The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) on 17th December 2015 launched the Africa Capacity Report at the Word Bank in Washington DC. This was part of a series of global launches of the Report that ACBF has embarked on. Happening on the same day was launch of the report in Accra, Ghana. The first launches of the report took place on 7th December in Harare, Zimbabwe; Geneva in Switzerland; and Nairobi, Kenya.
The theme of the 2015 Report is on Capacity Imperatives for Domestic Resource Mobilisation. Given the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations in September 2015 and Agenda 2063 by the Africa Union, mobilising domestic resources has become an important discussion for countries especially in Africa which failed to meet the Millennium Development Goals largely due to the unpredictability of Official Development Assistance.
Presenting the Report, Dr. Thomas Munthali, Director for Knowledge Monitoring and Evaluation at ACBF, pointed out that efforts at mobilising domestic resources have been impeded by lack of soft and hard capacities at the institutional, organisational and human levels. He highlighted that the 2015 Africa Capacity Report is hence squarely analysing the capacity imperatives, highlighting the initiatives other countries have made in innovatively mobilising domestic resources and putting forward clear recommendations on how the capacity gaps can be addressed.
Speaking during the function, Malawi’s Minister of Finance, Hon. Goodall Gondwe, who is also the Foundation’s chair of Board of Governors, commended ACBF for addressing one of the critical issues facing the continent presently. He mentioned of the need to support ACBF in its role of building the requisite capacity in not just DRM but general capacity for policy formulation and implementation.
In his closing remarks, the Foundation’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, pointed out that the domestic resource mobilisation theme was put forward by Africa’s Ministers of Finance and economic planning. And the Foundation was hence responding to the continents’ needs. He highlighted the strong partnership ACBF is having with the African Union which has led to analysis of the capacity imperatives for implementing agenda 2063 along with its capacity development plan as well as projection of the critical technical skills required in implementing the first 10 years of Agenda 2063.
The launch which was in a High Level Panel discussion format, was chaired by Jim Brumby (Acting Senior Director at World Bank) with Blanca Moreno-Dodson (Lead Economist at World Bank) and Mario Mansour (Deputy Division Chief at IMF) as discussants.
