DIAMNIADIO, (Senegal): New International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva on Monday highlighted Africa as a lure for investment as she kicked off her maiden visit to the continent, but urged leaders to be smart on debt management.

Africa has made “tremendous improvements”, the IMF managing director said at a conference near the Senegalese capital Dakar on sustainability and debt.

“As a result, over the past two decades, extreme poverty levels have declined by one-third, life expectancy has increased by a fifth and real per capita income has grown by about 50 percent,” she said.

“We have not been able to communicate sufficiently Africa as an investment destination,” she added. “We have to dispel the perceived riskiness of investment in the region,” she said, emphasising that the key to this was “providing more up-to-date data.”

But she also pointed to Africa’s challenges, including demographic growth that would require up to 13 million new jobs each year, and the impact of climate change.

To increase social spending and to create the right conditions to attract investment requires money, and this raises the question of debt as a financing tool, she said.—AFP