Sudanese Business laureate and founder of the Mo Ibrahim foundation, Dr. Mo Ibrahim has called on African leaders to work assiduously towards a vibrant Regional Economic integration as a means of competing with Western Economies.
According to Dr. Ibrahim until Africans join economic forces and propel the free movement of goods, people and services across the African borders there is no way the continent can make any headway in its quest to compete with the west.
He was delivering a lecture at the Great hall of the University of Ghana on Friday, March 12 on the theme “Taking Responsibility – how can we fix the mess that the African Continent is in?”
The Mo Ibrahim foundation, established in 2006, aims to, among other things, support great African leadership; stimulate debate on good governance to provide criteria by which citizens and civil society can hold their governments to account.
The foundation also recognizes and celebrates former African leaders for excellence and for positively impacting the lives of their citizens.
Delivering the speech to participants in the packed auditorium, Dr. Mo Ibrahim, identified four areas, his foundation believes Africans should focus on in order to get the continent out of its current “mess”: Regional Economic Integration, Agriculture, Climate and People.
On Regional Economic integration, he entreated African leaders to take a cue from the Europeans who, in spite of their large economies, saw the need to form the European Union as a competitive tool against larger economies like the United States, China and India.
“We have to understand that we live in a world where if you don’t have the skill you are a dead meat. Think about why those smart Europeans are doing what they are doing. Germans, French, British – those guys are not really friendly with each other...yet they go and form this European Union - why? ...The Indians are coming, Chinese are coming, the United States of America – no European Country has the skill to compete. They need to come together to compete, that’s why they decided they must have free movement of goods, of people, of capital, of services and form one block. They negotiate any forum, any trade deal as one block so that they have a way they can look after their people.”
If the Europeans, with all the hostilities towards each other have found it imperative to come together to compete against the west, Dr. Ibrahim wondered, how, with a total population less than three quarters that of India, Africans, can compete individually with China, India and the USA.
“That will not work, Many African countries really haven’t got the skill...many African countries have problems, how are we going to develop with no skill...so the economic integration for us is a must. The German economy alone is two and a half times bigger than the total economies of the 53 African countries and if they still think they have to build that coalition to have that economic integration in Europe for them to survive, then one of us is stupid. Either the Germans are stupid or we are stupid.” He teased.
Dr. Ibrahim implored again on African leaders to build African infrastructure, generate power in the most effective manner and give priority to all projects which are cross country based.
This he says “is the cost effective way of doing things.”
With over 70% of Africans tilting the land, Dr. Ibrahim said further that it is unacceptable for Africans to go hungry and strive for food.
He chided African leaders for failing to execute their resolve to allocate 10% of their resources to the Agric sector as they promised in a Maputo meeting in 2003.
“After 7 years, only 7 presidents lived up to their word to allocate 10% of their budget to 70% of their people. What sort of governance is that?...We need to feed our people, we have the land, we have water, there is no reason for food to rot here and people are dying here because we don’t have roads, we don’t have trucks...whatever the reason is we need to sort it out.” He stressed.
The third area of importance to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation is the issue of Climate Change.
Dr. Ibrahim opined that Africans being the most threatened people on earth by climate change must learn how to discuss the issue and make a strong case on the matter for the continent.
“We need to learn to speak to one African voice, then people can listen. You try to speak as Ghana, who cares; you try to speak as Sudan, who cares? But you speak as Africa and people will listen. We have to understand this importance of us Africans really coming together and raise the right issues for us.” He said.
On the empowerment of people, Dr. Ibrahim called on African leaders to make the education of their people a major priority on their developmental agenda.
“We need a really educated new generation of people who will come forward and do the things we failed to deliver.”
The lecture brought together several civil society groups, experts and advocates for Africa’s development including Irish pop Singer Bono and his group ‘ONE’ which campaigned to get western countries to cancel some of Africa’s debt.
Also present was the former CEO of Yahoo, Terry Semel and other Ghanaian Governance experts including, Professor Gyimah Boadi of CDD, Anna Bossman, Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Keli Gadzekpo of Databank, among others.
Source: Citifmonline
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