By Omoh Gabriel

African countries have been asked to look within to mobilise resources for development because the resources are available.

During The Future of Financing for Development in Africa session at the 50th annual meeting of the African Development Bank, AfDB, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, two of the speakers reiterated the need for African countries to develop the capacity to mobilise resources locally instead of looking to raise financing for development from outside their countries.

Emmanuel Nnadozie of the Africa Capacity Development Foundation, ACDF, said if African countries strengthened their tax collection capacities, as much as $500 million can be mobilised.

Other areas include the stock market and sovereign bond market.

He noted that African countries need to build sustainable capacity in resource mobilisation and countries need capacity in knowledge and information access.