African leaders outline ambitious targets in pursuit of continental industrialisation
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - A recent Summit of African leaders to explore a new roadmap to continental industrialization plan called for a 10-point plan aiming to improve trade, air transport and manufacturing.
The industrialization Summit urged countries in the African continent to pursue the 10-point agenda to reach their goals of industrialization and economic diversification.
The Summit was held amid growing concerns over the slow progress in the implementation of the Industrial Development Decades for Africa (IDDA), a three-part series of academic research papers dubbed I, II and III.
These translate into the Strategy for the Implementation of the Action Plan for Accelerated Industrial development of Africa (AIDA); and other continental strategies and programmes relevant to industrialization.
The leaders who gathered in Niamey, Niger, late November, called on countries to pursue changes in their economic structures to address labour and key economic factors hindering work towards achieving the Agenda 2063.
"The leaders committed to far-reaching and firm decisions to accelerate industrialization, economic diversification and trade on the continent, with full ownership by the citizens," the African Union Commission said in a statement on Thursday.
The leaders reaffirmed their determination to ensure that Africa’s industrialization and economic diversification is financed in a predictable manner and with the urgency of identifying and addressing the impediments to productivity and growth through infrastructural development, energy, access to finance, digitalization, innovation, and skills development to achieving economic diversification, the AU stated.
The African Union Extraordinary Summit on Industrialization and Economic Diversification laid emphasis on the 10-point plan, focused on improved infrastructure and trade.
An Extraordinary session on the African Continental Free Trade Area meeting was also convened on 25 November.
The Summit concluded that African countries needed to grow their own industries using locally available minerals. The Summit called for trade on locally available commodities to form the basis of a commodity-based industrialization as an engine of growth.
The Summit also sought measures to ensure that employment opportunities created by the trade in minerals and other commodities could lead towards economic diversification.
The continental trade should emerge from the continent’s natural resources endowments, with priorities on health and pharmaceutical, automotive, minerals beneficiation, food and nutrition and apparels of cotton industries in order to reduce the continent’s external dependency.
The Summit directed the African Union Commission to draft a report with clear recommendations on strengthening regional value chains.
The other measures agreed upon included the need to increase investments in infrastructure and energy with the support of financial institutions and partners to reduce production costs, and boost the competitiveness of the African economies.
The rest are: to enhance domestic resource mobilization to ensure sustainable financing on Africa’s industrialization, and allocate a minimum of 5 - 10% of the national budget dedicated to the industrial development;
-To develop sustainable Special Economic Zones and Industrial Parks as well as work with and support existing ones in member states as a means to overcoming existing industrial infrastructure constraints, and become hubs for regional value chain integration; and to ensure inclusive and sustainable industrialization, the Heads of State and Government and other stakeholders will have regular dialogue with the private sector in order to scale up high level engagement on industrialization.
The African Union Commission, in collaboration with other institutions, will strengthen support to Member States in creating an enabling business environment for private sector to thrive.
The leaders endorsed the African Union Small and Medium Strategy. Relatedly, the African Union Commission was tasked with establishing and operationalizing the Africa Enterprise Network.
The African Union Commission will also work with the African Regional Standards Organization (ARSO) and the Pan-African Quality Infrastructure (PAQI) to expedite the finalization of the Made in Africa Standards and Guidelines.
The leaders have committed to reserve a minimum of 10% of public procurement to local enterprises, to strengthen the private sector development and industrialization.
At the Summit, the leaders agreed to establish, at the national levels, programmes for industrial linkages between the educational system and the labour market, aimed at promoting competitiveness of the private sector through development of soft and hard skills necessary for industrialization in particular in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); technical and vocational education and Training (TVET), and robotics and artificial Intelligence.
Relatedly, the African Union Commission and the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) will prepare a feasibility study on the establishment of an African Manufacturing Institute to support Member States and the private sector in the development of modern manufacturing skills and fostering innovation in the manufacturing sector that will accompany the ongoing structural economic transformation in Africa.
Working with development partners, the African Union will also produce and disseminate amongst Member States, an annual Africa’s Industrial Development Report based on an African Industrial Development Index, and fast-track the establishment of the African Industrial Observatory.
The leaders called on the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat to support the implementation of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) under the Guided Trade Initiative in collaboration with the African Civil Aviation Commission, African airlines and other relevant stakeholders.
-0- PANA AO/RA 8Dec2022
