President Cyril Ramaphosa says it’s high time that the international summits yield results for the African continent.
He took part in the global financing pact summit in the French capital Paris.
The gathering is meant to boost crisis financing for low income states and ease their debt burdens.
About 40 heads of state are in attendance, to also free up funds to tackle climate change by getting consensus on promoting a number of initiatives struggling in bodies like the G20, IMF, World Bank and the United Nations.
“To prove that these summits are not just a place where we talk flowing from Paris, cop as well as others, let’s put money on the table and collectively say we are going to address mega projects to generate electricity to 12 to 15 countries at the one go and this is the project that multilateral banks fund us as we rise we should say the Inga dam is now going to be developed into Inga power station.”
Sharp and direct message by President Ramaphosa as he called on the global north to ensure that the reforms are expedited at the international financial institutions.
The host of the summit and French President Emmanuel Macron says world leaders, the private sector and international organisations need to act immediately to change how the global financial system works or they will lose the people’s trust.
“And for me, this year and next year are absolutely critical. If we miss the target, if we are not sufficiently ambitious and efficient, if we don’t move our standards and portfolio, the trust of our people will be lost, which means that all the governance we can engage with you in that direction will be under pressure of the people. You probably heard some of the leaders and we say we tried, we made something cooperative, we under deliver let’s change.”
The United States Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen also shared the same sentiment.
“We have called on the World Bank to increase its speed, agility and responsiveness. And we have called for strengthening the World Bank’s efforts to mobilise private capital at scale. This means creating incentives for staff that reward mobilisation rather than just use of the banks’ own resources. That means setting ambitious mobilisation targets that could drive a shift in operations towards achieving them and refining instruments and approaches like guarantees security and asset recycling.”
President Ramaphosa hopes international summits yield results for Africa:
The World Bank says it will ease financing for countries hit by natural disasters and the International Monetary Fund has announced it has hit its target of making $100 billion in special drawing rights available for vulnerable nations.
Some leaders such as Zambian President, Hakainde Hichilema stressed the importance of peace and equitable partnerships…
“We cannot achieve what we want to achieve if we allow our global community to focus time resources everything technology on conflict. I think there’s a duty for us all to keep our individual countries peaceful, out of conflict and not export instability to other countries, neighbouring or far away. as we now know, instability anywhere is instability everywhere.”
The world leaders used the gathering to forge consensus on a number of initiatives. Though binding decisions are not expected, organisers want some firm commitments to support poor countries, especially in the global South.
