The African Transformation Forum ended in Kigali yesterday on 15 March 2016 on a high note with the launch of the Coalition for Transformation in Africa – a new leadership network organized in chapters, each addressing a specific thematic area.
These chapters – and the policy makers, business leaders and development partners who will constitute their membership – will examine and develop implementable solutions for development as a new channel to help transform the continent.
According to the new initiative, the African Center for Economic Transformation will serve as the Secretariat for the Coalition, building consensus, coordinating activities and assisting the membership in securing funding to support their agreed initiatives. The chapters will also report their progress at subsequent African Transformation Forums.
The coalition will be championed by governments, private sector, academicians, development partners, civil society organizations and public-private partnership from different countries. The Coalition will facilitate the implementation of the African transformation agenda.
The limited resources and lack of political will was highlighted as among the critical hindrances that continues to hamper the continent making it harder to compete at the global landscape in areas like exports, investments, job creation as well as technological advancement.
Some of the chapters embedded in the Coalition include, spearheading regional integration, financial inclusion, Agricultural sector, manufacturing, skills and youth empowerment as well as local content and value addition.
While launching the Coalition, Dr. Kingsley Y. Amoako the founder and president of Africa Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) highlighted that the new initiative was imperative since it would create enough space for countries to share experiences and discuss how best the continent can be transformed economically.
He mentioned that since 2000, ACET has been advocating for a paradigm shift on African’s development, a call for African economies to go beyond growth to transform.
However, while addressing the Forum, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said that lack of political will among the African governments was the major challenge that hampers the economic growth not limited resources and other factors that are always highlighted.
“First, transformational change happens at the level of mindsets. This was certainly true for rebuilding our national unity. But it is valid for creating prosperity as well. This challenge is not technical; it is political and social because it is about people. A mindset of urgency, ownership, responsibility, and service as well as quite frankly the mindset of money-making and long-term investing,” he said.
President Kagame further noted “Citizens bear most of the risk of transformation. They have to be included in the decisions and understand the benefits because success comes from what they do every day. We all want a prosperous, stable, and equitable Africa. And we want it as soon as possible. Period. This contrasts so radically with the African past and present that we rightly speak of the need for transformation in the real sense.”
The Rwandan leader further observed that governments often must lead, catalyse, support, and invest by bringing together partners to fix market failures and mitigate risk.
“Examples in Rwanda include our growing conference and events infrastructure, as well as our provision of broadband internet and our laptop production partnership with Positivo BGH. But ideally this should be done using conducive economic incentives and logic rather than trying to produce and implement directly,” he said.
The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) Executive Secretary, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, who was among the discussants on the topic “Implementing National Transformation Strategies”, had a day earlier said that that political will was another essential factor to accelerate economic transformation on the continent.
The Forum ended with participants agreeing to renew the momentum in terms of seeking permanent solutions for all economic challenges that are currently besieging the continent.
Working together by strengthening the partnership, investing highly in research and capacity building, promoting intra-regional trade and coming up with new mechanisms to boost domestic resource mobilization to fund African developmental projects are among the factors highlighted as key to drive the economic transformation in Africa.
