By JUDITH NAMUTOWE in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia –
BANK of Zambia (BoZ) deputy governor Bwalya Ngandu has urged African countries to adopt strong  fiscal and monetary policies to foster macro-economic stability on the continent.
And Dr Ngandu has called for a strong alignment of fiscal and monetary policy to enable countries position their economies to withstand the shocks of falling commodity prices.
He said embracing strong macro-economic policies would help keep Africa’s economies more resilient amidst the global economic meltdown.
Dr Ngandu said this during a Caucus of African Central Bank Governors on the topic dubbed ‘Monetary and exchange rate policy and debt sustainability amidst global economic slowdown’ on the sidelines
of the African Development Week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
According to the continent’s central bank governors, the need to align Africa’s fiscal policies with monetary policy was critical to achieve all economic indicators in a sustainable manner.
They called on Finance ministers to come up with fiscal policies that would help address the negative impact of falling international commodity prices.
Commodity prices have been falling in global markets, thus slowing down economic growth rate levels on the continent.
A deteriorating external environment has led the World Bank to revise down its global and regional growth forecasts for 2016.
The growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa was 3.4 per cent in 2015, down from 4.6 per cent in 2014, mainly due to the region’s reliance on fuel, minerals, metals and agricultural commodities.
According to Dr Ngandu, strong fiscal and monetary policies would help protect economies from the global economic spillover.
“Our central banks should work with all stakeholders in ensuring that more ways to address the challenges of falling commodity prices are brought onto the table,” Dr Ngandu said.
Former Central Bank of Kenya  governor Njuguna Ndungu called for strong policy dialogues  and a continuous  assessment of the global economic developments  and their impact on Africa’s macro- economic indicators.
He said that evaluating the short-term responses was critical to addressing the volatility resulting from the commodity price decline and other global economic shocks.