Public Forum

African Development
in the 21st Century

16 October 1998
3 F International Conference Hall, United Nations University Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan

Honoruable Minister Chilumpha, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

With great pleasure I welcome you all to the United Nations University for this Public Forum on "African Development in the 21^st Century".

Let me begin by thanking all the experts who accepted our invitation to speak at this forum. We have indeed a very distinguished group of speakers here today. We are certain to benefit from the wealth of experience on African development you will bring to our discussions.

In particular I would like also to thank our partners in this activity - the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). We believe AERC is the best research institutions on economic issues in Africa. The Executive Director - Dr. Delphin Rwegasira – will be co-chairing the meeting with me today.

We are steadily developing a most fruitful partnership with the AERC. We collaborated on work that compared the development experiences of Asia and Africa. In particular we worked very closely together on a conference in early August this year which focused on Asia and Africa in the Global Economy. We are also working on a common project on Institutions and Development in Africa – a workshop on this topic was held over the last two days. And indeed we are planning further cooperation in the future.

I would also like to specifically thank the Government of Japan - the host country of the UNU Center. African development is one of the areas in which we are working most closely together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As you will know, next week the Second Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD II) will be held in Tokyo. The UNU is set to make a presentation at TICAD II and we intend to take some of the key points raised here today to the TICAD II plenary. I would like to thank the Ministry for their on-going co-operation in this as well as in all the other areas where we are working together.

Finally, I would also like to thank all the people who accepted our invitation to be here today. We have drawn a very high level group – from the Japanese political, academic and business spheres, from the press as well as from the international community based in Tokyo.

The topic of this public forum – "African development in the 21^st Century" - is a very important one and most opportune as you may agree.

The weak performance of most of Africa’s economies over the past three decades has had tragic consequences for the people of the continent. However, there appears to have been a revival in recent years. A particularly positive aspect is that the growth has been widespread – a large and increasing number of countries have posted improved growth performance. As the turn of the century approached people are increasingly and hopefully asking - has Africa turned the corner?

The key questions we are addressing here today is how can this recovery be sustained? and how can Africa develop more quickly in the 21^st Century?

This is the second time this year we have had a major public forum in Tokyo on African Development.

Earlier this year His Excellency Thabo Mbeki, Deputy President of South Africa, gave a lecture at UNU on " The African Renaissance". It was a fascinating lecture and discussion and we have distributed a copy of it to everyone here today. Mr. Mbeki started off by quoting the Latin Expression "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi!" (Something new always comes out of Africa).

It is in that spirit that we have organised the forum today. We have as speakers and panelists some of the leading thinkers and policymakers from the region. We wanted to provide the rare opportunity for policy-makers and researchers from Africa to speak in Japan. I am sure we will get insights in some of the key areas for African development in the 21^st Century.

As a background, I would like to draw out four ongoing themes from UNU work on Africa.

1. The Human and Economic Costs of Armed Conflict - One of the most acute problems facing Africa is war and instability. After a few years of relative peace, the re-emergence of armed conflict in West Africa, Central Africa and the Horn of Africa amply demonstrates that peace and stability in the region is still very fragile. Conflicts take a tremendous toll in human lives. Conflicts also impose very large costs on the economies of Africa and nullify domestic and international efforts at promoting growth.

Promoting the basic foundations of peace and stability should be given the highest priority within the region and by international partners as we enter the 21^st Century. First, there is a need for more effective mechanisms to stabilize the region once conflicts erupt. Second, there is also need to highlight the fact that conflict partly stems from the lack of development. Our economics research institute in Finland - UNU/WIDER - has done some very interesting work on the economic factors responsible for complex humanitarian emergencies. The study of Toni Addison, Raymo Vaysinen, and Frances Stewart among others, identifies four sets of factors:

• stagnation and protracted decline in incomes,
• unequal growth,
• rapid population growth accompanied by substantial environmental degradation, and
• large and abrupt shifts in income and wealth distribution during adjustment and liberalization programmes.

The strategies of elites to maintain or expand power, in the midst of adverse economic changes and mass reaction to these changes, are instrumental in determining the potential for humanitarian disasters.

