UNECA canvasses stronger African voice in global arena

THE United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has highlighted the importance of groupings such as T20 Africa in bringing Africa’s case to the global stage, particularly to the G20.

In a keynote address at the beginning of T20 Africa Standing Group’s annual meeting, Executive Secretary, Vera Songwe said Africa needs to have its voice heard in meetings of groupings such as the G20 that make decisions that have a direct impact on sustainable development on the continent.

The Africa Standing Group seeks to engage in crossregional joint knowledge production and provide evidencebased policy advice related to cooperation between the G20 and Africa.

“As a continent we are intimately linked to a lot of the different discussions that are happening at the G20 but have failed to be able to put our case or to at least claim our position in those discussions,” she said. Ms. Songwe and the delegates from over 30 think tanks attending the meeting, dis- cussed key topical issues, including the global debt problem, migration, the recently signed African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA), peace, illicit financial flows, shadow pricing, tax base erosion, data, domestic resource mobilization and the need for the creation of African rating agencies.

“The T-20 group is extremely important because around the G7 and G20 there’s a whole army of institutions that writes policy notes for the different governments but we don’t have a singular army of policy makers like ourselves saying this is Africa’s position,” she said.

On the AFCFTA, the ECA Chief said; “We have been doing a lot of work as the continent moving towards the continental free trade agreement but the rest of the world does not necessarily understand what we are trying to do so we are struggling and we have pressures from the Europeans, from the Americans with AGOA, with the EPAS saying what does this mean.”