Invest in Africa (digital - reduced)

Foreword
HE Dr
Nkosazana
Dlamini Zuma
Chairperson, African Union Commission
attached importance to the
revitalisation and reinforcement of
the African Union’s strategic
partnerships with our international
partners. Our relations with other
regions, countries and multilateral
organisations are grounded on
Agenda 2063, our Vision of the Africa
We Want. The support of Africa’s
development priorities including
regional integration, infrastructure
and agricultural development,
industrialisation, health security,
science and technology, human
capital and institutional capacity
building, climate resilience, women
empowerment, youth employment, as
well as peace and security, are at the
centre of the African Union
Commission’s engagement with the
world.
Innovative financing
Fully cognizant of the imperative for
structural transformation that the
continent requires in critical areas,
we have spared no effort to identify
innovative financing mechanisms to
ensure our self-reliance and to
support the attainment of the
continent’s development and
integration agenda. We cannot talk
about Africa’s development without
talking about the mobilisation of
Africa’s domestic resources as the
mainstay of our development and
growth. The historic and landmark
decision taken at the AU Summit in
Kigali in July 2016 on Financing the
Union by instituting and
implementing a 0.2% levy on all
eligible imports to Africa fits within
this strategic perspective. This is in
furtherance of the Johannesburg
Declaration on Self-Reliance adopted
at the AU Summit of July 2015.
Investments in the youth
After dedicating the year 2016 to the
“Promotion of Human Rights with a
Particular Focus on the Rights of
Women”, our Heads of State and
Government decided in their
collective wisdom to place the 2017
AU Summit under the salient theme
of “Harnessing the Demographic
Dividend Through Investments in
the Youth”. We believe that “people
are the real wealth of nations”.
Investment in African people remains
at the centre of the African Union’s
agenda. It is critically important that
Africa, through the right policy
actions and smart initiatives,
harnesses the demographic dividend
by empowering women and girls,
improving their health, enhancing
their human capital through
increased investment in education
and skills, and providing them with
greater opportunities in the growing
knowledge based global economy.
Every year for the next decade, 11
million African youth will enter the
job market. We must equip them
with the right skills and training in
order to actively contribute to the
transformation of the continent. An
African skills revolution is urgently
needed in order to leapfrog
development. The African Economic
Platform, scheduled to take place
in 2017, will provide a forum for the
AU political leadership, business
and academic communities to
discuss the economic transformation
of the continent and the African
skills revolution.
The African Union Commission
has convened every year since 2013
an intergenerational dialogue and
worked with the Pan African Youth
Movement and all the African
Students Union and other movement
of youth on taking forward Agenda
2063. The recent African Union
Commission Youth Mainstreaming
initiative that we launched in
November 2016 aims to fast-track
the on-going youth activities of the
Commission in a strategic and
coordinated manner, as a path to
realising the 6th Aspiration of
Agenda 2063: “An Africa whose
development is people-driven, relying
on the potential of African people,
especially its women and youth, and
caring for children”.
I am confident that Africa’s future
is bright. With the right investments
in our people, the continuous
improvement of democratic and
participatory governance, and by
continuing to build on what has been
achieved during the last 15 years of
transformational leadership, our
vision of a prosperous, peaceful and
integrated Africa, driven by its own
citizens and playing a dynamic role in
the world is definitely on course. •
Invest in Africa 2017 | 9