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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter

AFRICA needs to improve on its leadership if it is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Ms Vera Songwe has said  Ms Songwe’s sentiments come amid concerns about the continent’s snail pace in initiatives to implement the 17 SDGs.

The continent has the highest poverty rates and requires about US$360 billion annually to finance different gaps in its development programmes, Ms Songwe said.

For the first time all 17 SDGs are being discussed at one meeting which gave members States attending the 6th session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (AFRFSD) a platform to take stock of their work in the past decade of implementation of SDGs and Agenda 2030. Now the continent enters the Decade of Action, where member States are being called upon to up their game.

Talking to journalists yesterday, Ms Songwe said lack of accountability by governments is a result of failure to include youth in decision making.

“We are not on track to meet SDGs and that’s why we’re sending alarm that we need to accelerate and do a lot more. What we are looking for is to send alarm so that when we get to 2030, we have less people living below poverty line.

“Before that we need conversation with everybody. There are three things we need to do. Firstly, we need to improve leadership because a lot of Africa wars come from lack of clarity and lack of accountability. When we talk of leadership, we don’t mean leadership at the top, we mean leadership at local government, youth, civic society and all sectors of the economy. We need vibrant leaders at every sector and once we have that there will be demand for accountability,” she said.

Ms Songwe said some countries have prospered through youth demand for collective leadership.

“The second thing is involvement in decision making because sometimes we make decisions that have good intentions but for the wrong people, hence we need youth involvement. We also have to add value to our own resources. Our youth are smart and innovative but their innovation is not put to use,” she lamented.

She bemoaned the exorbitant cost of registering intellectual property and patent rights which she said are pegged at US$3 000 in the continent making it difficult for youths to register their ideas.

“We need to value our minerals and process them locally the way Botswana does with diamonds. So, with education, artificial intelligence and innovation we can take our continent forward,” she said.

The UN Under Secretary-General said 35 percent of Africans live in poverty which is the highest in the world, hence the need to accelerate SDGs implementation.

She said the intention of the AFRFSD is not to leave anyone behind.

Ms Songwe said attracting more than 3 000 participants at the forum was confirmation of success in terms of spreading the word to citizens and stakeholders about the need to speed up the pace.

She commended Zimbabwe for defying odds and managing to organise the high-level forum.

She said few countries such as Kenya, Ghana and Senegal had made considerable progress which however is compromised by failure by other States to do the same.

“Some are making a lot of progress but the challenge is that we are not making consistent progress,” she said.

Ms Songwe said Africa can learn from China’s development. 

The conference ends today.-@ncubeleon