African nations must mobilise the continent’s resources to finance development which would ease trade for small businesses according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).
“Today we’re living in a very hostile environment with rising levels of protectionism [and] projected sources of development finance are drying up,” said Unctad secretary-general Mukhisa Kituyi.
“The global dynamics are such that every region of the world will have to dig inside itself to find the resourcefulness to adjust, to grow. Nobody’s going to grow Africa other than Africans.”
He said it was the continent’s “collective responsibility” to mobilise its own resources by tackling illicit financial flows which rob the continent of billions each year.
The UN has estimated that African loses around US$50 billion to financial outflows yearly, roughly double the official development assistance received by the continent. This amount also outweighs the US$42 billion received in foreign direct investment in 2017.
However, Unctad noted that this estimate likely fell short of reality as accurate data does not exist for all transactions or for all African countries.
