The African Development Bank (AfDB) has called on various Civil Society Orgainisations (CSOs) working in continent to drive every effort to ensure Africa’s Industrialisation. Mr Celestin Monga, the Bank’s Vice President and Chief Economist made the call at the opening ceremony of the Civil Society Forum on Monday in Abidjan.
The Theme of the Forum is “Engaging Civil Society in Accelerating Africa’s Industrialisation’’. He said Africa as a continent had many deficiencies that contributed to its inability to develop as a rich continent. He noted deficiency of learning and knowledge, Leadership, conflict resolution corruption among others as major problem in the region.
He challenged the CSOs to show intellectual curiosity in matters concerning Africa to drive its industrialisation. “Vietnam Presently is doing well, if they continue what there are doing right now, by the next 10 years, we will all gather to be discussing about their success story.
“You know how the country was destroyed, but they have stood up to go and find out where such has happened and how to solve their problem and they are yielding results. “There is nothing happening in Africa that has not happened elsewhere and was resolved, so, all CSOs must find a way to save Africa,’’ he said
He noted that though it was difficult to have excellent leaders, CSOs remained major source of credible leaders across the world. “We need leaders from CSOs who are credible to bring good governance in the region because CSO as an institution is where great leadership for economic and social development are taken,’’ he added
Monga said that culture of good conflict resolution should also be adopted in the region rather than blown out of proportion as always was the case in Africa. He added that CSOs remained fundamental for the growth and development in Africa and solving the problems of African region. He assured that the bank would continue to work with CSOs to ensure common values to ethics and urged them to go beyond engaging with bank and engage more with the private sector. NAN
