Zambian Finance Minister
Hon. Alexander Chikwanda recently returned home after a hectic five days of
“back to back” 2013 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings held in Washington DC.
The Minister dubbed the
meetings as “highly successful and fruitful”. He had joined other Finance Ministers from
around the world in order to discuss global economic developments and ways to
boost recovery. The meetings were held between 15th-22nd
April, 2013.
The Spring Meetings were
also attended by Secretary to the Treasury Mr. Fredson Yamba, Permanent
Secretary (Economic Management and Finance), Mr. Felix Nkulukusa, Governor of
the Bank of Zambia (BOZ), Mr. Michael Gondwe, other officials from the Ministry of Finance and Bank
of Zambia. From the Embassy of the Republic of Zambia in Washington DC was His
Excellency Palan Mulonda and his staff.
Others included thousands of government
officials from around the world, the private sector, civil society organizations,
participants from the academia and journalists.
They all gathered for the
joint IMF/World Bank Development Committee and the IMF’s International Monetary
and Financial Committee meetings that discussed
progress on the work of the World Bank and the IMF.
As Chair of the World Bank
Africa Group 1 Constituency, Hon. Chikwanda started his busy schedule with a
meeting whose Constituency comprises twenty-two (22) countries – Botswana,
Burundi, Eretria, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi,
Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan,
Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe to prepare for his
participation in the Development Committee meeting of which he is a Member representative.
As is tradition, the meeting
started with a welcome address to the Development Committee by the President of
the World Bank Group, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, and later stressed the World Banks goal
to end extreme global poverty in poor and developing nations by 2030.
In his address, he
emphasized the World Bank’s focus should be to ensure that the poorest benefitted
from strong growth and rising prosperity arising in developing nations.
“For the first time in
history, we have committed to setting a target to end poverty. We are no longer
dreaming of a world free of poverty; we have set an expiration date for extreme
poverty,” he said.
Dr. Jim Yong Kim further
said the new World Bank’s target was aimed to guide the work of the institution
and coincided with efforts by the United Nations to draw up a post-2015 poverty
strategy to replace existing goals.
The IMF Managing Director
Christine Lagarde added her voice to the address and said there was no better
opportunity for developing countries that were growing strong to tackle extreme
poverty.
According to her, the timing
was everything and the global economic recovery was proceeding at what she
termed ‘a three-speed recovery’ with strong growth in emerging and developing
countries.
Ms. Lagarde added that the
IMF would step up its policy advice to developing countries on managing natural
resources, on how to create jobs and on financial sector development and
subsidies.
And later,speaking on behalf
of the Africa Group 1 Constituency, Finance Minister, Hon. Chikwanda started by
thanking the World Bank President for his leadership in spearheading an ambitious
but important reform initiative. He also
stated that the Constituency
Group 1 looked forward to working with Dr.Jim Yong Kim to strengthen the
collaboration with the World Bank Group.
He pointed out that the
Constituency Group 1 welcomed the Bank’s vision that was aimed at transforming
the Bank from a ‘Knowledge Bank’ to a
‘Solution Bank’ adding, “We find the Bank’s Modernization Agenda very timely
and look forward to the forthcoming World Bank Group Strategy.”
Hon. Chikwanda further reiterated
the call for the Bank to embrace large transformational infrastructure projects
in the energy, agriculture and nutrition, transportation and other related
sectors. He observed that the projects had great potential for substantive job
creation, better living conditions and general human development.
Referring to the 2013 Global
Monitoring Report, the Finance Minister noted that
many of the member countries would not meet most of the Millennium
Development Goals by 2015 and called for the continued and enhanced support
from the World Bank and other development partners.
He noted the ongoing
consultations on the Post-2015 Agenda that focused on education, with emphasis
on learning outcomes rather than mere access to education stressing that for
some of the member, education remained critical and therefore deserved equal
attention.
The Hon Minister also said
member countries strongly support the maintenance of the International Development
Association (IDA) regional window for transformational investments in
Sub-Saharan Africa and called for a strong IDA 17 replenishment for the
realization of the Bank’s mission of reducing extreme poverty.
In March 2013, the World
Bank Board of Executive Directors approved an IDA credit of US$89.4 million to
support efforts to boost food and farm productivity in Malawi, Mozambique and
Zambia. Of this amount, Zambia received US$29.8 million (KR150 million)
It was in this regard that
the Hon. Minister reiterated his call for the setting up of a Project
Preparation Fund to support the transformative regional solutions needed to
sustain the development drive in member countries and urged development
partners to honor their previous pledges while IDA was looking for new
resources.
Against this background,
much more needs to be done to realize significant reduction in unemployment and
poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, he said, adding, “Thus we need to work together
more responsively, timely and effectively to achieve our common vision of
ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity. This is consistent with our
call for a strong IDA 17 replenishment.”
The writer Ben Kangwa is
Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of the Republic of Zambia in Washington
DC
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