The main development challenge facing Africa now is how to reduce significantly
the extent and depth of poverty in the region while transforming the structure of
its economies. Making poverty reduction the focus of current development
initiatives is justified by the extent and depth of poverty in the region and also by
the fact that such poverty slows down all manner of social and economic progress.
By the early 1990s, as many as 51% of the population of Africa lived below a
poverty line of $34 per person per month. Throughout Africa, the current average
income of each person has been estimated at 83 cents per day. Despite the
significant variations among the different parts of the region, it is obvious that
Africa will have to devote a significant chunk of its resources to fighting such
humiliating poverty in the coming years if its peoples are to survive the growing
demands of a rapidly changing world.
In view of the state of poverty, the financing requirements of African nations are
now largely determined on the basis of what it will take to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for 2015. These goals include
cutting in half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, of those who
are hungry, and of those who lack access to safe drinking water. They also include
the achievement of universal primary education and gender equality in education;
to accomplish a three-fourths decline in maternal mortality and a two-thirds
decline in mortality among children under five. They finally include halting and
reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing special assistance to AIDS
orphans, while improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers. Thus, in
addition to the financing needs of individual poor nations, there is also the need to
finance global public goods in achieving those goals.
