ECONOMIC GROWTH in SADC Member States is necessary but not sufficient to make real impact on poverty eradication, especially when such growth is erratic.

This was said by the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Donald Kaberuka, in a keynote address to the SADC International Conference on Poverty and Development held in Mauritius in April.

Kaberuka said while economic growth - often simply measured by changes in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - is essential, it should be sustained “over several years… broad based and non-exclusive.”

The Mauritius conference gave fresh impetus to regional integration, adopting a pro-poor regional poverty Reduction Framework. [read more]

THE STARTING point for development in Mozambique must be the rural areas, President Armando Guebuza said in his opening address to the annual meeting of the African Development Bank held in Maputo in May.

“We shall overcome the challenges of economic emancipation by making the rural areas the nuclei of planning and development,” Guebuza said, adding that transport and communications infrastructure is needed to bring regions together and “to link centres of production with centres of consumption.”

He warned that the problems of rural poverty cannot be solved “by the simple liberalization of prices. [read more]

AFRICA'S GROWTH rate could be derailed by the global rise in food prices, the AfDB chairperson, Donald Kaberuka, told the Bank's annual meeting held in Maputo in May.

He said the food predicament is an additional hurdle that will put Africa's ability to manage risks and overcome new threats to great test, but added that this challenge can be turned into an opportunity where farming finally becomes a viable business rather than a meagre livelihood. [read more]