African Resource Bank thinks for a 21st Century Africa- Part 1.

Last week, I was in Tanzania for the 5th African Resource Bank (ARB) meeting to help think and strategize Africa’s future with its contemporaries.

The ARB is an annual event that aims at promoting ideas that will enhance economic freedom and wealth creation in Africa. The past four brainstorming sessions focused on Building Africa through Trade, Property Rights in the African Context, Conquering Poverty in Africa through Business and Turning African People into a Resource.

The theme for the 5th Africa Resource Bank Meeting was ‘Positioning Africa in the 21st Century’. The event will brought together economists, academicians, policy makers, businessmen, farmers, think tanks and other organizations interested in Africa’s development. The event was for those who believe in Africa, the people of Africa and the power of market economics.

I was honoured to moderate a session on Africa's relationship with the West and its future and speak on Ghana's success in championing a responsible alcohol and taxation policy on alcoholic beverages.

My initial thoughts were that Africa's future was really unknown- Haven yet to take stock of its six decade long post-colonial relationship with the West; it has become comfortable prey to the Eastern giants, led unassailably by China. But then we know that China smiles at Africa with two faces. There is the danger of becoming subservient to China’s economic domination and being dumped after wards if our leaders do not understand how to engage China. Present indications give little hope.

We were later to hear why Africans are socialist in thinking but capitalist in practice as Mr. Thomas Adedayo of Free Africa Foundation, Nigeria craftily explained the disconnect between democracy as it exists in Africa and true liberalism, which releases the energies of a people to create wealth. Cato’s Tom Palmer's presentation on globalization was to me an enlightened approach to cultural dynamics within an increasingly ‘flat’ world. He allayed the fears often formented by some African leaders, such as former Tanzanian President Mkapa, that globalization is the final straw to completely destroy Africa after slavery and colonialism prepared the way.

Cato’s Marian Tupy dwelt on the false promise of the much hyped G8 summit in Gleaaneagles, 2005, for the simple reason that many Africans and Africanists thought it had the magic bullet to do away with Africa’s debts, ensure trade justice and double aid until 2010. While he agreed that forgiving debts was not a bad idea, he was worried about how gains from such policy could be utilized within Africa’s domestic economy given that grand official corruption accounts for 25 per cent of the continents GDP.

He agreed that trade should be completely free, but noted quite sadly that while Africa begs of the West to ease trade flows, it is its own enemy as the highest forms of trade barriers are within the continent. I thought how we could trade freely when leaders such as the Tanzanian representative on Tony Blair’s Africa Commission ignorantly claim that Ghanaians chocolate wouldn’t sell in Tanzania because Tanzanians do not eat chocolates.

Fred Nelson of Maliasili Initiatives in Tanzania gave an excellent overview of Tanzaina’s development trends and trajectories. Fred’s presentation exposed the leaky areas of the Tanzanian economy while proffering solutions for it to take off. I drew similarities with the Ghanaians economy as well as the entire continents economy, not least because the two economies have been touted by the World Bank as the fastest reforming in Africa.

My own friend, Chalres Khamala, Esquire, Advocate of the High Court of Kenya sought to make his presentation relevant to the theme of the session. His presentation was titled “Movies and rights: imitation as a means of transcending culture.” While he questioned the capacity of African movie and media industry to ensure that artistes benefit from their works, he was worried that without governmental intervention by way of finance, Africa’s movie industry would remain a shadow of the successful West, with consequences for its culture.

Finally Jasson Urbach of the Free Market Foundation in South Africa urged Africa not to stay agrarian, but diversity its economy and take advantage of the digital revolution. Africa is the fastest growing market for mobile phones as state-sponsored fixed line companies have naturally underperformed. Jasson thinks, and I agree with him, that rather than see the cell phone for instance as a play thing, it could be used for transacting varied businesses.
In my next post, I will speak on how I successfully negotiated with the Ghanaian to ease taxation on alcoholic beverages as well as lift a temporary ban on alcoholic beverage adverts.

All in all, Tanzania was good except I was trapped by female mosquitoes, got malaria and I’m still recuperating. Now this should be news, because the last time I had malaria was 7 years ago. Sounds like one shouldn’t mess around with mosquitoes in the East.