What Africa can do to combat climate change and boost green economy

What Africa can do to combat climate change and boost its green economy

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/christopher-dilella/">Christopher DiLella</a> <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/cdilella" target="_blank">@CDILELLA</a> 



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Amazon CEO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jeff-bezos/" class="">Jeff Bezos</a>&nbsp;just bought the makings of an $80 million mega-residence in New York City. But before the richest man in the world purchased the three-level penthouse at 212 Fifth Avenue, plus two additional apartments, CNBC got a tour of the triplex with Sotheby’s International Realty broker&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebyshomes.com/nyc/agents/nikki.field?page=1&amp;amp;tab=sale" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Nikki Field</a>.



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Exterior of 212 Fifth Avenue: CNBC



The sprawling 10,000-square-foot penthouse has five bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms and a seven-room master suite.



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Great roomCNBC



″[The master suite] is a dream,” Field told CNBC in October 2018. “There’s a private bedroom, as well as two dressing rooms, two extraordinarily well-outfitted bathrooms, a sitting room, and a home office, numerous closets, magnificent views and privacy from the rest of the home.”



Inside the master bathroom is a breathtaking view of the Empire State Building from the tub.



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Master bathroom: CNBC



In addition to the master suite, the first level of the main residence also has a great room that connects to the home’s kitchen and formal dining room.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951016-1559760268804greatroompov2.jpg?v=1559761996&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 6"/></figure>



Great room: CNBC



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951015-1559760268804diningroom.jpg?v=1559762005&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 5"/></figure>



Dining room: CNBC



The penthouse’s second level has a sun-lit lounge area that opens up to 5,000-square-foot terrace.



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The sun-lit lounge area on the second floor of the penthouse triplex opens to a 5,000 sq. ft. wraparound terrace. CNBC



Below is a view of Manhattan’s famous Flatiron Building taken from the terrace of the penthouse Bezos has purchased.



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The triplex’s top floor includes what Field refers to as the “observatory” — a single room surrounded by glass doors that opens to a wraparound terrace with north, east and south views of the Manhattan skyline.



The penthouse was originally listed for $73.8 million in November 2017. Sources tell CNBC’s Robert Frank that Bezos will pay roughly $58 million for the penthouse and get the two additional apartments on the lower floor for about $20 million.



The CEO’s three-unit deal includes four floors totaling more than 17,000 square feet with 12 bedrooms. Not bad for a NYC pied-a-terre.



Christopher DiLella is a segment producer for CNBC’s specials unit, covering luxury lifestyle and real estate.



This article first appeared on CNBC&#8217;s website: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/05/photos-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-new-multimillion-dollar-nyc-penthouse.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/05/photos-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-new-multimillion-dollar-nyc-penthouse.html</a> and is republished with its permission

gettyimages-1066734506-594×594

Exclusive: Inside Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos’ new $80 million NYC mega-home

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cat-clifford/">Catherine Clifford</a> 



<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/mark-zuckerberg/">Mark Zuckerberg</a>&nbsp;has a net worth of<a class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/#1d1574613e06" target="_blank">&nbsp;$74 billion</a>, according to Forbes. The Facebook CEO and his wife, Priscilla Chan, could buy their two daughters almost anything.



But they don’t.



Zuckerberg told CBS’ Gayle King how he and Chan raise their kids to be grounded despite the family wealth.



“First of all, we don’t give them everything,” Zuckerberg said during the interview that aired Tuesday. “So I think that that’s an important piece.”



Maxima (known as Max), 4, and August, 2, also have responsibilities around the house. “They have chores,” said Zuckerberg.



In May, Zuckerberg shared on Facebook a video of his daughters loading the dishwasher. The caption read, “parenting milestone unlocked.”



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“We also take [our daughters] to work,” Chan told King. “Mark and I take both of them to work, to the office, to see sort of, like, what we do, how we contribute.”



And work “comes home” too, Chan said. “We care deeply about our work. And so we don’t leave it at the door.”



Billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/warren-buffett/" class="">Warren Buffett</a>&nbsp;has also discussed raising down to earth children. (Buffett’s three children, Susan, Howard and Peter are now in their 60s.)



