African leaders to discuss regional integration and growth

African government and business leaders as well as experts are to meet in Johannesburg for three days from tomorrow to discuss regional integration and its role in boosting growth and human well being on the continent.

Africa is said to be the fastest growing continent at the moment but some critics are questioning whether this growth is real or illusory.

A recent study of 34 African countries by Afrobarometer showed that there was little evidence of a systematic reduction in lived poverty in the 16 countries that the organization had surveyed for the past decade though there had been average growth of 4.8 percent.

There were, however, reductions in poverty in five countries-Cape Verde, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. But there were increases in another five countries- Botswana, Mali, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.

African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka said the gathering should do more than restate the case for regional integration. It should examine how to push the African continent to the next level, to become a global growth pole in its own right.

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