Guidance notes

Plenary Session 1: Inclusive and Sustainable Development in an Age of Economic Uncertainty

Session format
This plenary session will be a dialogue between the heads of the 3 organizations co-organizing the AEC and a moderator. The format is “Davos-style” with each speaker making a 10 minute introduction followed by discussions in the panel and with the audience. No power point presentations or formal speeches will be used, to foster an open debate and lively interaction.

Background
The global economy has entered an age of uncertainty and instability. The recovery from the Great Recession of 2008/2009 remains feeble in the US and other developed countries. Many countries in Europe are ravaged by a severe debt crisis. The global financial system has yet to fully recover the trust it once enjoyed. Equally, political instability persists in a number of hotspots around the world. Markets for fuel and food have become more inter-linked and more volatile. Large segments of the world’s youth, in both developing and developing countries, are facing dim employment opportunities.

This age of uncertainty is being felt in much of Africa. Countries more integrated with the global economy, especially those in North Africa and middle income countries south of the Sahara, are directly exposed to global economic prospects. Less developed countries are affected by falling levels of exports, remittances and official aid. The political transitions in North Africa continue to affect the economies of many countries, with spillover effects extending to some countries in the Sahel and in the Horn of Africa. The increased frequency of elections is one of the great achievements in the continent, but elections often bring risks of instability and increased social tension.

After a decade of strong growth and improvements in poverty levels, an overarching challenge facing the continent is how to sustain and even accelerate progress in this era of economic uncertainty. The focus of the session will be a critical analysis of the drivers of growth, what these organizations have learned in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and how they are adapting and changing to support African countries to meet their developmental aspirations.

Guiding questions
Speakers in this plenary session will focus on the following questions:

    • What opportunities do policymakers have to mitigate economic and other shocks in the face of global economic uncertainty?
    • What needs to be done to accelerate Africa’s structural transformation?
    • Why has economic growth in Africa had such a limited impact on employment creation and poverty reduction? Why does inequality remain so high in both middle and low-income countries?
    • To what extent can intra African economic integration propel economic growth in the continent, and fill the gap created by the fall in demand from developed countries?
    • Given declining aid flows, how can countries mobilize domestic resources through private investment and more efficient taxation? How to draw on the exploration of natural resources and curbing of illicit capital flows to enhance domestic resource mobilization?

Plenary Session 2: Leadership for Inclusive Development

Session format
This high-level plenary session will have 4-6 panelists and a moderator. The format is “Davos-style” with each speaker making a 10 minute introduction followed by discussion in the panel and with the audience. No power point presentations or formal speeches will be necessary. The idea is to foster an open debate and lively interaction.

Background

Africa has been endowed with transformational leaders, many of whom have led liberation movements that have reshaped the course of history. Moreover, business, community and other leaders all play a role in mobilizing society towards productive activities and away from instability, conflict, and narrow interests that clash with the broader public interest. Their actions are shaped, but can also shape, the institutions that frame the political and economic incentives that harness a country’s resources for development.
There is always the risk of complacency in leadership and in the control of resources due to political patronage and interest groups. Accountability lies at the heart of sound leadership including functioning institutions.

Inclusive development encompasses equity, equality of opportunity, and protection in market and employment transitions. It also presupposes political participation by the population. It is an essential ingredient of any successful growth strategy and for advancing human development. Inclusive development requires committed, credible and capable leadership. Strong political leaders understand that growth alone does notguarantee broadly shared improvements in wellbeing. Inclusive development is a conscious, deliberate choice.In turn, the gains frominclusive development build the legitimacy of political leaders, and it makes the citizens more confident that their children will share in the benefits.

Guiding questions
Given this context, participants in the session will be invited to consider the following guiding questions:

    • What are the political and economic gains of adopting an inclusive approach to development?
    • Do countries have to choose between advancing economic growth and deepening democratic governance?
    • What can be done to transform the attitudes and behaviors of leaders to pursue inclusive development as a national development strategy?
    • Are there risks of complacency in leadership, leading to injustice in the control of resources due to political patronage, pressure and interest groups?
    • How should national leaders deal with supranational leadership, in a world where interdependence implies that there is less ability to fully control events within national borders?

