The Federal Government has urged African countries to deepen intra-continental trade and investment as development aid to the continent continues to shrink.
This is due to the possibility of at least 10 major trade deals worth a minimum of $100 million currently being negotiated between African and Arab markets.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, made the appeal in Abuja on Thursday at the 5th B2B Agribusiness Matchmaking Event, warning that African economies must increasingly rely on regional markets and private capital to sustain growth.
Edun said recent trends showed a sharp retreat in global support to developing countries, stressing that concessional financing and overseas development assistance have continued to decline.
According to him, Africa recorded a nine per cent drop in 2024 and is projected to face a further 17 per cent decline in 2025, based on estimates by the African Development Bank.
He told participants that the shift in the global economic environment demands a new approach. “African countries are faced with high debt burdens in many cases, high debt servicing requirements that are gulping funds that could otherwise be used for public investment,” he said.
He added that it was clear during discussions that “the private sector is the real source of investment, whether it’s foreign direct investment or domestic investment.”
Edun noted that multilateral support structures built over decades are fading rapidly. “The world has turned away from multilateralism. If you take out maybe the willingness for international cooperation in perhaps the health sector in some cases and definitely in the area of climate, the multilateralism of the last decades since the Bretton Woods institutions rose up is fast receding,” he said
The Minister said the reality of declining aid flows requires African countries to look inward. According to him, “Concessional financing and even overseas development assistance flows to developing countries, to Africa, have turned negative.
“They were down by nine per cent last year 2024. By 2025, the flows will be down by perhaps 17 per cent, according to AFDB estimates. So, we have to look inward, we have to trade more with each other, we have to grow our economies together, the savings of our people being invested in productive activity.”
At the event, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Welcome 2 Africa International, Bamidele Seun Awoola, confirmed that the organisation, working with its partners, aims to facilitate at least 10 trade agreements worth no less than $100 million between African and Arab markets.
