The African Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) have made commitments to enhance human capacity and skills development to accelerate jobs and economic transformation.

The commitments were made in the Accra Declaration, a communique adopted and issued after the 2019 Africa Caucus Meeting held in Accra from July 31 to August 2 on the theme: “Africa Beyond Aid: Enhancing Institutional Capacity and Innovative Finance for Sustainable Growth”.

Briefing the media on the Accra Declaration, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Chairman of the African Caucus of the IMF and the WBG said the Governors had committed to boost educational spending to help meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially Goal 4 comprising investment in the early years and secondary education.

The Governors, however, called on the two Bretton Woods institutions to scale-up support to capacity building to national and regional institutions, assist them to acquire international accreditation and to establish qualification and skills recognition across the continent.

The Chairman urged the WBG to deepen its support to African Centres of Excellence while accelerating the implementation of the Africa Human Capital Plan and the Digital Economy for Africa.

The Governors also committed to continue working with international financial institutions and regional organisations to strengthen macroeconomic and fiscal frameworks and upgrade capacities at all levels to support development taking into perspective the significance of enhanced institutional capacity together with public financial management reforms.

The Governors have committed to enhanced governance, transparency and accountability that would ensure judicious use of public funds and in partnership with the Bretton Woods institutions and other partners to strengthen institutional capacity on public investment management and assessment as well as debt management.

On illicit financial flows (IFF), the Governors committed to scale-up regulations to streamline cross-country settlement to prevent illicit outflows of funds and to collaborate and harmonise legal frameworks towards mitigating those flows.

The Governors committed to work with international development institutions to develop a database of beneficial ownership and IFFs, making it a policy objective to discourage funds flowing to developed countries and streamline repatriation of such funds to countries of origin.

Being mindful of the need to strengthen the WBG’s financial capacity to fulfil its development mandate in all member states, the Governors committed to work closely with the WBG Management to ensure that African countries subscribed to the shares allocated to them in the 2018 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development capital package within the timeframe.

The Governors urged the WBG to finalise the 2018 International Finance Corporation capital package to help mobilise private financing for growth and poverty reduction in an inclusive manner, taking into perspective, the centrality of the private sector development.

The Governors called for a strong IDA19 replenishment considering the International Development Association (IDA) contribution to African government’s development efforts and towards poverty reduction as well as the urgency required to achieve the SDGs.