Plenary Session 3: Development Strategies and Financing

Session format
This high-level plenary session will have 4-6 panelists and a moderator. The format is “Davos-style” with each speaker making a 10 minute introduction followed by discussion in the panel and with the audience. No power point presentations or formal speeches will be necessary. The idea is to foster an open debate and lively interaction.

Background
The on-going global financial and economic crises will reduce ODA flows to Africa. Countries will have to look to domestic resource mobilization and private sector inflows to make up for the sharp decline in foreign support. However, historically, domestic saving as a source of financing development continues to be limited.Private domestic investment is being revived in only a few countries, and inefficient financial systems and weak tax collection mechanisms heavily reliant on narrow tax base undermine domestic resource mobilization. Many countries do not have well-defined strategies to take advantage of the present commodity boom; and have failed to exploit the advantages offered by the international trading environment due to weak productive capacities. Currently ODA finances up to 60% of domestic budgets of some countries in Africa.

Although Africa has enjoyed a decade of robust growth, the good performance has not translated into structural change of the African economies. The impact on poverty reduction has been limited, while inequality has increased markedly. There clearly need to improve financial intermediation to enhance domestic resource mobilization and access to credit and meet the long-run financial resource needs of investors. That would also be critical to reducing high commercial interest rates found to be too high for profitable private investment. African countries should utilize fully the opportunities created by globalization and use international trade negotiations and mechanisms to tap fully into ever-increasing South-South trade flows.

Guiding questions
Against this background, participants in the session will be invited to consider the following guiding questions:

  • How can the role of FDI in financing development be better harnessed in the future?
  • ODA and domestic resource mobilization have been quite central to the financing of development in Africa, are there new and innovative forms of financing development that can readily be explored?
  • How did the financial institutions on the continent largely evade the direct impact of the global financial crisis? 
  • Do African countries desire new vehicles for resource mobilization, such as issues of infrastructure bonds?

Plenary Session 4: Harnessing Africa’s Extractive Industries for Structural Transformation and Inclusive Development

Session format
This high-level plenary session will have 4-6 panelists and a moderator. The format is “Davos-style” with each speaker making a 10 minute introduction followed by discussion in the panel and with the audience. No power point presentations or formal speeches will be necessary. The idea is to foster an open debate and lively interaction.

Background
Africa is a continent rich in natural resources. In recent years a combination of rising commodity prices, improvements in exploration technologies and greater political stability has created a boom in the oil, gas and mining sectors in many countries. According to one estimate, 50 states in Africa’s are either producing or exploring for oil. New discoveries of gas along the eastern coastline of the continent could be the biggest the world has seen in the last decade. The abundance of natural wealth comes with risks and challenges, but also with tremendous opportunities for advancing growth and inclusive development.
New discoveries raise expectations for quick pay-outs and legitimate calls for spending resource revenues on alleviating absolute poverty or compensating communities affected by the mining. At the same time investing the revenues from the extraction of non-renewable resources is critical to maintaining the total wealth of a nation. Depending on the level of development and the needs of the people in each country the portfolio of investment will span financial, physical, human and social capital classes. But simply replacing natural capital with other types of capital is not enough. The outcome must be structural transformation so that the economy is diversified and can keep growing even after the resources are depleted.
Guiding questions
In this session speakers will present their own perspectives on how countries can harness extractive industries for structural transformation and inclusive development. Some specific issues for consideration include:

    • What has been the role of natural resources in driving structural transformation in the past and what can countries with new discoveries learn from these experiences?
    • What are the critical lessons for economic diversification in output, export, revenue and employment?
    • How can countries manage the trade-offs between the short and longer-term needs that revenues can be made to address? What role should industrial policy play in terms of driving structural transformation? 
    • What can be done to mitigate the inequality enhancing effects of mining-drivengrowth and make the process more inclusive and more effective in generating employment opportunities?

