Africa’s development agenda should leave noone behind, President Mnangagwa President Mnangagwa taking part in a discussion focused on “Africa’s Economic Outlook – Rekindling Strong, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth", at the World Economic Forum in Davos, today.

Kudzanai Sharara in DAVOS, Switzerland
Politicians must adopt the village philosophy of leaving noone behind if the quest for economic development and growth is to be sustainable and inclusive, President Emmerson Mnangagwa told a breakfast discussion this morning at the World Economic Forum underway in Davos, Switzerland.

Hosted by the WEF and Mckinsey, the discussion focused on “Africa’s Economic Outlook – Rekindling Strong, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. And contributing to the discussion, President Mnangagwa appealed to fellow African countries to adopt the village philosophy of “leaving no one behind”.

It’s a philosophy his Second Republic has religiously implemented through various programmes such as Pfumvudza in agriculture as part of broader strategy of ensuring development that leaves no one and no community behind.

“But again as politicians, we must provide clean water at community level with the philosophy that we leave no one behind and no community behind,” he told delegates.

The Second Republic is already walking the talk by drilling boreholes in communities across the country to avert water challenges. Zimbabwe also has a Presidential Rural Development Programme launched in 2021 which again speaks to the practicality of President Mnangagwa’s interventions toward attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 6.

While acknowledging that African countries are at different levels of development, President Mnangagwa called on politicians to implement programmes that empower communities.

“Our economies in Africa are at different levels, some economies are still crawling, some are walking, some are running and others are flying, that’s what I think is the situation.

“We must have programmes that empower communities and that do not require huge capital. So this can be achieved through our own domestic capital. Government through insurance companies capacitate and empower projects such as horticulture, agriculture, SMEs and so on at that level.”

The use of domestic capital has seen President Mnangagwa’s administration develop the country’s key infrastructure such as roads, dams, drill boreholes, and pfumvudza among others.

President Mnangagwa’s second intervention was for Africa to develop the digital economy.

“The next issue in my view is that Africa, realising that the future is based on digitalisation, we must introduce science and technology from the basic level of education in order to be able to compete worldwide,” he said.

Again speaking to the village philosophy of leaving no one behind, President Mnangagwa said the rural community must also be capacitated and included in developing the digital economy.

He pointed out that the structure of most of the African countries, Zimbabwe in particular, has the urban areas more developed than rural areas making it necessary to also focus on those in the rural areas.

“So it is necessary, in my view, that we also focus on giving our kids or our children in the rural areas proper education ICT, we must able to have electricity so that they have computers in the countryside and have access to computers just like their counterparts in the urban areas,” he said.

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