Page 24 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

Changing Regional Dynamics

At the time AERC was started, the immediate challenges facing most African economies
was macroeconomic stability in the wake of huge fiscal deficits and unsustainable debt
stocks; high inflation; deteriorating terms of trade; and over-valued national currencies.
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Economic reform at the time simply meant the pursuit of structural adjustment. Today,
ministries of finance and central banks in the region have technical capacity to maintain
stability at the macro level in most economies.

Now a forward-looking approach is needed as we enter a new decade, with a new set
of challenges and opportunities to be met. The 2015–2020 Strategic Evaluation Report
conducted by Ernest Aryeetey and Frances Stewart stated that the pressing issues facing
the region during the 2020–2025 Strategic Plan period and beyond will be ‘the growing
young populations without access and opportunities for jobs, widening inequality and
persistent poverty’. The World Bank’s 2019 Africa’s Pulse echoed that debt and fragility are
two factors that will continue to impact the continent into the next decade.

The report advises that collective solutions from regional and subregional institutions
will be required in the future as well as more focus on building state capacity and strong
institutions, while the digital revolution, paired with stronger investments in human
capital, has the potential to increase economic growth and reduce poverty in the region.

AERC has addressed both fragility and debt issues since 2018 in the Senior Policy Seminar
and Biannual Plenaries. It has also addressed youth unemployment through partnered
workshops with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the INCLUDE Platform
– placing AERC at the forefront of policy discussion on both issues and giving the
Consortium the opportunity to evolve and diversify its portfolio of services to economic
capacity building in order to meet the region’s needs and to provide policy solutions to
these challenges. This shows that AERC has created an entry point to these challenges
and to others in the new decade.

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