Contact		- Add to Favorites		Comment - Bottom of article
TWRToday Facebook & TWRToday Myspace accounts.
TWRToday Supports These Sites: Bambooo - Genesis Radio - Ligali

Looking beyond the crisis: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa

My take on the lecture by Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing director of the World Bank.

Attending the lecture by Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Managing director of the World Bank was really interesting as over the years I have spoken immensely about Africa’s financial situation, now I was about to hear about Africa’s economical factors from someone who can be no more qualified than the managing director of the world bank.

My baby subject is business and Investment so when I found out about that the managing director of the world bank was going to do a lecture on ‘Looking beyond the crisis: The Challenges and Opportunities for Africa’ I couldn’t turn this opportunity down, like I did the house of commons when I was invited earlier this year and did not go.

Firstly Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala seemed very knowledgeable on the topic, however at the same time I am happy to say that she is jovial and down to earth, breaking down every single detail of Africa’s Challenges and Opportunities, even coming up with new factors that many wouldn’t have thought.

Forgetting the sad stories associated with the African continent for a minute, Dr Ngozi commenced by stating the fact that ‘Africa made remarkable progress as growth rates went up from 1995-2007 prior to the global crisis we are now experiencing. Dr Ngozi mentioned the different crisis’s that hit Africa such as the food crisis, fuel crisis and the fertilizer crisis. Dr Ngozi explained the correlation between the price of food and the price of oil. If the price of oil goes up, the price of food would also increase as bio-fuels were very influential in hitching the price of food to the price of gasoline and increasing them.  As a result the price of food is now unpredictable, similar to how we see the price of oil fluctuates.  The price of oil is the only commodity that remains volatile, one not knowing when the price will change, whether it will go up or down or remain stable.

Apart from South Africa’s, Nigeria and Kenya, Africa was not so much affected by the financial crisis as most of the continent did not have strong financial ties to industrial countries.

Job losses

In the transcript of the lecture, it is reported that the Democratic Republic of Congo lost 200,000 jobs, Zambia 10,000 in the mining sector and Cameroon lost 1500 jobs in wood manufacturing. Creating jobs in Africa was a major talking point for the World Bank leader.

The seven Challenges

Dr Ngozi came up with some challenges that the continent faces today, some were obvious, the others were a little less transparent.  She broke down the seven challenges, which actually took a lot of time.  The seven challenges are:

1. Sharpening the role of government
2. Keeping public debt on a sustainable path
3. Managing volatility
4. Fighting corruption
5. Promoting political stability and harmony
6. Dealing with climate change
7. Accelerating growth

All these topics were touched on with less emphasis on the obvious factor, Fighting Corruption. Dr Ngozi gave a speech which was quite refreshing as she not only spoke about the challenges that Africa face, she also explained the opportunities the continent now has. These opportunities are:

1. Promoting labour intensive manufacturing
2. Raising agricultural production and productivity
3. Seeing Climate change as an opportunity
4. Recovering public assets stolen by corrupt officials, which could serve as a valuable source of development finance.  On this opportunity, Dr Ngozi spoke about Swiss Banks and facilities that are now being put into place to halt and seize money laundering I.e. money stolen from the continent.

In the question and answer section, a member of the audience asked a very potent question: Where will the retrieved money be taken to? Back to the same ones that stole it in the first place? Dr Ngozi strongly denied this and spoke about the independent bodies being set up to combat and take stolen money back from corrupt officials and bring it back to the continent which could help with further development.

I could go through each challenge and opportunity with you but I believe it would be a waste of my time and energy depending on your interest on the topic. Please go to the London School of Economics website (www.lse.ac.uk) and read the whole transcript if you wish to do so.

I mentioned earlier that Dr Ngozi was jovial right? One startling fact that she mentioned that actually made me laugh is when she said that African garments and textiles are being made in China and sold to Africans.  This lead to further talk on China and India’s involvement and never ending interest in Africa and how Africa should only trade with China or any foreign investor only on their (Africa’s) terms.  This was a direct answer to a question asked by a journalist who correctly highlighted foreign investors in Africa and does morally despicable acts such as give arms to governments as part of investment deals. A good example of this is China’s investment in the Sudan which shows how detrimental some foreign investors can be as they can contribute to political and social instability.  Such investment will prevent growth and promote instability wherever it goes on the continent.

I enjoyed the lecture and hope there can be more like this as the more we talk about topics like this, people would realise that it is not that foreign and they can get involved and help to promote growth on the content. The lecture was very informative, given with a very open and intelligent mind, which is also constructive in finding ways of solving Africa’s problems not just by highlighting them but by providing possible answers.