(Ecofin Agency) - African nations should auto-finance the implementation of a good governance programmes in the framework of their structural transformations, Abdalla Hamdok (picture), deputy executive secretary of the economic commission for Africa (ECA), told Ecofin Agency. This was on the sidelines of the 27^th African economic conference which opened on December 4, 2017, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“It’s true, it’s very expensive to finance governance, considering for example that elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo cost a billion dollars. But it just doesn’t make sense, for governance processes in Africa to be financed by foreign lenders," M. Hamdok said.

He further added the relevance of investments made in relation to governance should no more be assessed by looking at actions undertaken, but also at their resultant impacts. This is an opinion that was shared by Lamin Momoudou Manneh who revealed that investment in governance must be permanent and that there is no final standard in this regard.

Governance’s significance in Africa’s structural transformation process is not perceived the same way by all experts. Celestin Monga, one of the deputy presidents of the African Development Bank (ADB), said that good governance and structural transformation are two sides of a same coin, and that one cannot be without the other.

Idriss Linge, from Addis Ababa