Africa Must Reduce Dependency On Foreign Technical Assistance

VENTURES AFRICA – It is time for Africa to stop depending on technical experts from other continent; especially in key areas of sovereign debt, macro-economic and financial management.

This assertion was made by the Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa (MEFMI) chairperson and Lesotho Central Bank Governor, Adelaide Matlanyane, at a Fellows Graduation and Accreditation ceremony held in Zimbabwe.

According to Matlanyane, technical assistance in Africa has been completely dependent on other continent.

“As you may well know, for decades Africa has been grappling with the problem of limited capacity in specialist areas. Long term technical assistance provided from overseas has been perceived as a solution,” she said.

“The coming of institutions such as MEFMI with the approach of empowering member states has helped to reduce dependency on the use of external experts.”

Matlanyane believes that development of experts in specialised fields of sovereign debt, macro-economic and financial management, will help the continent gain sustainable and self-generating technical capacity.

She however noted that “Without credible human capital there is no development.”

She also confirmed that the number of internationally recruited consultants is dwindling over time as only 27 percent of all persons engaged for capacity building activities were international expert as at Dec 31, 2011.