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Regional integration of Africa and the meticulous implementation of policies are pivotal to the continent’s economic fortunes, said Paul Boateng, the former UK’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Mr Boateng, while speaking on Tuesday at the maiden edition of the Kuramo Conference on ‘Developing Economies: Rethinking the Present, Shaping the Future’, said Africa is “destined to become the continent of the present century,” but warned the continent’s political elite to embrace transparent democracy and service delivery. “African governments will not be able to escape the need to make some significant policy choices,” he said, “What is vital is that these choices should reflect African priorities – determined by African people in democratic dialogue with those they have freely chosen to lead them based on information freely and regularly available, through open and transparent institutions of governance.”

Harnessing existing resources

Though he would not absolve the western countries of complicity in Africa’s dilemma, he said Africa, by harnessing its existing resources, is capable of solving its problems. “Africa is not just about charity and aids, it has capacity to solve global problems,” he said. He, however, blamed the continent’s retrogression on political leaders for not propounding and implementing “sound policies.” “If the ‘tiger economies’ had focused only on primary education they would not be where they are today,” he said. “Bad policy by donors and global multi-lateral institutions was made worse by Africa’s political elites who themselves failed to either challenge those actions or present viable alternatives. They lacked the vision of their predecessors, missing opportunities to advance the welfare of their peoples and focusing instead on their own self aggrandisement and enrichment.”

Using his own childhood experience as “the grandson of a cocoa farmer” in Ghana, Mr Boateng recommended effective transport system and adequate funding of researches and the proactive application of research results. “My grandfather’s cocoa was the highest grade because he was the beneficiary of the best scientific research then available from the West African Cocoa Research Institute,” he said. “The cocoa was then transported by direct rail link and commanded the highest price and low transport cost. Unfortunately, Africa’s transport costs are the highest in the world. World Class Scientific Research Centres and Railway system no longer exist and this will surely hamper Africa’s future progress.”

Building a great city

Jesse Jackson, a former US Special Envoy for Africa, emphasised that Africa’s leaders “must have a passion for transparency and integrity,” while speaking on ‘Urban Citizenship – Rights and Obligation.’ Mr Jackson said great cities are built, not by the wealth and privileges of a few, but by the workers and fair wages. “We live in a world of globalized capital,” he said. “Now we must globalize human rights, workers rights, women’s rights, children rights and environmental security. Our tilted tax structure expands privileges for the top two per cent [of the population], thus [creating] a turbulent imbalance between the very rich and the very poor, imbalance in trade, major bank collapse without oversight and bailout without link to investment and lending. This calamity of errors and greed is bankrupting cities and states. Lagos, this is not the way to do it.”

Governor Fashola, the conference’s host, said he conceived Kuramo conference to be Africa’s voice on global issues. “The idea behind Kuramo is a response to my belief that at the turn of a new century and with globalization, a new legal order is imperative in order to make our world more inclusive and to secure it for the next generation,” he said, vowing that the conference will not end as a talk show. “The recommendations that will come out of this conference will be documented as the Kuramo Declaration and we shall immediately setup a committee which will work out the advocacy and implementation strategies.”