OPINION
A Big Bond for Africa
By Nancy Birdsall and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Sustained economic growth is essential to maintain progress on reducing poverty, infant mortality, disease and malnutrition.
The Big Bond approach represents a much-needed update to the ODA framework – one that supports higher and more sustainable growth in recipient countries, while lowering the burden on donor countries.
The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa have reached a critical juncture. Strained by a collapse in commodity prices and China’ s economic slowdown, the region’ s growth slipped to 3.4 % in 2015 – nearly 50 % lower than the average rate over the previous 15 years. The estimated growth rate for 2016 is lower than the population growth rate of about 2 %, implying a per capita contraction in GDP.
Sustained economic growth is essential to maintain progress on reducing poverty, infant mortality, disease, and malnutrition. It is also the only way to create sufficient good jobs for Africa’ s burgeoning youth population – the fastest growing in the world. As Gerd Müller, Germany’ s development minister, noted at a recent press conference,“ If the youth of Africa can’ t find work or a future in their own countries, it won’ t be hundreds of thousands, but millions that make their way to Europe.”
One way to sustain growth and create jobs would be to collaborate on planning and implementing a
16 Business Times Africa | 2017