“Our kids had a very normal growing-up. I mean, they’ve only and I’ve only lived in one primary house that I’ve owned in my life, and I bought that in 1958,” Buffett told Forbes in 2013. (Buffett, who is currently worth&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/warren-buffett/?list=billionaires#4b8adb5a4639" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">$86 billion</a>, famously still lives in the Omaha, Nebraska,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/05/warren-buffetts-california-beach-house-is-still-for-sale.html" class="">home he bought in 1958</a>&nbsp;for $31,000.)



“So they did not see us moving into progressively fancier houses; they did not ride in private planes. They went to school on the bus,” Buffett said. “Every member of the Buffett family in Omaha has gone to a public school. They went to the same school that their mother had gone to. They went to the same high school that she’d gone to.”



Buffett also co-founded The Giving Pledge, a public commitment for billionaires to give the majority of their wealth away, with billionaire Bill Gates.



Billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates use their hard work and such philanthropic endeavors to lead by example for their children, Jennifer, 23; Phoebe, 17; and Rory, 20.



“If life happens to bless you with talent or treasure, you have a responsibility to use those gifts as well and as wisely as you possibly can,” the Gates wrote in their&nbsp;<a class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://givingpledge.org/Pledger.aspx?id=199" target="_blank">letter of commitment on The Giving Pledge website</a>. 



This article first appeared on CNBC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/04/mark-zuckerberg-on-raising-kids-that-are-not-spoiled.html?forYou=true">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/04/mark-zuckerberg-on-raising-kids-that-are-not-spoiled.html?forYou=true</a>&nbsp;and is republished with its permission.

Mark Zuckerberg on how to be a multi-billionaire and not raise spoiled kids

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By Dr Hanan Morsy, Director, Macroeconomics Policy, Forecasting and Research Department, African Development Bank Group. 



Despite remarkable progress made on women’s participation in policymaking, Africa is still far from achieving the 50 percent gender parity target set by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



Between
1995 and 2018, the proportion of women in African parliaments almost tripled
from 8% to 23% but remains insufficient. Out of 11,037 African parliamentarians
as of October 2018, only 2,591 were women and out of 1,348 ministers on the
continent only 302, or 22%, were women<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. 



The
challenges in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, will be the
focus of the Global Gender Summit to be held in Kigali, Rwanda from the 25-27
November. The Summit, hosted by the African Development Bank in partnership
with the Government of Rwanda, will spotlight innovative financing, fostering
an enabling environment and ensuring women’s participation and voices.



Mainstreaming
gender in policymaking in Africa is crucial for at least three main reasons.
First, women are the main driving labor force in most African countries, making
a vital contribution to the economy. Empirical studies, including the African
Development Bank’s own research<a href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>,
have found that if women had equal access to productive resources such as land,
modern inputs, technology, or financial services, then the gender productivity
gap in agriculture of 20%-35% would almost disappear. 



This
suggests that African countries could significantly increase their production
by just closing the gender gap across economic sectors, particularly in agriculture.
Second, increasing women’s participation in policymaking has been found to lead
to higher GDP growth through increases in higher-skilled women in the labor
force and women’s employment in high-productivity sectors<a href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>. Africa
is therefore losing socio-economic opportunities by not doing enough to
encourage the voices of women. The continent cannot afford to wait any longer
to empower women. 



Gender
empowerment in policymaking can also boost women’s role as business leaders. Although
Africa boasts the world’s highest rate of women entrepreneurs (at 27%) and is the
only continent where more women than men choose to become entrepreneurs, most
female-led enterprises are small businesses, in the informal sector with little
growth prospects. 



Access
to finance is a key constraint and the Bank’s research found that women
entrepreneurs in Africa are more likely to self-select out of the credit market
due to perceived low creditworthiness compared to men<a href="#_ftn4">[4]</a>. 



By
influencing policymaking in their countries, women can help lift barriers to their
participation in labor markets which at 61% remains lower than men at 67%. 



And
to ensure that no voice remains unheard, much work needs to be done. Improving
women’s access to education is key. Better educated women are more likely to
influence policy. Despite commendable efforts, the gender gap in educational
attainment persists in most African countries, creating barriers to women’s
advancement.



For
instance, the average number of schooling years between 2010-2017 was 4.33 for
females but 5.6 for males in Africa. In many countries, the educational
disadvantage of women starts at primary school and by the time girls become
adolescents the educational gap has significantly widened.



One
solution to explore is to ensure universal access to education to all girls and
promote education parity at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Several findings
indicate that countries with greater education parity have realized higher
economic growth<a href="#_ftn5">[5]</a>.
In addition to bringing girls into school, having them complete their grades is
also important, as the drop-out rate of girls in primary education is still very
high in Africa, with a third of girls dropping out between 2010-2017. 



