Find solution to extreme poverty in Africa, economists challenged

The African Heritage Institution (Afri-Heritage), a socio-political and economic analytical and research-based institute, has challenged institutions, groups and individual economists to find lasting solution to extreme poverty in Africa.
The Executive Director of AfriHeritage, Prof.
Ufo Okeke-Uzodike, gave the challenge during a opening remark at a two-day international conference holding in Enugu yesterday.
The conference with the theme: Economics of Sustainable Growth in Africa’’, is being organized by the AfriHeritage.
Okeke-Uzodike noted that economists needed robust engagements on how to fuel our economies across the continent to grow at the double digit levels needed to effect transformative change and move our region away from extreme poverty.So, in Nigeria and around our continent, the quest for sustainable economic growth is a driver of government concerns and policy.
As African countries plot their development driven not only by domestic economic activities but also through bilateral and multilateral trade and intergovernmental support systems.However, despite significant improvements in policy spaces across the region, Africa continues to experience serious challenges due to highly uneven economic growth patterns.
This challenge is made less tenable by inadequate growth rates for the world’s poorest region, youngest region, and demographically fastest growing region.The net effect is that poverty has become an existential threat across many African countries.
Indeed, Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy is also the country with the world’s largest extremely poor people,’’ he said.
He said further that: “I hope that our deliberations today and tomorrow will yield policy recommendations for policy-makers”.
In a keynote speech, Professor Hyacinth Ichoku, with the Department of Economics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), said that sustainable growth means inclusive growth that takes care of everyone in a nation.
Ichoku, a Professor of Economics advised African countries to focus on labour intensive industrial growth in order to create jobs and opportunities to carry everyone along in their individual African countries.Leaders in Africa must get their people out of poverty by looking into agriculture and cottage industries, which can be easily financed by these countries going with their relatively financial incapability.
“So, labour intensive modal of sustainable development should be adopted so that no one is left behind in the growth of any African country,’’ he noted.
Over 150 scholars with economic background from various institutions within and outside the country are currently attending the conference.