President of Mauritania: We need to get rid of terrorism to eradicate poverty

 Mauritania’s President and Chairperson of the African Union, Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani, said that eradicating poverty is no longer possible in 2030 due to crises and terrorism.

In his speech during the opening of the summit of African Heads of State and the International Development Agency held in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, according to the statement of the Mauritanian presidency today / Monday - Ghazouani added that this summit comes in a difficult continental and international context, characterized by multifaceted crises.

He explained that eradicating poverty and hunger by 2030, which was possible during the launch of the sustainable development agenda, is now elusive for most African countries.

He added that the African Development Bank estimates the additional financing needs for development infrastructure in Africa at between $68 billion and $100 billion annually, noting that the continued exacerbation of climate shocks, security and political crises, terrorism and armed conflicts in Africa, Ukraine and the Middle East creates a profound negative impact on the global economy, especially in Africa, and also has serious consequences for the living conditions of hundreds of millions of families in many poor countries.

He stressed that the additional financing needs needed for Africa to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals are about $190 billion annually, noting that Africa will need more enormous resources to achieve development.

He welcomed the cooperation of the President of the World Bank with the President of the African Development Bank in the field of energy, hoping that this cooperation will extend to other sectors and include other multilateral development banks.

The Mauritanian President pointed out that the International Development Association plays a single role in financing development in Africa and works in 39 countries, where it benefited from its financing of 1.5 billion poor people, calling for strengthening this role, especially in light of facing the major challenges of climate change.

He pointed out that the cost of failing to meet these challenges will be prohibitive in all respects, calling for working together to make Africa on a path of rapid, comprehensive and sustainable growth.