Second,
government efforts to support the development of women’s political competency is
particularly important in raising their participation in policymaking. Mentoring
and training programs can equip women candidates with the necessary skills to successfully
run for political office. For elected women, leadership trainings would
strengthen their influence in policymaking and advocacy. 



Third,
scaling up of programs and initiatives or implementation of laws aimed at fostering
an enabling political environment for women will ensure that women’s voices are
heard. Although many African countries have made legal provisions guaranteeing
equal rights of men and women in policymaking and have even established gender
parity in their electoral systems, only a handful have implemented these laws.



Only
Rwanda, Ethiopia and Seychelles have achieved or are close to achieving gender
parity in their ministerial cabinets. Rwanda is the only country in Africa where
women outnumber men in the parliament (61.3% as of January 1, 2019). Other
countries such as Namibia (46.2%), South Africa (42.7%), or Senegal (41.8%) have
set examples for other nations to follow in mainstreaming gender in policymaking.




In
its own operations, the African Development Bank in 2018 launched a Gender
Marker System to track gender mainstreaming in its work. It has also developed
an Africa Gender Index in partnership with the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa to measure gender parity across economic, social, and political
representation dimensions. 



With
its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative, the Bank
will extend women’s access to finance through commercial banks and financial
intermediaries, provide technical assistance to women, and engage policy and
regulatory bodies to create an enabling environment for women.



With initiatives such as AFAWA, and the Global Gender Summit in Kigali, the African Development Bank is advancing the course of women and ensuring that no voice is unheard.

Op-Ed: Mainstreaming gender in African policy making: Ensuring no voice is unheard

Entrepreneurial Edge: He dared to dream big now he is taking his Rwandan coffee brand global

AfDB’s 125% capital increase: What it means for Africa

How this software giant plans to move Africa & Dubai entrepreneurs to an admin-free world by 2020

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cat-clifford/">Catherine Clifford </a><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/CatClifford" target="_blank">@CATCLIFFORD</a><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cat-clifford/">*</a>



When it comes to the future of humanity,<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/" class="">&nbsp;Tesla CEO Elon Musk</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jack-ma/" class="">Alibaba founder Jack Ma</a>&nbsp;disagree on whether people should be scared by the potential of artificial intelligence. Ma is optimistic about AI, while Musk is more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/18/9-mind-blowing-things-elon-musk-said-about-robots-and-ai-in-2017.html" class="">apocalyptic</a>. But the two billionaire businessmen do agree on the biggest problem the world will face in the future: not enough people.



“Most people think we have too many people on the planet, but actually, this is an outdated view,” Musk said while on stage with Ma at at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Wednesday. “Assuming there is a benevolent future with AI, I think the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse.”



“The biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse. Not explosion. Collapse.”



“I absolutely agree with that,” Ma said. “The population problem is going to be facing huge challenge. 1.4 billion people in China sounds a lot, but I think next 20 years, we will see this thing will bring big trouble to China. And … the speed of population decrease is going to speed up. You called it a ‘collapse,’” he said to Musk. “I agree with you.”



“Yeah, accelerating collapse,” Musk said.



Fears of overpopulation due to immigration are short-sighted, according to Musk. “The common rebuttal is like, ‘Well what about immigration?’ I’m like, ‘From where?’”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch"><img decoding="async" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/879728447026868228/U4Uzpdp6_normal.jpg" alt=""/></a></figure>



<a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch">Pew Research Center✔@pewresearch</a><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1152132718823706624"></a>



For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates. <a href="https://t.co/geJJAUzrn4" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://pewrsr.ch/2wY6vu3&nbsp;</a><a href="https://t.co/geJJAUzrn4">World population growth is expected to nearly stop by 2100For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century.pewresearch.org</a><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1152132718823706624">95</a><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1152132718823706624">10:27 AM &#8211; Jul 19, 2019</a><a href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256">Twitter Ads info and privacy</a><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1152132718823706624">77 people are talking about this</a>



Musk and Ma may be aggressive with their time frame, but by 2070, the global fertility rate is expected to fall below the global replacement fertility rate — that’s the average number of children each woman needs to give birth to for the population to replace itself from one generation to the next — according to a recent analysis of United Nations global population data&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">from the Pew Research Center</a>. The current global replacement rate is 2.1 births. The current global fertility rate is 2.5, but is expected to fall to 1.9 by 2100.



