Kampala-Uganda: 19 November 2019: The APRM Secretariat has concluded a two day validation workshop for the Report on the 13 bottlenecks hindering Africa’s social economic development. The workshop identified mechanisms in which Africa can address the 13 bottlenecks to spur social economic development in the continent.

The workshop was held following the 23rd APR Forum in June 2015 in South Africa, where His Excellence Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda presented a statement on eleven (11) bottlenecks hindering effective socio-economic transformation of the African continent. The discussions leaned on questions of governance that undermine Africa’s ability to take full advantage of the opportunities and imperatives that present themselves. Two bottlenecks were later added by His Excellence President Macky Sall of Senegal at the 25th Summit of the APRM Forum in Nairobi on 26th August 2016.

The overall objective of the continental validation workshop was to enhance ownership of the bottleneck report and create awareness on the tracking instrument for monitoring the bottlenecks affecting Africa’s social economic development, as well as to create a platform for various actors to debate how to best improve monitoring the 13 bottlenecks in Africa.

The following are the bottlenecks identified as impeding the Continent’s progress;

1)Interference with the private sector;

2)Under-developed infrastructure;

3)Weak states, especially weak institutions such as the Army, Police,

4)Fragmented markets, market access and expansion;

5) Lack of industrialisation and low value addition;

6) Under-development of human resources;

7) Under-development of agriculture;

8) Under-development of the services sector;

9) Attacks on democracy and governance;

10) A non-responsive civil service;

11) Domestic resource mobilization,

12) Structural inequalities in access to opportunities and

13) Ideological disorientation.

The workshop brought together experts from the African Union Commission (AUC), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) United Nations Development Program (UNDP), National Governance Councils (NGCs), African Union (AU) member states, academia and civil society, Youth Representatives and representatives of Women and People with Disabilities.