Sole reliance on donor funding is dangerous

Accra, Oct.6, GNA - Government was on Thursday advised to shift its focus and reliance on donor funding and look into what she could do to internally to generate funds to accelerate the country's development process.

Dr Emmanuel Ablorh, a Former World Bank Economist, said the dependence on Official Development Assistance had led to a situation where the Government was unable to tap from the rich resources at home to enhance the life of the people.

"We need to break from this dependency syndrome and trust in ourselves to achieve what we want as a country," he told audience at a roundtable organized by the Institute of Economic Affairs on the topic: =91Economic Freedom and Development in Africa.'

Dr Ablorh, who was the chairman at the roundtable, said an important area that needed urgent Government attention was rebuilding and enhancing the capacity of the country's institutions to enable them to play adequately their role in the development of the country. The forum addressed by Mr Brett Schaefer, Jay Kingham, Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, was to see how to get African countries to get out of the development trap on to a path of sustainable economic growth.

Mr Schaefer, who was the main Speaker, said that Sub-Saharan Africa needed policy change more than increased aid to develop. He argued that while there might be a role for assistance and donor nations, the key to development lay in the hands of government's in developing countries.

As a first step governments must aim at removing obstacles that prevented their people from seizing opportunities that would benefit them, their families, and their communities.

Mr Schaefer said that could be done by adopting policies that bolstered economic freedom; good governance and the rule of law and other policies that might be a key to economic growth and development without foreign assistance.

He said it was ironic that the high level of foreign donor inflows both bilateral and multilateral amounting to about 455.9 billion dollars in the past 24 years had not succeeded in transforming the economies of the African countries rather it had worsened their plight with most of the economies registering negative growth.

A way out, he said, was for the developed countries to assist development by encouraging good policy and opening their markets to developing countries, adding, however, that success in development ultimately depended on developing countries implementing policies that promoted economic freedom, good governance and the rule of law.