2. Agriculture Development

The second issue I would like to mention is the vital need to develop agriculture. This is very appropriate, incidentally, since today, 16 October, is World Food Day.

It is important to highlight just how important this sector is in Africa. The agricultural sector accounts for about 30 to 60 percent of GDP and provides employment to the range of 60 to 70 percent of Africa’s labour force. In most African countries, smallholder and subsistence farmers account for about 50 percent of total agricultural output. In the early 1960s, just after Independence, Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania said "While some people aim for the moon we must aim for the villages". This remains the key challenge today as then for many countries in Africa.

All developed and ‘successful’ developing regions experienced some kind of agricultural revolution before their ‘take off’. It is doubtful that without an ‘agricultural revolution’ any sustainable development can be set into motion in the region. In Africa, the agricultural productivity problem remains unresolved, and may be getting worse. Policy-makers in the region and international organizations need to emphasize much more forcefully the policies and measures needed to help / encourage small farmers to become the future ‘engine of growth’ of SSA.

This issue is also at the heart of UNU work on Africa. Our own institute in Accra, Ghana, the UNU/Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (INRA), focuses on the continent’s urgent need to achieve sustainable use of its rich natural resources. The Director of UNU/INRA, Dr. Uzo Mokwunye, is on the panel for the next session and can provide more detail on this issue.

3. Globalisation and Africa

So too the economic performance of African countries in years to come will depend in no small amount on the success with which they can integrate with the global economy.

Over the last two years the UNU and the AERC have put a lot of effort into looking closely at the issue of globalisation. We have tried to identify how African governments can strengthen their participation in the global economy – and do so in ways that bring widespread and sustainable benefits to their peoples.

The rationale for this work stems from two issues. First, the forces of globalization are perhaps the most important factors that affect the current environment for economic development. Globalisation provides great opportunities for developing countries to grow rapidly. It also provides major challenges, even threats sometimes. Second, there are lessons from Southeast Asian experiences that policy-makers in sub-Saharan Africa could adapt to their own contexts. These lessons stem both from Southeast Asia’s era of rapid growth as well as from the current economic crisis.

The detailed findings of this work are in a policy brief we have produced on "Strengthening Africa’s Participation in the Global Economy". We have also distributed this document to everyone here today. Ernest Aryeetey from the University of Ghana will be making a presentation on the key findings just after lunch.

The topic for the final session today – the state in Africa - is likely to be one of the most interesting and controversial. The state is today the most demonized institution in Africa. It is criticised from all sides – for its weaknesses, its over-extension, its interference with the functioning of the markets, its repressive character and its dependence on foreign powers. Reducing the role of the state has been a key part of the Bretton Woods Institutions’ approach to the region.

However, history tells us the state is a cornerstone of development strategies. There is a real need to take a balanced view of the state in Africa; to realize that the state is part of the solution not just the problem. One of the key challenges for the 21^st Century is to identify ways and start to revitalize the state in Africa. In that context it will be crucial to develop innovative strategies of democracy and power sharing; to share with and care for all the different population groups.

Thandika Makandawire, the Director of the UN Research Institute for Social Development, possibly the leading African researcher on the state, will lead further discussion on this topic this afternoon.

Also in that panel, Beatrice Weder, will highlight the preliminary findings of a major survey UNU is currently carrying out on bureaucratic quality in Africa.

I would also like to highlight the great importance of further strengthening research institutions in Africa.

Development efforts require a wide range of policies and measures to facilitate economic and social change. Sound development management is more likely to happen when there exists an active, locally-based group of professional researchers and analysts who can conduct policy relevant research, examine various options and extract the key lessons of successful practices.

There is a substantial pool of research capability within Africa, actual and potential. If research capabilities could be utilised more effectively, there would be enormous benefits for the development of the region. However, research and training institutions in Africa are in a dire state. They can be characterised as having deteriorating physical infrastructure, poor staff morale, woefully inadequate research materials and inadequate funds for research.

