(Business in Cameroon) - During the Spring Meetings of the Bretton Woods Institutions, Alamine Ousmane Mey, Cameroon's Minister of Economy (Minepat), who also chairs the African Consultative Groups (ACGs) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group, pleaded for more investments into the private sector in Africa.

"With the help of the World Bank Group and other development partners, client countries have identified several employment triggers, including tourism, agribusiness, and commercial agriculture, light industry such as textiles and clothing as well as petrochemicals. It would be appropriate to encourage countries to undertake further reforms and to encourage them to make a great leap forward for their development," said Alamine Ousmane Mey.

According to the Cameroonian official, the private sector can prosper if the IMF and the World Bank effectively play their scouting and catalytic role in attracting massive, high-impact investments in Africa. "The rhetoric around the lack of promoters and fragmentation of projects in Africa needs to be deconstructed so that once we turn our back on Covid-19, as we hope, we will enter a new decade in which global supply chains could be reshaped," the Cameroonian Minister of Economy added.

Estimated at more than $100 billion a year, Africa's glaring infrastructure deficit is hampering the continent's economic transformation, dimming its development prospects and limiting its ability to provide jobs for its large youth population, reduce fragility and discourage emigration, according to Mr. Mey.

"Faced with heavy budgetary pressures, and in addition to the impacts to be managed in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, the public sector will not be sufficient to solve these problems, making the role of the private sector even more critical," the Minepat argues.

S.A.