Plenary Session 5: Expanding Trade for Inclusive Development

Session format
This high-level plenary session will have 4-6 panelists and a moderator. The format is “Davos-style” with each speaker making a 10 minute introduction followed by discussion in the panel and with the audience. No power point presentations or formal speeches will be necessary. The idea is to foster an open debate and lively interaction.

Background
Africa’s numerous nations, often landlocked and/or with small populations, makes international trade essential for growth and development at both country and continental levels. In recent years,African trade has grown rapidly within the continent and between it and, especially, emerging partners such as China and India. Many countries are also reporting steep increases in informal trading activities acrossborders. This rise in internal trade and with new partners has been a critical driver of growth in recent years and is one important factor that has helped cushion the continent against some of the impacts of the global economic crisis.

Still the continent only makes up a fraction of global trade and many countries remain isolated from world markets. Moreover, trade is often dominated by raw products such as natural resources and other goods with low value-added. Challenges abound at all levels. In some countries structural difficulties such as political instability, poor infrastructure or limited productive capacity stand in the way. These issues spill over at the regional and global levels, where non-tariff barriers, weak legal and regulatory environments and insufficient trade facilitation create further obstacles to trade.

Guiding questions
Speakers in this session will discuss these and other issues related to expanding trade for inclusive development in Africa. Some guiding questions are:

    • What are the implications for Africa of the impasse when it comes to global trade talks? What is the continent doing to move the agenda forward?
    • What are some of the key lessons in reducing barriers to intra-African trade?
    • How does the current global economic uncertainty affect trade in Africa and what should the response be from the regional and national perspectives?
    • What can be done to strengthen trade coordination and harmonization at regional level?
    • How do countries ensure that trade is inclusive and that poverty and inequality does not deepen as a result of expanding trade?

Plenary Session 6: Youth Employment for Inclusive Growth

Session format
This high-level plenary session will have 4-6 panelists and a moderator. The format is “Davos-style” with each speaker making a 10 minute introduction followed by discussion in the panel and with the audience. No power point presentations or formal speeches will be necessary. The idea is to foster an open debate and lively interaction.

Background
Africa has the fastest growing and most youthfulpopulation in the world. According to some estimates Africa could have the world’s largest labour force—even bigger than in India and China—in less than three decades. The continent is in a position to reap a demographic dividend that arises when the share of those in the working agein a population grows faster than that of their dependants. In Asia such dynamics were a major contributor to the rapid growth of that region from the 1960s. The fact that Africa’s youth is better educated than ever before just adds to its transformational potential. However, the rates of youth unemployment across African countries are high,often multiples of the rates for older population groups, and job creation remains slow. Moreover, among those youth that have a job, it is too often in a low-productivity informal sector and it rarely pays a living wage. Clearly the diversity of African countries and the labour markets within these should caution against generalisations and one-size fits all policy prescriptions. Nevertheless, surveys of public opinion suggest that lack of employment opportunities is a near universal concern across African countries. Unrealised human potential is a missed opportunity for development and can even spur social instability. Accelerating the creation of decent jobs for everyone—but especially for youth—is critical for inclusive growth and development on the continent.

Guiding questions
Participants in this plenary session will be invited to reflect on the following questions in their discussion of how to make youth employment a driver of inclusive growth in Africa:

    • What are the key obstacles to youth employment in different country contexts? Does lack of demand matter most, is it over-regulation of the labour markets or is it skills mismatch, or all of these and more?
    • What labour market reforms and initiatives have proven particularly successful in removing the barriers for youth employment? How can African education systems be reformed to better prepare the youth for the labour market?
    • Why have job opportunities for youth in the manufacturing sector been so slow in the past? Can the de-industrialisation of Africa be reversed?
    • What are the opportunities for creation of youth employment in agriculture?