held under the motto “Revive the APRM to strengthen governance in Africa”, has stressed the importance of prioritizing the construction of the economic and financial independence of the continent .
Africa must strengthen the relations of cooperation and friendship between the member countries of the organization, and states must invest all the knowledge they possess so that Africa can overcome the enormous challenges of development, for the present and the future generations.
Financial independence is a cause many countries in Africa have insistently tried to cultivate among its citizenry.
To attain this desired end, African countries need to produce more for increasing food production would be a great step forward If African nations produce food,
shall sell it, and if sell it, nations shall have a lot of money and hence more possibilities and more financial resources for the nations.
Greater production would mean more food for states, and the countries would no longer need to import food. The money currently used to import food would stay in the countries, and could be used for other purposes. Surplus crops would earn money through exports.
Economic independence could also be achieved through processing and adding value to raw materials inside the country. Therefore African resources should be transformed.
We believe it is possible to improve productivity and create conditions so that the final product would be competitive on world markets.
In this way, African countries would gradually become self-sufficient and free itself from economic dependence. The financial resources granted to African nations could be used for better roads, for building dams and other infrastructures which in turn would generate more revenue.
It is in this realm of economic, legal and political institutions that so many poor countries fall down. There have been numerous attempts in the past 50 years to address the problems of economic backwardness by means of loans and aid.
Indeed, Western countries gave away around $1 trillion (in 1985 dollars) in unrequited transfers to poorer countries between 1950 and 1995.
But these efforts have yielded pitiful results, in large measure because the recipient countries lacked the political, legal and financial institutions necessary for aid to be productive. Arbitrary and corrupt rulers bear a large share of the responsibility for this economic failure.
Much of the money that has poured into poor countries has simply leaked back out - often to bank accounts in Switzerland - as corrupt rulers have stashed their ill-gotten gains abroad.
One study of 35 sub-Saharan African countries calculated that roughly 80 cents on every dollar borrowed by African countries flowed back as capital flight in the same year.
Perhaps the best evidence for the institutional argument is that even a poorly situated country can prosper with the right institutions.
Botswana has enjoyed the fastest rate of growth of per capita income in the world over the past 35 years, despite being little better endowed in terms of geography, climate and natural resources than other sub-Saharan African countries.
The main reason for Botswana's success is simply that it managed to adopt good institutions.
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