{
  "title": "Africa Rising - Building to the Future, Keynote Address by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF",
  "publication": "IMF News, May 29, 2014",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp052914",
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  "summary": "Delivered in Maputo, May 29, 2014; keynote by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund.",
  "publishDate": "2014-05-29",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Introduction & Mozambique’s Journey",
      "content": "- Delivered in Maputo, May 29, 2014; keynote by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund.\n- Mozambique highlights:\n  - Average growth of 7.4 percent per year over the past two decades.\n  - Major steps taken to reduce poverty and raise life expectancy.\n  - Recent discovery of natural resources presenting opportunities to make growth more inclusive.\n- IMF engagement with Mozambique:\n  - Financial support, policy advice, stepped-up technical assistance and capacity building.\n  - Continued partnership emphasized."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Where We Stand—Africa’s Takeoff",
      "content": "- Broad regional performance:\n  - Sub-Saharan Africa growing strongly and steadily for nearly two decades.\n  - More than two-thirds of the countries in the region have enjoyed ten or more years of uninterrupted growth.\n  - Africa is a growing investment destination with a record $80 billion inflow expected this year.\n- Social and human-capital gains:\n  - Significant declines in infant mortality and increased education attainment.\n  - In Benin and Madagascar, primary school enrolment has increased by more than 50 percentage points.\n- Remaining gaps:\n  - Poverty still afflicts about 45 percent of the region’s households.\n  - Inequality remains high; some countries continue to face recurring conflict and fragility.\n- IMF institutional changes and capacity development:\n  - Reformed lending instruments to increase access and flexibility; extended zero-interest policy; streamlined conditionality.\n  - Tailored policy advice and support via five regional technical assistance centers in Gabon, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritius, and Tanzania.\n  - Today, the largest share of the IMF’s capacity development services is devoted to Africa."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Challenges Ahead—Near-term Worries and Longer-term Challenges",
      "content": "- Near-term worries (three main risks):\n  - (i) Slower growth in advanced economies and in particular emerging market economies that are major trading partners for Africa.\n  - (ii) Lower prices for some commodities.\n  - (iii) Tightening external financial conditions and potentially increased market volatility as monetary policy is normalized.\n- Longer-term challenges:\n  - Demographic:\n    - By 2040, the continent is projected to boast the largest labor force in the world—1 billion workers strong—more than China and India combined.\n    - Harnessing this reservoir of human capital requires skillful management and vision.\n  - Technological:\n    - Technological innovation can support global integration, improve productivity, and foster inclusion; the challenge is effective and efficient harnessing.\n  - Environmental:\n    - Climate change and sustained demand growth pressure natural-resource sustainability and can exacerbate inequality and exclusion."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Building to the Future—Three Policy Priorities",
      "content": "- Overview: Three priorities—build infrastructure, build institutions, and build people.\n\n- Build infrastructure\n  - Key shortfalls:\n    - Over the past three decades, per capita output of electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa remained virtually flat.\n    - Only 16 percent of all roads are paved, compared with 58 percent in South Asia.\n  - Investment needs and examples:\n    - Investment needs for the region are estimated at about $93 billion—annually.\n    - Examples of scaling up: energy investments in Ethiopia and Mozambique; regional projects in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire for electricity, roads, and railroad networks.\n  - IMF support:\n    - Strengthening public investment and debt management capacity through capacity building centers and on-the-ground technical assistance.\n\n- Build institutions\n  - Focus on governance, transparency, and sound economic frameworks to ensure resource endowments benefit broad-based development.\n  - Challenges with extractive industries:\n    - Mining can account for a large share of output and export earnings but often contributes relatively little to budget revenues and job creation; rents can be captured by a few.\n  - Policy responses and examples:\n    - Strengthen institutional and governance frameworks that manage resources and increase transparency and accountability.\n    - Sierra Leone and Uganda setting new fiscal rules in anticipation of large resource flows.\n    - Côte d’Ivoire implementing a new legal framework for the mining sector to attract higher foreign direct investment.\n  - IMF role:\n    - Bringing cross-country experience and continued technical assistance.\n\n- Build people\n  - Labor-market and inclusion challenges:\n    - By some estimates, a one percentage point increase in the working age population can boost GDP growth by 0.5 percentage points.\n    - Today, only one in five people in Africa finds work in the formal sector.\n  - Human-capital investments:\n    - Wider access to quality education, healthcare, and infrastructure services to support formal private-sector job creation.\n    - Technology and financial inclusion:\n      - Kenya: combining mobile banking with financial services provision has resulted in 75 percent of Kenya’s population now having access to financial services, with the poor benefiting most.\n  - Gender and girls’ education:\n    - Women are largely in informal activities with low productivity, low incomes, and limited prospects; constraints include access to education, credit, and markets.\n    - Economic loss from the education gap between girls and boys could be as high as $90 billion a year in developing countries.\n    - Recommendation: invest in women—high economic and social returns."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Conclusion",
      "content": "- Africa is undergoing a momentous transformation; the outlook is optimistic compared with five years earlier.\n- The opportunities are vast; challenges can be overcome through sustained strong economic and social policies.\n- Priority actions: work together for inclusive, job-rich, and sustainable growth; extend gains to those left behind by helping overcome fragility and build strong institutions.\n- Closing metaphor: “Pedra a pedra construindo um novo dia.” Stone by stone, building a new tomorrow.\n\nKeynote Address by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, Maputo, May 29, 2014.\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- Kenya and the IMF\n- Republic of Mozambique and the IMF\n- United Republic of Tanzania and the IMF\n- Technical Assistance -- A Factsheet\n- Speeches\n- Christine Lagarde\n- PRESS CENTER\n- https://www.imf.org/en/home\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp052914"
    }
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    "Published: May 29, 2014",
    "Delivered in Maputo, May 29, 2014; keynote by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund.",
    "Mozambique highlights:",
    "IMF engagement with Mozambique:",
    "Broad regional performance:",
    "Social and human-capital gains:",
    "Remaining gaps:",
    "IMF institutional changes and capacity development:",
    "Near-term worries (three main risks):",
    "Longer-term challenges:",
    "Overview: Three priorities—build infrastructure, build institutions, and build people.",
    "Build infrastructure",
    "Build institutions",
    "Build people",
    "Africa is undergoing a momentous transformation; the outlook is optimistic compared with five years earlier.",
    "The opportunities are vast; challenges can be overcome through sustained strong economic and social policies.",
    "Priority actions: work together for inclusive, job-rich, and sustainable growth; extend gains to those left behind by helping overcome fragility and build strong institutions.",
    "Closing metaphor: “Pedra a pedra construindo um novo dia.” Stone by stone, building a new tomorrow.",
    "[Kenya and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/KEN/index.htm)",
    "[Republic of Mozambique and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/MOZ/index.htm)",
    "[United Republic of Tanzania and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/TZA/index.htm)",
    "[Technical Assistance -- A Factsheet](https://www.imf.org/en/about/factsheets/imf-capacity-development)",
    "[Speeches](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)",
    "[Christine Lagarde](https://www.imf.org/external/np/omd/bios/cl.htm)",
    "[PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)"
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