PDF (2.0 MB)

Africa must explore ways and means of accelerating the pace of regionalintegration so that it can have a strong and credible voice in various internationalprocesses relating to reform of the international financial architecture,tackling climate change and improving trade opportunities. Similarly,transboundary cooperation must be further prioritised in regionalintegration efforts. Key in this regard is our transport infrastructure, suchas roads, rail, air, and port services that need to be built, rehabilitated orexpanded. Moreover, Africa needs common energy projects, includingelectricity grids and oil and gas pipelines that will facilitate cross-bordersupplies and thereby enhance the security and reliability of energy.As the communiqué issued by the G20 Summit in London in April states,‘a global crisis requires a global solution’. Such a solution needs to beunderpinned by effective and fair global arrangements that take care ofthe interests of African countries. It is worth pointing out that severalof the issues raised by Africa in the preparatory process were addressedby the G20 leaders, including allocation of new Special Drawing Rights,gold sales, financing of counter-cyclical spending, review of the debt sustainabilityframework and the provision of more capital for MultilateralDevelopment Banks. Our challenge now is to ensure the realisation ofthese and prior commitments, including of official development assistance(ODA). This meeting provides us with the right platform to begin toassess progress that has been made thus far.The global economic and financial crisis is not the only pressing challengethat this continent has to contend with. Climate change also posesserious problems for sustainable economic and social development inAfrica and equally demands urgent action. In compliance with the decisionreached by the AU Summit in January 2009, and because of theimportance of the issues at stake, it is imperative that Africa speaks witha collective voice on the key issues of mitigation, adaptation, technology,capacity building, and financing at Conference of Parties taking place inCopenhagen at the end of this year.ECA has been working closely with partners on this issue, especiallywithin the ambit of the AU/AfDB/ECA Climate for Development in Africa(Clim-Dev Africa) programme. The African Climate Policy Centre – whichis the policy arm of Clim-Dev Africa – is set to support Member States inthis key area. We have also worked closely with Member States in tworecent meetings that will input into a common African position for Copenhagen.These were the Third African Ministerial Meeting on Financ-152 Part Three