The vision of a peaceful, united and prosperous Africa set out in Agenda 2063 can be achieved through sound planning and results-oriented policies and actions, NEPAD Agency CEO Dr Ibrahim Mayaki says.

The statement was read on his behalf by Mr Symerre-Grey Johnson, Head of Partnerships and Resource Mobilisation, yesterday at a Seminar Toward Agenda 2063 – the Africa we want, co-organised by the NEPAD Agency, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and Japan International Development Agency (JICA) in Pretoria, South Africa.

Agenda 2063 has been adopted last month at the African Union Summit by African Heads of State and Government as the Continent’s new long-term vision for the next 50 years. The NEPAD Agency is the AU’s development agency and implementing arm of Agenda 2063.

Mr Symerre Grey-Johnson

Dr Mayaki emphasised that “Africa’s reflection on its own future will be on how to foster inclusive prosperity, reduce potential for violent confrontations and create conditions for peaceful co-existence and this is the Africa we want”. He further noted that“Infrastructure development underpinned by intraregional and global trade is the continents best strategy to trigger industrialisation and the major conduit to a prosperous and economically integrated Africa.”

The seminar sought to deepen a better understanding of Agenda 2063 and explored various scenarios for realising this bold vision.

Economists agreed that moving from a poverty reduction to a growth paradigm is key to realising Agenda 2063. In his presentation of the Publication Africa 2050: Realising the continent’s full Potential, Dr Theodore Ahlers Senior Associate from the Centennial Group/JICA presented on the drivers of change and the agenda for action required to achieve the goals of Agenda 2063.  The Publication consists of a comprehensive analysis and various scenarios for Africa’s future.  The high-road scenario that corresponds with Agenda 2063 envisions a six-fold increase in per capita income by 2050, a ten-fold reduction in the number of poor people with two thirds of Africans part of the middle class and a share of global GDP tripling to 9%.  Dr Ahlers noted that turning the vision into reality requires an integrated Africa, competitive economies, prosperous people and cohesive societies. 

Dr Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) spoke to a new publication released by the African Futures Project at the ISS entitled Reasonable goals for reducing poverty in Africa, and said that according to the forecasts by the Project, with aggressive pro-poor interventions Africa could get to below 15% extreme poverty by 2030 and 4% by 2045. His presentation set out various associated interventions and options.

Dr Kassim Khamis AU Commission Expert from the Agenda 2063 technical team at the Department of Strategic Planning explained that the First 10-Year Implementation Plan, setting out clear priority areas and identifying the potential sources of funding for realising Agenda 2063 will expectedly be adopted during the next AU Summit in Johannesburg in June 2015.

Mr Ichiro Tambo (centre) next to Mr Talla Kebe, Acting Head of Knowledge Management, who spoke on the important need for aligning Agenda 2063 with National Plans of Action

Sharing Japan’s experience in 1950’s in formulating an ambitious national development plan for doubling national income, Mr Ichiro Tambo, Director-General of the JICA Research Institute (JICA-RI) said that realising this goal was achieved much earlier than expected, since a consensus among Japanese people had been broadly built through multi-stakeholder consultations led by the Japanese Government in that period. He also expressed expectation from this past experience of Japan that Agenda 2063 would strengthen a bottom-up approach through facilitating multi-stakeholder consultation with African people.

The results of the seminar will feed into the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, known as TICAD. The next TICAD summit (TICAD VI) will be held in Africa for the first time in 2016 co-organised with the AU Commission, World Bank, and UN Development Programme. At the last TIVAD V in Yokohama in 2013, the government of Japan pledged 32 billion USD in five years from then, with an emphasis on infrastructure and human resource development, based on African ownership and international partnership. 

The presentations from the event are available on the websites of the ISS (www.issafrica.org/events/toward-agenda-2063-the-africa-we-want) and JICA (www.jica.go.jp/english/)