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The drying up of these important sources of development financehas implications for achieving the MDGs in Africa as it will impactnegatively on funding of health, education, infrastructure and nutritionprogrammes with serious consequences for poverty reductionefforts. The crisis will also compound unemployment with the numberof jobless likely to increase by three million in 2009. The socialimpact of the crisis will be particularly hard felt in this continent becausewe have few mechanisms in place to cushion its effects on ordinarypeople, such as unemployment benefits or social safety nets.Our response to the crisis should not however be one of despair.Rather, we must take the situation as an opportunity for meaningfulchange in domestic policy formulation, in economic and governanceinstitutions, in the pace of regional integration as well as in theframework of international economic, financial and trading arrangementsthat can facilitate and spur Africa’s economic growth and development.This is the reasoning behind the choice of theme for this meeting –“Enhancing the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy for Domestic ResourceMobilization”. As Africa grapples with the fall-out of the financialcrisis, it is imperative that we explore policy options to make up forexpected short-fall in development finance. While it must be acknowledgedthat other forms of finance remain critically important,Africa must look to the policy options available to it to increase theresources that must perforce underpin its development. I thereforeexpect that this meeting of Experts will take full advantage of theopportunity that this meeting provides to examine the matter in rigorousdetail.The quality of governance is similarly important because it is a determinantof economic performance, particularly in crisis conditions. Itis essential to remain alert to the dangers of social unrest as experienceteaches that economic hardship and the scramble for increasinglyscarce resources may undermine recent and hard won peaceand security gains. Moreover, African states require capacity to managetheir economies both when they are growing and also when theyare facing crisis. An integral part of our response to the crisis shouldtherefore be to strengthen human and institutional capacities, includingby drawing on the record of experiences and best practicesbeing garnered through the African Peer Review Mechanism.Integrating Africa151