African governments should strive to promote economic development and growth because sustainable peace depends on it, an international policy analyst and consultant said on Thursday.
Rose Makano, a lecturer at Dag Hammarskjold Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Zambia’s Coppoerbelt University, said that it was practically impossible to have sustainable peace without strengthening and enhancing economic empowerment programmes.
Makano observed that much of the continent remained impoverished because of lack of aggressiveness when it comes to implementing economic development programmes.
“There can never be real peace in the presence of poverty and extreme deprivation.
“It is for this reason that we need to embrace practical economic development programmes, which promote sustainable peace and foster global development,” she said.
She further bemoaned the continued under-utilisation of chances meant to propel economies forward and asserted that eradicating extreme poverty called for boldness and commitment as well as the exploitation of opportunities presented on the global stage.
“The main challenge for a number of African countries have never been resources but a tendency to entertain rhetoric and getting stuck on semantics.
“We have huge trade opportunities offered by countries like China which we need to take advantage of,” Makano said.
According to her, China remains one of the countries that Africa can look to in terms of providing valuable lessons in economic transformation because the country managed to turn its economic fortunes and has maintained considerable sound economic growth patterns.
“We are yet to learn of any country that has managed to do what China has done in record time.
“For now, we will do well to seize trade opportunities that China is presenting and grow our economies,”
