Kenya urges Africa to tap own resources to fund development agenda

Kenya on Wednesday called on African countries to tap their own wealth and resources to finance the continent's development agenda.

Mwangi Kiunjuri, Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning, said Africans should spearhead their development agenda to ensure that they get possible solutions toward transforming the continent.

"There is also need to develop institutional fabrics and strong worthy mechanisms that allow entities charged with implementation of development agenda and action plans to draw from the resources and receive return on investments," Kiunjuri said during the official opening ceremony of the Third Africa for Results Forum in Nairobi.

The three-day forum, which has been organized by the Africa for Results Initiative has drawn delegates from across the continent.

"The discussions on the state of domestic resource mobilization in the continent, will offer insights and ideas that individual countries have engaged in towards mobilizing domestic resources to finance their respective development," he said.

Kiunjuri said in focusing on domestic resource mobilization, development practitioners will seek to further inculcate the results culture in Africa and acknowledge its contribution to the transformation agenda of the continent, adding that mainstreaming results-based management is significant in supporting key institutional reforms.

According to the World Bank, Africa has seen remarkable economic growth over the past two decades with real Gross Domestic Growth (GDP) averaging 4.5 percent a year between 1995 and 2013.

Despite a slowdown in some of Africa's biggest economies, the GDP in the region is expected to pick up to an average of 4.4 percent and 4.8 percent in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

"This clearly indicates that the continent is one of the world's rapidly growing economic regions. Sustaining such economic growth requires adequate financial resources to allow African governments to increasingly invest in economically and socially productive activities that will improve the living standards of the people," the CS said.

Kiunjuri called on Africa to ponder what real and workable strategies the continent should pursue to encourage domestic resource mobilization to finance development agenda because this is not the first time experts in the continent have initiated a framework for shaping Africa's development agenda.

"One of the initiatives Africans embraced in the early 2000 was the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which was welcomed by all quarters but after some time, enthusiasm toward it dwindled as it faced financing and strategic challenges," Kiunjuri lamented.

The Director, Knowledge Monitoring and Evaluation at ACBF, Dr. Thomas Munthali, said illicit financial flow amounting to 60.3 billion U.S. dollars that was lost between 2003 and 2012 if curbed, can retain significant resources for Africa's development.

A number of studies carried out indicate that the continent has unexploited potential for financing development, including mechanisms and instruments through which such resources can be channeled. Endit