Africa-Press – Botswana. The United Nations special adviser for Africa, Cristina Duarte, defended, Wednesday, that the African continent should look at Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine “as opportunities”, saying that it is necessary to break three paradoxes to recover. of these crises.
Speaking to Lusa, on the sidelines of the 15th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV 2022), which is still taking place in Guimarães, Portugal, Cristina Duarte considered that “these external shocks created ruptures that routines do not create”.
“Therefore, we Africans have only one alternative: to look at these ruptures as opportunities. To recover from these external crises – Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine – Africa has to break three paradoxes”, said the special adviser for Africa to the Secretary-General. General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres.
The UN official believes that Africa needs to break what she calls financial, food and energy paradoxes.
“Africa is a continent rich in financial resources. However, it finds itself in a situation of not having fiscal space, of having seen its debt grow substantially in recent years. Africa asks with its right hand for debt suspension, debt relief, but with his left hand he loses 88 billion dollars in illicit flows. This is the first paradox that has to be broken”, stressed Cristina Duarte. The second paradox concerns food security systems, as the African continent “is extremely rich in agricultural resources, which can feed and create extremely interesting value chains, but it is chronically food insecure”.
According to the special adviser, the third paradox is energy, explaining that “Africa is abundant in energy resources, but it is a dark continent”.
“And, therefore, these three paradoxes have to be broken so that, in fact, the recovery of these external shocks takes place at another level. And this crisis has, in part, exposed this reality a little, “said Cristina Duarte.
Cristina Duarte warns that “public policies in Africa cannot continue to marginalize the value and importance of institutions as intangible assets in the development process”.
“This crisis is giving us the opportunity to recognize this. If, in fact, Africa, African countries, are able to recognize the important role that institutions as intangible assets play in development, this will allow those same countries to win space for political intervention, which will allow them, as a result, to gain higher levels of ownership of their flows and better management of stocks”, predicts this UN official.
For Cristina Duarte, this is the path and what “Africa has to address in a more forceful way”.
“All the rest are technicalities: inflation, monetary, economic, exchange rate policy, has a menu of incommensurable measures and instruments. economy, I think we’ve lost our global image again”, warns the UN Secretary-General’s special adviser for Africa.
Conference on food safety
Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, hosts, on Monday, the high-level conference on food security and nutrition, focusing on the strategy of mobilizing greater investment with the aim of bringing together institutional and political commitment, current and long-term needs deadline.
The summit will serve as an advocacy platform to accelerate global and regional policy implementation commitments, including that of strategic frameworks such as the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), particularly the “Malabo Declaration” on nutrition and Agenda 2063 priority objectives on agricultural productivity and production.
The agenda includes the presentation of response plans implemented by various institutions to mitigate the impact of the food crisis and assess the desirability of other additional measures, such as the preparation of food balances and early warning systems for hunger in Member States and Economic Communities.
The high-level dialogue will also build momentum for experts to build on Africa’s common position on food systems to raise awareness, generate consensus on a shared vision and galvanize crucial individual and collective actions such as policy alignment and investment increase, to build sustainability.
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