Fertility rates vary widely, but Africa is the only global region expected to have “strong population growth” through 2100. Populations in Europe and Latin America are projected to be declining by 2100. Asia’s population is projected to increase though 2055 and then begin to decline,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according to Pew</a>.



For some regions, especially in poor countries, rising fertility rates&nbsp;<a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">cause a burden</a>&nbsp;on the already stressed social infrastructure systems. But in countries like China, a slowing population is cause for concern.



For example, due to decades of birth restrictions in China (from the ’70s until&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/world/asia/china-end-one-child-policy.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">2015</a>&nbsp;Chinese couples were required to have only one child), ever increasing economic opportunities for women and increasing longevity, China now has a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china-population-crisis.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">lopsided population</a>&nbsp;— there are not enough young workers to support the growing population of older people.



In January, a group of local academics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, issued a warning to government leaders about the potential threat of population decline,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china-population-crisis.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the New York Times reported</a>.



“What are the socio-economic consequences of long-term sustained negative population growth? From a theoretical point of view, the long-term population decline, especially with the aging of the aging, is bound to bring very unfavorable social and economic consequences,”&nbsp;<a href="http://ex.cssn.cn/zx/bwyc/201901/t20190104_4806519_1.shtml" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the report, translated into English, says</a>.



*This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/elon-musk-jack-ma-biggest-problem-world-will-face-is-population-drop.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/elon-musk-jack-ma-biggest-problem-world-will-face-is-population-drop.html</a> and is republished with its permission

This is what Elon Musk and Jack Ma believe is the biggest problem the world will face

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wim-naude-780658">Wim Naudé</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/united-nations-university-694">United Nations University</a>

Narratives are essential. Humans are, after all, “helpless story <a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/pulitzer-prizes-journalism-reporting-your-brain-on-story-why-narratives-win-our-hearts-and-minds-79824">junkies</a>”. Business and economic success depend much more than is commonly acknowledged on getting the narrative right. And if there is a narrative where getting it right or wrong matters hugely, it is the narrative about Africa’s industrial development. 

Africa is the <a href="https://worldpoverty.io/">poorest</a> continent. It is likely to be the most affected by <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg2-chapter9-1.pdf">climate </a>change. It is the continent where <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2018/07/14/the-fight-against-islamic-state-is-moving-to-africa">terrorist</a> groups are spreading fast. 

Therefore, African industrialisation is essential. Unfortunately, the dominant narrative is that Africa has been <a href="https://www.odi.org/events/4319-africas-industrialisation-reversing-decline">de-industrialising</a>, even <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w20935">prematurely</a>. In this narrative, it is also questioned whether Africa can ever industrialise. African countries have even been advised not to <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2018/03/20/world-economic-outlook-april-2018#Chapter%203">try</a>. The World Bank’s <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/27946">“Trouble in the Making”</a> report concludes that manufacturing is becoming less relevant for low-income countries.

Fortunately, a very different narrative is possible. In a <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp12678.pdf">recent paper</a>, I argue that Africa can industrialise because of three factors. These are “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Second-Machine-Age-Prosperity-Technologies/dp/0393350649">brilliant</a>” new technologies enabling digitisation, smart materials and 3D-printing; a more <a href="https://guardian.ng/business-services/africas-booming-start-up-scene/">vibrant</a> entrepreneurship scene; and Africa’s growing <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/podcast-episode/africas-expanding-middle-class/">middle class</a> (as <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-a-growing-middle-class-good-for-the-poor-social-policy-in-a-time-of-globalization/">measured</a> by the share of households that earn between $11 and $110 per person per day), which supports the continent’s first generation of indigenous tech-entrepreneurs.

Consider therefore the following <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12678.html">narrative</a>: More than <a href="https://i2ifacility.org/insights/blog/the-rise-of-african-digital-platforms?entity=blog">300</a> digital platforms, mostly indigenous, are operating across the continent. There are also more than <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2019/07/11/africas-booming-tech-hubs-are-backbone-of-tech-ecosystem-having-grown-40-this-year/#10aa3ae524c2">400</a> high-tech hubs, and more are being added. In addition, venture capital funding into African tech start-ups increased <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/a-brief-history-of-africa-s-tech-industry-and-7-predictions-for-its-future/">ten-fold </a>between 2012 and 2018. 

