Cape Town – Africa’s attitude towards itself and how it interacts with the world has changed for the better, President Jacob Zuma said today at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa held in the city.
Speaking at the event’s main plenary session, Zuma said 50 years after the setting up of the Organisation for Africa Unity (OAU) – now known as the African Union - the continent stood at a precipice.
“If you take the 50 years since it was established, we are almost at a point of launching Africa into very great activities to achieve a prosperous continent,” he said.
He said Africa had to get to a stage where it was self-sufficient and could utilise its own resources to fund its own development needs, while being able to trade with the world on equal terms.
However, conflicts in Africa still stood in the way of development, and it was for this reason that South Africa and its fellow African states were working hard to rid the continent of conflict, he said.
“I think African leaders are saying, for the first time, ‘let us organise ourselves and let us talk to the kind of organisations that will respond positively and very effectively on what we think needs to be done to develop our continent’,” he said.
He said South Africa’s Brics membership represented an important turning point for Africa’s connectivity to the globe.
Referring to the Brics summit that took place in Durban in March, Zuma said: “I think Brics leadership found it very pleasing that Africa could say ‘here are specific projects that Africa is presenting to investors’.
“Our belief is that the membership of South Africa to Brics represents the one billion people on the continent of Africa,” he said, pointing to the number of African heads of state that attended the last Brics summit.
Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) also represented a broader and more organised movement of the South, he added.
Zuma said the Brics Development Bank would soon become a reality and that finance ministers from the five member countries were currently working on the technical details around setting up the development bank.
He said the two main issues that finance ministers were addressing was how Brics members would capitalise the bank and secondly, where to base the development bank.
Zuma called for the development bank to be based in Africa, where he believes the greatest need for the development funding lies.
AU Commission chair Dr Nkosazana Dlamimi Zuma said in the next 50 years, Africa should be described as a prosperous continent and one at peace with itself.
Dlamini Zuma said the key to Africa’s growth would be to invest in its people by improving health, education, skills and innovation.
Investing in agriculture would remain key, as it could help create jobs and feed those on the continent, she said.
She pointed out that in promoting growth, the continent must opt to use modern techniques, tools and infrastructure such as fast trains and e-learning tools.
The continent also needed more partnerships – between businesses, citizens and governments.
African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka said the continent had to continue developing infrastructure, pointing out that poor infrastructure adds about 40% of the cost of doing business on the continent
Kaberuka said he spoken with Zuma about mobilising African financial resources to fund infrastructure, rather than rely largely on foreign aid, as the African Development Bank currently does, to fund such projects.
The 23rd WEF on Africa is being attended by over 1 000 participants, including those from 41 African countries and 12 heads of state from Africa. – SAnews.gov.za
