Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Mr. Kwasi Quartey, made a courtesy visit on Executive Directors representing African Constituencies at the World Bank Group (WBG) on June 9, 2017. The meeting was hosted by Mr. Andrew N. Bvumbe, Executive Director for the Africa Group 1 Constituency. Two main issues were discussed, namely (i) human capacity building as a foundation of development, and (ii) challenges in health care delivery in Africa.
The meeting acknowledged the importance of capacity building in Africa as a foundation of development. It was pointed out that there were over 460 million youth in Africa who could be an important resource in Africa’s economic transformation. With appropriate education and training, the youth could be transformed to be drivers of growth and development.
Health was said to be another major challenge to development in Africa as there is, among other challenges, an inadequate supply of well-trained doctors and health care specialist. There is an estimated requirement of 1.3 million additional doctors to close the skills gap. In the longer term, a solution would lie in the creation of regional training institutions where African governments would share costs while in the short term, tele-medicines could improve access to specialists. The Train-to-task was also proposed as an option available for potential increase of critical and affordable skills supply, especially to rural Africa.
Mr. Bvumbe informed the AUC Deputy Chairperson that a Private Sector Window was established under IDA18, a which would support private sector investments in Africa. In addition, the initiative on domestic resource mobilization would also unlock additional resources.