OBJECTIVES OF THE AFRICA COMMISSION

Africa has seen many positive developments and experienced progress in several areas in the past decade, primarily thanks to Africa's own efforts and reforms.
In recent years, Africa has achieved growth rates of 4-6 per cent. This is, among other things, due to better raw material prices (oil, minerals, and agricultural products) and increased demand for such items. Furthermore, there are also clear signs of improvement in governance. The business environment is improving. Many countries are taking steps to combat corruption. The public authorities in many places have improved.

Despite these and many other positive examples, Africa faces considerable challenges in the next couple of years, and development must be accelerated further. In a global context, Africa has largely been left behind in the area of economic growth, which is a prerequisite for solving many of the still existing challenges.
The UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty will not be reached in Africa. The same applies to a number of the other MDGs. There is a need to revitalize the efforts in a large number of areas, whilst it is also important to view efforts to find best practices in all areas of society.

The Danish Government has therefore actively been seeking to put economic growth and employment in Africa higher on the international agenda. As a consequence an international, high level Africa Commission focusing on Effective Development Cooperation with Africa has been established.

The aim of the Commission is to present new and creative strategies to revitalize and strengthen international development cooperation with Africa.

It is the ambition that the strategies will rejuvenate the political willingness to improve the effectiveness of international development cooperation with Africa to the benefit of its people.