Moreover, manufacturing has more than doubled in size in real terms since 1980. And since 2000, manufacturing value added has grown at more than 4% a year. That is double the average between 1980 and 2000 (numbers from the <a href="https://www.merit.unu.edu/themes/3-economic-development-innovation-governance-and-institutions/expanded-africa-sector-database-easd-1960-2015/">Expanded</a> African Sector Database). 

As a result, total employment in manufacturing in 18 of the largest African economies (for which there is data) grew from roughly 9 million in 2004 to more than 17 million by 2014. That is an 83% increase in ten years. The proportion of labour in manufacturing for Africa as a region grew from roughly 5% in the 1970s to almost 10% by 2008.

So, how will these trends shape the future? I argue that they will result in three varieties of industrialisation. 

<h2>Three varieties</h2>

The first variety can be labelled “acquiring traditional manufacturing capabilities”. This variety is <a href="https://www.odi.org/publications/11073-digitalisation-and-future-manufacturing-africa">implied</a> by Overseas Development Institute researchers Karishma Banga and Dirk Willem te Velde. It will be experienced by countries and sectors where technological change is too fast and complex to benefit immediately. These countries and sectors will need time to first put complementary investments in place, while at the same time continuing to promote traditional labour-intensive manufacturing. 

The second variety, “fostering sectors with the characteristics of manufacturing”, is elaborated in a recent <a href="https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/industries-without-smokestacks-2">UNU-WIDER</a> book. Here it is argued that service sectors can take up “the role held by manufacturing in the past”. In many countries, services such as ICT and telecoms, tourism and transport, financial and farming services can lead to productive development. 

The third variety, “resurgent entrepreneurship-led industrialisation” is based on my <a href="https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/11941/brilliant-technologies-and-brave-entrepreneurs-a-new-narrative-for-african-manufacturing">earlier</a> work. I point to the growing list of achievements of African countries in terms of high-tech manufacturing. For example South Africa leads in advanced manufacturing in having one of the world’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.co.za/south-africas-largest-3d-printer-is-so-big-that-it-takes-up-to-r75-million-in-titanium-powder-to-fill-it-2018-7">largest</a> 3D-printers, used to manufacture parts for the aviation industry. 

Different combinations of these varieties will dominate in different countries. For example, Kenya is already experiencing the simultaneous development of high-tech financial services alongside growth in traditional manufacturing, such as food processing and textiles, as well as clusters of advanced manufacturing. While every country’s pathway will be a unique combination of these varieties, what they will have in common is that progress will require that they deal with the impact of new technology, especially digitisation, on manufacturing. 

To ensure momentum is maintained, the narrative about industrialisation has to change. As Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/books/review/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century-yuval-noah-harari.html">pointed</a> out, neither land – the core resource of feudalism – nor physical capital – the core resource of 20th-century capitalism – will be decisive for competitiveness in the future. Instead, data and data science, free information flows, ICT (data) skills, and decentralisation of decision-making will be the decisive factors. 

<h2>What needs to be done</h2>

With an outdated story that gives up on manufacturing, Africa will fail to close the huge digital gap it still faces. The gap is reflected in the fact the continent contributes <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-questions-de-communication-2017-2-page-345.htm">less</a> than 1% of world’s digital knowledge production. To reduce this gap, African countries will have to start by expanding internet access and use. If internet use across the continent can be expanded to the same rate as in high-income countries, 140 million new jobs and US$2,2 trillion could be <a href="https://oecd-development-matters.org/2018/03/01/how-to-build-inclusive-digital-economies/">added</a> to GDP. 

What must be done to change the narrative? What do African governments need to do? The first is that its leaders need to start telling more stories about the future than about the past. Perhaps, like China’s leaders, they can even be inspired by science fiction. British best-selling author <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/24/neil-gaiman-face-facts-need-fiction">Neil Gaiman</a> relates how China started to embrace science fiction after sending a delegation to 

<blockquote>
“the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.”
</blockquote>

Helping to imagine the future of African industrialisation, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently <a href="https://www.itweb.co.za/content/4r1ly7RoGOVMpmda">stressed</a> that fact that Africa is one of the early adopters of mobile telephony and moreover that the continent needs to aspire to more:

<blockquote>
We need to focus on the new technologies that are going to revolutionise the world, and we need to be ahead of the curve.
</blockquote>

This is the right narrative. It is necessary, although not sufficient for African industrialisation. For this, words need to lead to actions. And some consistent actions, at least for a start, would be for African governments to refrain from creating stumbling blocks for their brave new tech-entrepreneurs, such as curbing access to the internet, restricting digital information flows, under-investing in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, neglecting data-privacy legislation, and restricting the rights of women to work in manufacturing.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125516/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important">

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wim-naude-780658">Wim Naudé</a>, Professorial Fellow, Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT), <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/united-nations-university-694">United Nations University</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-countries-cant-industrialise-yes-they-can-125516">original article</a>.

