September 11, 2007—What do Africans themselves want? “To work with partners in the true spirit of partnership where Africa identifies itself as clearly being a center of real possibilities,” Africa’s new VP said in a video interview with internal communications head Sumir Lal.
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Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, VP AFR
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The possibilities in what she called “the last frontier for development,” come from natural resources, from geographical advantages, from the educated population. “Partners can work with them to generate the kind of solutions that will tackle the African problem in an African kind of way,” said Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili. “They are clearly in the driver’s seat more and more, and they are defining what it is that they believe they need in order to give a dignified standard of living to their citizens.”
Role for the Bank
In this effort, she said, for Africa, the Bank is a “clear objective institution that is not political, that is not partisan, that’s really about caring about doing something about poverty.”
The IDA15 replenishment process has seen increasing advocacy efforts from African leaders themselves. IDA, said Ezekwesili, means access to a product that provides both knowledge and finance—a repository of global best practices at a low unit cost.
“You need the financial flows to come with knowledge and policy options.” For example, she said, increasingly in African nations there is less of “a concentration of the economy in the hands of government,” while government concentrates on setting the rules and providing basic social services. “Africans are learning from some of the mistakes others have made.”
According to Ezekwesili, “the most brilliant thing that happened was for the Bank to understand that the 80s and 90s were not a very good time for the Bank in Africa.” As a result, the Bank took “the back seat in a way that said, ‘we are going to engage with countries on the basis of their choice of priorities, on the basis of what they have strategically put on the table as being what’s important to them.’”
When will we know we have succeeded? “The affirmation for the bank needs to come from the citizens,” she said. “Citizen involvement in the things we do as an institution will be very important, because if they are involved then they know we are doing things with their governments and they are able to hold us and their governments to accountability.”
Contributed by Audrey Liounis, EXTIC
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