From Marcel Mbamalu (Lagos) and Ann Godwin (Port Harcourt)

Okonjo-Iweala craves fair sharing of facilities


World Bank tasks Africa on local investment

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FROM the World Bank has come admonition that African countries should encourage local investment as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) alone will not deliver the required growth.

Vice President of the global bank for African Region, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili gave the advice in Lagos yesterday at a forum on the role of the media in Africa's development.

She spoke as Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, called for fair sharing of facilities among the federating units of Nigeria.

Ezekwesili who stressed the need for Africa to build enough resilience for engendering and sustaining a new phase of economic growth, noted that agriculture and agro-based businesses are critical to growth of national economies on the continent.

According to her, " Foreign Direct Investment alone could not accelerate growth and so there is need for African governments, including Nigeria to work towards encouraging entrepreneurship and local investments."

Ezekwesili expressed regret that although 70 per cent of rural Africa engages in farming activities, governments do not encourage competitiveness of the smallholder farmer as a key to economic growth.

She said: "The quality of the growth in Africa has not enabled it to spread to a larger part of the citizens. Therefore, to achieve that, you need to diversify the sources of growth. Zambia mirrors the story of places like Nigeria and the DRC where there is predominance of an enclave type economy coming out of commodities. What this means is that there is a limited range of people that benefit in the economic growth in those societies.

"How do you change the dialogue, in terms of the core priorities of the state in being the facilitator of economic growth? About 70 per cent of rural Africa is engaged in farming. Now, what is the productivity of that sector? That is going to matter. There is need for inclusive growth. The competitiveness of the smallholder farmer in Africa is a key issue. Agriculture is the biggest private sector on the continent, yet it is one sector that has suffered great neglect. We, at the World Bank, have, in the last three years, prioritised our agriculture engagement. We tripled our investment in agriculture in the last three years."

The forum was organised ahead of the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund scheduled for September 23, 2011 in Washington DC. The four-hour dialogue with media executives was part of efforts to implement the World Bank's strategy for Africa that was adopted in March this year.

Okonjo-Iweala's call for fair share of facilities was made yesterday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State during the launching of the second mandate of the Federal Character Commission.

The minister emphasised that equitable distribution of positions and appointments would have little impact on the living conditions of the people if there is imbalance in the distribution of socio-economic infrastructure across the country.

"The only way to achieve the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan's administration especially in the areas of providing jobs and creation of wealth remains an equitable distribution of facilities in the federating unit".

While reiterating her stand to contribute to the repositioning of the economy, the Minister said it was based on the above condition, expressing support for the Federal Character Commission in its pursuit to ensure equity, fairness and justice.

http://odili.net/news/source/2011/sep/6/2.html

All talk and no action.

Local solution to local problems with the right banking and regulations in place is all we need.