion US dollars on infrastructure by 2040.
"With almost all African countries currently running overall fiscal deficits that average six percent of GDP and public debt beginning to rise in many countries, the private sector has to be an important financing partner if we are to meet our infrastructure requirements," Finance Minister of Ghana Ken Ofori-Atta noted.
