Commission for Africa. Action for a Prosperous Africa.
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Chapter 7 Summary - Accelerating Growth and Poverty Reduction

Accelerating growth, and ensuring the participation of poor people in that growth, is fundamental for poverty reduction. The proposals across this Report – on infrastructure, investment climates, governance, peace and security, trade, human development, culture, the environment and the quality of aid – should both boost participation and contribute strongly to increasing sustainable growth, investment and employment. The goal should be to increase the average growth rate to seven per cent by the end of the decade, and sustain it thereafter. These growth rates have been attained across Asia and in parts of Africa and can be achieved across the continent – but only if the obstacles of a weak infrastructure and a discouraging investment climate are overcome, releasing Africa’s entrepreneurial energies. This will require:

  • Committing to double infrastructure spending in Africa, with an initial increase in donor funding of US$10 billion a year up to 2010 and, subject to review, a further increase to US$20 billion a year in the following five years. This will require careful management and build-up to avoid corruption and cost escalation, and should extend from rural roads, small-scale irrigation, and slum improvement to regional highways and larger power projects.
  • Public and private sector working together to identify the obstacles to a favourable investment climate, together with outside support to fund the necessary actions.
  • Fostering small enterprises through ensuring better access to markets, finance, and business linkages, with a particular focus on youth and women, as well as the family farms that employ so many people in Africa.
  • Action by the business community to contribute in each of these areas and in other areas set out in this Report, working in partnerships with each other, with donors, with national governments and with civil society, as part of a sea change in the way it engages in the development process.
  • Action to ensure that environmental sustainability is integral to donor interventions and to manage and build Africa’s resilience to climate change.

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