Ghana is urging other African countries to commit resources for the realization of the both sub and regional integration of the continent.
Radiogoldlive.com has gathered that the integration initiative has been a very challenging ideal as most African states, historically have pursued this agenda motivated by political and national interest at the expense of trade and economic interests.
But speaking at the opening of a two day regional integration capacity building awareness and sensitization workshop in Accra under the theme “ Enhancing National Capacity for Regional and Continental Integration in Africa”, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Mohammad Habibu Tijani underscored the importance of integration to the socio – economic development of the continent.
“Despite these bottlenecks, it is an undisputed fact that Regional and Continental integration have some of the most fundamental qualities of transforming our fragmented and often unviable states into economic power houses capable of maintaining and sustaining the ever increasing populations they spawn.”
Mr. Habibu Tijani also bemoaned the amount of returns the continent makes from its exports of natural resources despite the Continent having the greatest chunk of natural resources.
“Africa has the world’s largest volumes of natural resources which form the basis of all industry world – wide. Yet the volume of inflows from commodity exports is in no way commensurate with pecuniary inflows from exports.”
“Africa’s share of global trade has been around 2-3% for a considerable period of time. It is even shame to recall that under colonialism our share of global trade was 7%.”
He however expressed optimism that the narrative will change soon indicating that “currently, intra – African trade is about 12% and it is expected to rise to 52% above the base by 20222 with the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).”
The Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister further outlined some moves that could propel the Continent to realizing effective integration for socio – economic advancement.
“It behooves all African countries to strengthen to strengthen multilateral collaboration and foster innovation and technological advancement aimed at facilitating labor mobility and access to factors of production.”
“This will curtail the rampant brain – drain which rids Africa of badly needed human resources to harness the rich natural endowments of the continent for greater prosperity,” he added.
Story By: Henry George Martinson/radiogoldlive.com