A significant factor in explaining this is the lack of material resources. In particular, governments have cut back severely on funding of research partly as a response to structural adjustment. There is no doubt about the need for greater support of the academic infrastructure in Africa. Also, the links between researchers and policymakers are still very weak.

There are also a number of trends that point to an even greater role for research institutions.

First – within Africa – there seems to be increasing scope for researchers to participate in the policy-making process. There have been advances in political liberalisation and a rise in the technocracy. The development agenda is broadening significantly. There is also increasing emphasis attached to ownership.

Second, – the importance of 'knowledge' for development - not only capital - is increasingly emphasised. Access to knowledge is crucial to improving the living standards of the poor. In some ways, knowledge is more important than money as it can help to develop better institutions and spur more creative ideas.

Thomas Jefferson pointed out almost two centuries ago that "Knowledge is like a candle. Even as it lights a new candle, the strength of the original flame is not diminished." One person's use of knowledge does not diminish other people's ability to use knowledge.

This insight is particularly powerful at the present time given the amazing revolution in computer, information and communication technology technologies that is dramatically affecting the way we generate and distribute knowledge. These developments have far-reaching implications for the future of Africa. They create opportunities to lift millions of poverty. But, they may also create a widening knowledge gap, in which African countries lag further and further behind.

Research and training institutions have a central place in helping less developed countries to close the knowledge gap. They can help do this in three ways:

• First –by making the most of indigenous knowledge.
• Second – by adapting knowledge from abroad to suit local conditions.
• Third - by finding solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

This issue is at the heart of the UNU mission and we intend to strengthen our work on it in the future.

In addition to our research and capacity-building programmes, one initiative we are working on is an African Research Bank. This would be an Internet site of downloadable documents on key development issues generated primarily by researchers based in Africa. This is naturally in an early stage of development but over time we will develop it into a great store of knowledge. We hope this will provide a mechanism to help disseminate the work of African researchers more widely. We also hope that it will provide a resource for researchers interested in African development.

As outlined in the UNU Charter, our mission is to carry out scholarly work to help resolve pressing global problems, focusing in particular on developing countries. Our goals are twofold: to strengthen available capacities in developing countries to carry out high-quality and focused research and education; and to make scholarly and policy-relevant contributions to the work of the United Nations.

Trying to look for answers to the challenges of African development is naturally at the heart of the mission of the United Nations University. We try to fill the gap between long-term reflection and pressing global problems. We try to be a bridge between international organisations, national governments and civil society. And to do this, we bring together scholars, practitioners and policy-makers.

Currently, our academic activities are carried out from the UNU Center in Tokyo and by eight UNU research and training centres and programmes located in various parts of the world, as well as through our networks of associated existing institutions. I have already mentioned the work of two of these - UNU/ INRA and UNU/WIDER. But we do much more.

In terms of capacity building, the Center is responsible for the UNU’s Training and Fellowships Programme, which awards about a third of its fellowships to researchers from Africa. I just returned from Iceland where UNU maintains and develops with strong Icelandic support highly effective training programmes in geothermal energy and in fisheries which African fellows form a large majority. We also intend for the UNU Center to become a sort of "gateway" to Japan for African researchers.

I will say a brief word on the format for today’s discussion. I will be chairing the morning session and Dr Rwegasira will be Chairing the afternoon session. At the end of the day at 5:30 the panelists will be available at the front here for meeting the press.

After further welcoming remarks from Delphin Rwegasira, Executive Director of AERC, we will hand the floor over to Honourable Dr. Cassim Chilumpha Minister of Finance, Republic of Malawi. Dr Chilumpha will give a keynote speech for about 15 minutes on the topic of the Economic Management and Key Challenges for Africa in the 21^st Century. We will then have the panel discussion and then take rounds of questions from the floor.

I look forward to hearing about the outcomes of your discussions. I am sure they will inform and inspire the work of the United Nations University and the people of Japan.

I would now like to ask Dr Rwegasira to make his opening remarks. Dr Rwegasira is the Executive Director of the African Economic Research Consortium. Prior to that he worked as an adviser to the President of the African Development Bank.

Thank you very much.

Return to the previous page

Return to the UNU Homepage