By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

ABUJA — United Nations Economic Community for Africa, UNECA, has said that African nations lacked capacity to implement their economic reform initiatives.

This was the major highlight of the organisation’s observations  as contained in its Economic Report on Africa 2013, which was launched in Abuja, yesterday.

According to the UN organ, the inability of African nations to implement reforms remained the major cause of their weak economies and, therefore, advised that urgent steps be taken to shore up the region’s capacities in undertaking global competitive economic management strategies.

To correct this lapse in capacity, UNECA noted that rapid transformation of the manufacturing sector was crucial to achieving sustainable growth and global competitiveness of Nigeria and other African economies in the years to come.

UNECA said that such strategies have “become imperative if most of the economies would get out of the woods and become competitive in the years ahead.”

It urged Nigeria and other African nations to leverage the competitiveness of their economies by developing value chains in their commodities, especially in agriculture and solid minerals, while raising the stake of the manufacturing sector.