• Health, energy, food security top agenda at Arab-Africa summit
AS the third Arab-African Summit opens today in Kuwait, Africa is pushing a campaign to its international partners for the development of the continent.
The continent says it is no longer keen on aid as a means of development. Instead, it wants investors to take advantage of the huge potential in the region as a more much sustainable driver of economic growth. And this time around, the leaders of the continent say they want to determine the sector where such investments would be channelled.
Taking this position is the African Union Commission (AUC), which is leading the continent’s participation at the summit. With the theme “Partners in development and investment”, the summit will concentrate on action-oriented programmes in the areas of health, energy, food security, investment, education, among others.
And realising that governments across the continent have not done too well in managing electricity utilities, the regional body is championing a paradigm shift to the Public Private Partnership (PPP) module in the provision of efficient electricity for its population.
At an investment symposium preparatory to Tuesday’s meeting, Chief of Staff, Bureau of the Chairperson at the AUC, Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Natama, stressed how electricity was a key component of the new era of investment drive for the region.
He said: “Africa is not calling for aid. We are calling for investment in the continent. We have natural resources; we are blessed with one-third of the natural mineral resources in the world. We are blessed with one-third of the energy potential in the world. We have 60 per cent of the arable land available to date.
“We are not calling for aid. Something may have gone wrong in the past in terms of providing aid to the continent, especially when those providing the aid are those who are trying to provide the priorities for the continent. This time, we want to identify our priorities and call for investment in these priorities. We have the resources. We don’t want anybody to dictate to us.”
In an interview with The Guardian on the sidelines of the investment symposium, Natama said the commission was leading a paradigm shift from government-owned electricity utilities, to those run and operated jointly with the private sector.
“This electricity issue is very important to us at this time. We are calling for investment in the area of energy, to make sure that this potential is taken advantage of in providing the continent with the necessary electricity capacity that we need, not only for us, but also for the rest of the world,” he noted.
He said a partnership with the private sector and government was one key way of taking advantage of the continent’s huge solar, gas and water resources for electricity generation.
His words: “We are now moving towards a change of paradigm. In many African countries now, we are building public private partnerships. This idea of building partnerships between the private sector and government is increasing. We do hope that in the next few years, we will be able to achieve the condition of regime, real partnership between private sector and public sector and also with the civil society organisation of the continent. It should not be the responsibility of one stakeholder. It should involve all the stakeholders, creating a synergy of action for the development of the continent.”
In a presentation earlier at the symposium, he stressed the need for the continent to build on infrastructure gaps as a deliberate way to enhance opportunities for investment, from the private sector and public-private partnerships.
“Private sector is essential and could mobilise financial resources, help fill the gap towards sustainable infrastructure development, and above all, promote a more inclusive growth that can be translated into effective poverty reduction,” he noted.
According to him, for Africa to attract investment and record solid growth rates on a sustainable basis, appropriate macro-economic policies are being formulated and implemented.
He went on: “There is also proper economic government to ensure that macro-economic fundamentals are right for economies to perform well.
“Among other things, trade and financial markets have been liberalised in many African countries, the number of days it takes to process business permits and licences has been reduced, a number of state-owned entities have been privatised to improve efficiency and competitiveness, and a number of countries are investing more in infrastructure development. Issues relating to
controlling inflation, adopting appropriate exchange rate regimes, setting optimal interest rates and management of other economic variables have resulted in the adoption of appropriate fiscal and monetary policies in many of the African countries. These measures have contributed to improved competitiveness, high economic growth rates, and increased job creation.”
Vice President Namadi Sambo arrived on Sunday and he was joined by about 43 leaders to attend the summit.
On why the focus would be on Africa, Chairman of DirectAid, a Kuwait-based international development organisation, Dr. Abdul Rahman Al Mohallan, stressed that despite the perception that sub-Saharan Africa was a difficult region to do business, there were actually several countries on the continent where the risks of doing business were actually much lower than in comparable parts of the world.
“About 2,000 companies operating in the region have received over $214 billion. The World Bank is expecting an investment of $150 billion in 10 years’ time in infrastructure,” he noted.
Source: Guardian
