The refugee crisis in Africa was a major obstacle to sustainable development and needed to be urgently addressed in order for gains to be made in poverty alleviation on the continent.

Mukarwego Athanasie knows what it is like to be used as a weapon of war. “I am a victim of rape that was used as a weapon during the war in Rwanda,” she says. As part of their campaign of terror, HIV infected soldiers would rape whole villages of women to spread the virus amongst the civilian population.

Africa faced enormous electricity supply problems in both urban and rural areas, with a large portion of the population relying on paraffin as the principle source of fuel in rural areas, and the lack of electricity exacerbating conditions of poverty.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) endorsed the free trade agenda of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund while failing to acknowledge how harmful these policies had been for Africa. In addition, the plan to boost Africa's position on the world stage was flawed because it had failed to consult Africa's people about the best way to uplift the continent.