AFRICA: No more talk, act now - Sachs

ADDIS ABABA, 2 April 2007 (IRIN) - September marks the halfway point in the
deadline for the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but Africa is
nowhere near halfway to achieving them, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs said on Monday.

Sachs, director of the Columbia University Earth Institute and one time
special adviser to former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, was
speaking to African planning ministers at the UN Economic Commission for
Africa.

"We have been held back by such difficult international processes, so much
talk, so many missions, so many commitments that have not been fulfilled
that this has to be a time for decisive action," the author of 'The End of
Poverty' (2005) said. "No more talk, no more studies, we need to act right
now."

The key to such a breakthrough is securing the aid that has been promised
but not Delivered, he told the conference, whose theme is 'Accelerating
Africa's growth and development to meet the MDGs: Emerging challenges and
the way forward'.

Public spending capacity, he added, is limited, thus the funding gap has to
be filled by debt cancellation and increased donor funding if the MDGs are
to be met. Adamant that there could be no piecemeal approaches, he said:
"The key ... is a massive scaling-up of targeted investments in ... health,
education, agriculture and infrastructure ... meaning roads, power, internet
connectivity, water and sanitation. All four are critical to success. No one
of them alone can do it."

Such public sector investment was critical to securing private sector growth
and a way out of the poverty trap, said Sachs. The principal private
economic enterprise in Africa is agriculture - increasing public sector
spending with vouchers for fertilizers and high-yield seeds and a 'green
revolution', as happened in India and China, could realise food surpluses,
as in Malawi last year.

Similarly, school-feeding schemes encourage parents to send children to
school, improve health and attendance; paved roads enable trade; a steady
electricity supply means keeping vaccinations cold.

"Unless you can bring the bed nets [against malaria], unless you can build
the school, unless you can fund the school-feeding programmes ... pave the
roads, extend the power bridge, make sure that farmers can have access to
fertilizer and high-yield seed, it is all on paper," he added.

Sachs said an average of US $110 was needed per person, per year, between
now and 2015 for African countries to achieve the MDGs. The funding gap
should come from development assistance - the European Union promised aid
would reach 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) by 2015 and 0.51
percent by 2010. The G8 has said it would double aid flows to Africa from
$25 billion a year in 2004 to at least $50 billion in 2010. But so far "it
is words. So far, it is promises."

He called on the donor community to provide aid in 'real time' so that
governments could plan on a medium-term expenditure framework that enabled
such a scaling-up of public spending. In this context, the International
Monetary Fund and World Bank should support public spending that focused on
meeting the MDGs, in turn mobilising the donors to meet their aid
commitments.

In the meantime, governments could provide a 'quick fix', supplying bed nets
against malaria, and fertilizer and seeds to help break the cycle of
disease, chronic hunger and poverty on the continent.

"It's time to plan for success, aim for success, invest for success, receive
the financing that you have been promised ... and I believe this is the
chance and the time for Africa to escape from poverty," he said.

mw/jm[END]



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