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CoverFINANCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Testing New Policy Approaches
:: 2002

Proceedings of the Fifth Expert Group Meeting on Finance for Sustainable Development, Nairobi, Kenya, 1-4 December 1999

Introduction snapshot:

The Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, agreed upon at the Earth Summit+5 in 1997, contained proposals for new policy approaches in regard to the mobilization and allocation of financial resources for sustainable development. The Fifth Expert Group Meeting on Finance for Sustainable Development undertook a review of the testing of these approaches in practice.

In reviewing the proposals of the Earth Summit+ 5, the Expert Group provides inputs to the discussion on finance for sustainable development at the World Summit on Sustainable Development which will be convened in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002. As financial resources are a crucial element for the implementation of Agenda 21, it can be expected that the discussion of financial mechanisms will be one of the most debated issues at the forthcoming Summit. It is also hoped that the review undertaken by the Expert Group will be a useful input for the forthcoming International Conference on Financing for Development in 2002.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Fifth Expert Group Meeting on Finance for Sustainable Development1 which was attended by experts from government, international and non-governmental organizations, academia and the private sector...

Taking stock of long-term finance for sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) involves several tasks. This paper addresses these tasks by reviewing the broad trends in investment and savings in Africa, examining the investment-savings gap that suggests the need for external resource inflows, and identifying the key components of external resource flows to SSA. Finally, the paper discusses the impact and the effectiveness of external resource inflows and draws some policy conclusions.

The paper builds on the observation that the economic growth performance of SSA countries has been poorer than that of other developing regions. Attempts to explain this growth performance uncovered inadequate investment and low returns to investment as key contributory factors. They also suggest that long-term finance remains the key to the region’s investment and growth.

The average gross domestic investment as a proportion ...

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