Our Future Should Be Made In Africa

Republic of South Africa Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was elected as the African Union Commission Chair at the Summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on July 15-16, 2012. She is the first woman and Southern African to be elected to the post., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Our future should be made in Africa

Thursday, 06 June 2013 00:00
Ozwald Boateng

Just a decade ago or so, The Economist called it “The Hopeless Continent”. It damned Sierra Leone as an exemplar for the continent’s fortunes, writing in their own good style: “Sierra Leone manifests all the continent’s worst characteristics. It is an extreme, but not untypical, example of a state with all the epiphenomena and none of the institutions
of government.

It has poverty and disease in abundance, and riches too: its diamonds sustain the rebels who terrorise the place. It is unusual only in its brutality: rape, cannibalism and amputation have been common, with children often among the victims . . . In itself, Sierra Leone is of no great importance. If it makes any demands on the world’s attention, beyond the simple one of sympathy for its people, it is as a symbol for Africa.”

By 2012, its peace enshrined, the IMF had estimated that with GDP growth of 35 percent, Sierra Leone had the fastest growing economy in the world. And now an analysis by The Economist reveals that over the 10 years to 2010, six of the world’s fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa. On IMF forecasts, Africa will grab seven of the top 10 places over the next five years (Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria).

Libya will also return to being a powerhouse in Africa, as stability returns to the region. Over the past decade the simple unweighted average of countries’ growth rates was virtually identical in Africa and Asia. Over the next five years Africa is likely to take the lead. In other words, the average African economy will outpace its Asian counterpart.

Undeniably, not every country in Africa is at peace. There are still open wounds lingering, particularly in the former Francophone colonies that still need to be healed, have absolute freedom of destiny returned and their coffers replenished. Some of our children are still hungry, some of our people sick and dying without care. Such ills must be cured.

But I see a hope everywhere. Hope that is growing stronger. The four horsemen of apocalyptical prediction are in retreat. And a promise is being fulfilled that this cradle of humanity is stepping from the yoke of servitude, neglect and abuse to take its place alongside all others as mankind’s first-born.

It is fitting, therefore, that the African Union (AU), has launched year-long Golden Jubilee celebrations under the theme Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance to honour an organisation that was set up to promote unity and solidarity among African countries and to act as a collective voice in the fight against colonialism and apartheid, as well as build economic growth. But post-liberation, the OAU blew with the weather of Africa; a victim of cronyism and corruption, humbled and manipulated by external powers. Its successor, the AU, is now under a new chairperson, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the first woman to lead the AU Commission in the AU’s 10-year history.

Under her, and moving forward from 2013 onwards, I believe it is Africa’s opportunity to bask and develop in the sunshine of the current surge of optimistic hope and growth, which many are calling Africa’s rebirth. Also this year, it is the 50th anniversary of the August 4 1963 accord of the founding nations that formed the African Development Bank (AfDB).

And in a stunning initiative, led by Donald Kaberuka, its president, the 52 nations of the African Union and Morocco will be asked to find a common economic will for the good of all and pledge 5 percent of their foreign reserves which are presently supporting Western economies and instead use them to bolster a $22bn finance facility to propel Africa into the 21st century and beyond.

This facility will be of a size capable of ensuring that the infrastructure projects — roads, railways, ports, clean water, abundant electricity and wireless connectivity — necessary for the renaissance of Africa occur. In the main, these will be the large regional integration projects contained in the AU-approved Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA). The PIDA priority action plan requires a $68bn investment.

I would urge that the $22bn facility from our African nations acts as a partial guarantee of this requirement. Such a guarantee will ensure that African growth is seen globally to be supported by Africans rather than by well-meaning donors. And it will ensure that the money will be raised freely from the international capital markets, unfettered by the sometimes patronising moral demands or unrealistic burdens upon our natural resources which are all too common a feature in our present negotiations; a burden that lies not just upon us but indentures future generations.

China, Russia, Brazil and India all have five-year infrastructure plans requiring investment of over $200bn. It is commonly said that the richest man in history was the African king, Mansa Musa, with a fortune that would be valued today at $400bn. Looking at Africa’s potential wealth this should come as no surprise. Mansa Musa ruled West Africa’s Malian empire in the early 1300s, making his fortune by exploiting his country’s salt and gold production.

Many of the mosques he built stand today and the education and literacy that he brought to his capital, Timbuktu, resonate still. It is a fitting example to the great African entrepreneurs emerging in our age, who have also set up foundations to aid and stimulate growth in Africa; an appreciation of communal responsibility that sets our philanthropic billionaires apart.

But desire is not enough. We must also construct a plan.

In 2011, we set up a foundation, the Made In Africa Foundation, with Nigerian businessman Kola Aluko and with the generous support of Atlantic Energy. The purpose was to support and fund feasibility studies, preparation materials and master-plans for transformational and large-scale developments and infrastructure projects across the African continent.

We set ourselves the task of raising $400m and both the AfDB and the World Bank agree that this pivotal sum would be sufficient to provide bankable, investable studies to get the priority action plans of PIDA on the road. Lamentably, only 10 percent of Africa’s trade is within the continent; anyone trying to fly from Marrakech to Harare (a trip that requires at least two stops including either London, Paris or Dubai) understands the reason why.

With proper master-planning of the continent, Africa’s present lack of infrastructure shall be an advantage as it means that the most efficient routes, the cleanest energy and the greatest benefit to both agricultural value chains and the fast-growing African cities can be secured. Already, Africa is the leader in usage of mobile financial transaction technology through M-PESA.

The efficiency that this and similar innovations will eventually create will spread to loans, insurance, mortgages and retail transactions, working in tandem with banks to create a private response to the woefully expensive and mispriced cost of debt and risk on the continent.

— New African.