Professor Gyan-Baffour, (right) and Professor Nnadozie (left) with the new report
African governments have been admonished to increase investments in the building of institutional and human capacities for a successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The African Capacity Building Foundation, (ACBF) report ‘Capacities Imperatives for the SDGs’, said Africa’s development efforts including the achieving of the SDGs are being hobbled by severe capacity deficits often in the form of shortage across critical skills, deficits in leadership, inhibiting mindsets and weak institutions.
This persistent implementation gap, according to report, has resulted in good development strategies and policies not translating into desirable development outcomes, including sustained economic growth, structural transformation, employment, greater equality and poverty eradication.
“More Africans need to receive basic and advanced training, including critical thinking, strategic planning, results based management, resource mobilization and coordination capacities,” the report said.
Professor George Gyan-Baffour, Minister for planning officially launching the report in Accra said the Government of Ghana since the adoption of the SGDs, have shown great commitment to its implementation through various activities.
He said benchmarking the country’s own SDGs report with the baseline report showed that progress has been made in the SDGs but more can be done to achieve the 2030 targets.
“We are poised to build on the progress made so far and address the bottlenecks that hamper accelerated implementation,” he said.
“As a government, we attach importance to this report. We will study the recommendation and implement them within the boarder context of implementing the SDGs,” he added.
ACBF Executive Secretary, Professor Emmanuel Nnadozie, in his remarks at the launch of the report said the Foundation have achieved tangible results and made significant impact over the past three decades in addressing the capacity challenge facing the continent.
He said the Foundation has supported countries like Comoros, The Gambia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Chad Mali, Republic of Congo, Liberia, Malawi Rwanda and Ghana in different areas of capacity building.
Professor Nnadozie said these initiatives have resulted in the majority of African countries now falling into the medium capacity category according to the Foundations’ Africa capacity report.
Presenting the key highlights of the SDGs report, Professor Herbet Robinson, Director of Knowledge and learning, ACBF said the report is developed on the background that the implementation of the SDGs and Africa’s transformation agenda require strong leadership and political vision, effective national, regional and sub-regional institutions, competent staff and inclusive multi-stakeholder collaboration.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri