One month before this World Economic Forum on Africa, the Forum created an Africa Conversation blog and invited people around the world to contribute ideas and questions for a special session at the meeting in Cape Town. More than 50 comments were received via the site, e-mail, SMS, voicemail or videos uploaded to YouTube. Moderator Peter Sullivan, Group Editor-in-Chief, Independent Newspapers, South Africa, said most of the comments were from Nigeria.
Responding to a question concerning the recent Nigerian election, Debo Adesina, Editor and Deputy Managing Director, Guardian Newspapers, Nigeria, said no elections are perfect but the deeply flawed and "embarrassing" Nigerian poll was "totally unacceptable" as the people’s voice had been stolen. Leadership arising out of a stolen election is unlikely to feel any sense of accountability, he added.
Mo Ibrahim, Chairman, Mo Ibrahim Foundation; Chairman, Celtel International, United Kingdom, commented that the main problem in Africa is poor governance. His foundation is formulating a set of governance ethics benchmarks and will award a US$ 700,000 annual prize to the African leader deemed the most outstanding on the continent. "We need African heroes for the new generation," said Ibrahim.
Leslie W. Maasdorp, Vice-Chairman, Absa Capital and Barclays Capital, South Africa, agreed that good leadership needs to be encouraged and highlighted, but added that it is just as important to bolster civil society. Strong civil society structures are able to remove bad leaders. "When people have a voice, things happen."
A posting from Russia asked what benefits Africa can derive from international trade. Firmino Mucavele, Chief Executive, NEPAD Secretariat, South Africa, replied that the continent’s first priority is to grow intra-African trade and remove the high transaction costs between individual countries. "Even if an integrated global trade framework is not yet working properly, Africans should still be able to trade easily among themselves."
Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, US Department of State, USA, observed that the US government believes trade is the best way to grow economies out of poverty and this is the basis of the African Growth and Opportunity Act which grants over 6,000 African products duty-free entry into the US.
The theme of removing barriers between countries and developing greater regional cooperation – even creating more strongly integrated regional communities as a precursor to a "United States of Africa" – was repeatedly raised by panel members and floor participants throughout the session.
Baroness Lynda Chalker of Wallasey, Chairman, Africa Matters, United Kingdom, said Africa needs to "make more sense" of the multiplicity of regional trade groupings such as COMESA, SADC and ECOWAS, which create a "muddle of rules and regulations". "We need to improve the way customs work, which means a fight against corruption and counterfeit."
To illustrate cross-border movement barriers and corruption, one participant related an experience of travelling by road from Nigeria to Ghana, during which journey he was forced to pay export and import tariffs on personal possessions – "bought two years earlier" – at every one of the six border posts.
Richard Samans, Managing Director, Centre for Public-Private Partnerships, World Economic Forum, said it is encouraging that growth rates in Africa are rising steadily and are predicted to go as high as a "world-class" 7% in same places. However, other emerging market regions are developing at an even faster rate and the crucial issue for Africa is to mobilize and build capacity in order to remain competitive. The key to this is education – and particularly primary education of very young children. Samans is confident international donors will fulfil aid promises in this area if African governments are able to properly develop and implement early education strategies.
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