BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 13. Investing in development is essential to preventing global instability, European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jozef Síkela said during remarks at the Munich Security Conference, Trend reports.
The commissioner warned that development budgets are shrinking while the financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals stands at $4 trillion. He noted that total global development funding amounts to roughly $200 billion, with Europe contributing about 43%, or more than $90 billion.
Síkela highlighted the structural economic vulnerabilities, especially in Africa, where the manufacturing index lingers below 2%. In contrast, Asia boasts around 30%, while Europe and the United States range between 15–17% and 15–16%, respectively.
"Only in Africa, we will welcome 50 up to 60 million newcomers to the labor market in the next five years. Globally, in the developing countries, we will see a need for jobs for the young generation entering the work or productive age, 1.2 billion people. If we follow the current trajectory of job creation, we are able to create only 400 million jobs within the next 10-15 years. So only one third of the jobs are needed," he said.
To address the shortfall, Síkela called for a shift in focus toward practical measures that generate employment and value locally.
"We need to focus more on things that are really working, like job creation and value-added creation on the soil of the countries," he said.
He also emphasized the need to mobilize private capital.
"The second thing is basically to catalyze private investments because there will never ever be enough public money. So we can simply help by blending the products, by making the countries more investment-friendly, and by de-risking with proper financial tools for more private investments in the developing countries," he said.
Finally, Síkela underlined the importance of strengthening domestic revenue systems in developing nations.
"The third one is to help them to mobilize their own income generation. To help them produce more money with their own economy by tax reforms, which will help to create like a very basic like social nest," he concluded.
Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel