By Maureen Chigbo, reporting from Accra, Ghana |Sept 4, 2017 @ 14:40 GMT |

THE AFRICAN Capacity Building Foundation, ACBF, will need to mobilise $250 million from  African governments and donor agencies to build critical capacity for countries in the region to move forward with sustainable development and economic transformation.

Emmanuel Nnadozie, executive secretary, stated this at the opening of the 26^th annual meeting of the board of governors, which opened today in Accra, Ghana, with about 150 participants from different countries attending.

According to Nnadozie, Africa has not achieved its potential and one of the critical factors responsible is serious lack of capacity not in terms of conceptualization but in technical fields needed to drive innovation and development.

He said that the theme of the annual meeting of the ACBF – “Accessing Funds for Development: Required Capacities for Resource Mobilisation, Utilisation and Absorption” is deemed critical for implementation of African Union Agenda 2063, Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, as well as regional and national development plans.

“As you will also know, the ACBF’s Board of Governors, did request the Foundation to focus its 2015 flagship publication (the Africa Capacity Report) on capacity imperatives for domestic resource mobilisation. And indeed the 2015 Africa Capacity Report sends a very clear message: with official development assistance to Africa diminishing, the continent will have to rely more on mobilising domestic resources if it is to move forward on meeting both the Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals,” he said.

Also, the executive secretary said that “the Foundation has discovered that it has become urgent that we go beyond addressing the resource access challenge towards finding solutions to the utilisation and absorption of resources challenge. There is a compelling body of knowledge pointing to limited absorptive capacity as a key impediment to the implementation and effectiveness of various development projects and programmes in Africa,” he said.

According to him, “The secretariat is ready to play its part in tackling the capacity challenges for addressing these issues. More than ever before, the role of coordinating this capacity development mandate on the continent is more compelling now with the official status conferred on us by the African Union this year, of a specialised agency on capacity development. But as you will all agree, for us to effectively deliver on this mandate, we will need the political and financial support of African Governments and cooperating partners. We can have no better ambassadors for this than the Board of Governors and the various development partners represented here.

“We are therefore looking forward to receiving your invaluable individual and collective contributions to the important discussions and sessions we will be having today and tomorrow on these pertinent issues. And more importantly, your political and financial commitment to support the cause of building an Africa capable of achieving its own development.”

Present at the annual meeting are Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Ghanaian senior minister, who declared the meeting officially open, representatives of World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, both  development partners who pledged to support ACBF with funding  and African Union Commission, among others.