Here’s what can be done to change the narrative about Africa’s industrial development

By
Dr. Jennifer Blanke



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB-683x1024.jpg" alt="In much of Africa, 60% or more of the working population is employed in agriculture. And yet agriculture only contributes about one quarter of Africa’s GDP, with the continent mainly producing and exporting raw products and importing significant amounts of processed food." class="wp-image-349733" width="574" height="861" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB-696x1044.jpg 696w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB-1068x1602.jpg 1068w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB-280x420.jpg 280w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jennifer-AfDB.jpg 1365w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 574px) 100vw, 574px" /></figure></div>



This week, business leaders, project developers, development finance professionals, institutional investors representing pension and sovereign wealth funds, as well as policymakers meet in Johannesburg for the second Africa Investment Forum convened by the African Development Bank. 



The Forum is an innovative marketplace&nbsp;&#8211; dedicated to
moving development ideas and projects to bankability, to mobilizing capital,
and to accelerating the financial closure of deals that can improve the lives
of millions of people. Among other things, the Africa Investment Forum has the
potential to accelerate Africa’s agricultural transformation.



In much of Africa,
60% or more of the working population is employed in agriculture. And yet
agriculture only contributes about one quarter of Africa’s GDP, with the
continent mainly producing and exporting raw products and importing significant
amounts of processed food. The sector punches below its weight. And yet there
is huge potential for income and job creation if Africa can increase productivity
and move up the value chain to produce more, higher value-added, processed
food. 



The bottom line is
that African agriculture must move from being a “way of life” to a resilient,
sustainable business sector that creates prosperity, jobs, as well as improves
incomes and livelihoods of rural people. The Africa Investment Forum convenes
players in the agriculture and agribusiness sector who come together to roll up
their sleeves and explore business and investment opportunities. The Forum’s concrete
“boardroom discussions” connect investment projects with investors. It brings
together entrepreneurs, project developers and investors interested in
agriculture to make deals. 



Last year’s Africa Investment
Forum saw nearly 2,000 participants from 87 nations gather to discuss more than
$46 billion-worth of boardroom deals. One of the highlights was a transaction
involving Ghana Cocoa Board, designed to help Ghana’s cocoa sector – which
employs some 800,000 farm families, producing crops worth about $2 billion in
foreign exchange annually. The presence of Ghana’s Head of State, H.E. Nana
Akufo-Addo, in the boardroom session galvanized investor interest in a sector
so important for Ghana, one of the world’s top cocoa exporters. 



This year, Ghana’s Cocoa Board
returns to the Forum to sign a Facility Agreement for a $600 million syndicated
receivables-backed term loan aimed at enhancing Ghana’s cocoa productivity. The investment deal – also involving Credit Suisse as well as
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited &#8211; was born out of the Africa
Investment Forum.



This
year’s Forum will also see a focus on Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones,
or SAPZs. There&nbsp; is often little
investment interest in Africa’s rural areas, due to a lack of transport, energy
and other critical infrastructure. SAPZs are a solution to connect rural areas
to regional and global supply chains, so that
they can produce higher value-added processed goods in areas of higher agricultural
productivity. SAPZs gather most or all the elements of an agricultural value
chain in one area: from farm to fork. Aside from attracting investment, SAPZs
are also important from a development perspective because that they help to
raise rural incomes and create job opportunities for Africa’s surging youth
population. 



When
properly designed and well executed, SAPZs are powerful tools toward removing
barriers to access to technology, infrastructure and resources to Africa’s
industrialization. By increasing the transformation of products like cotton,
cashew nuts, cocoa and livestock, for example, SAPZs have the potential to
improve Africa’s overall trade balance. Many African countries have committed
to integrating SAPZs in their national development strategies – the Africa
Investment Forum will showcase SAPZ plans out of Benin, Chad, Ethiopia, Gabon,
Senegal, South Africa, and Togo.&nbsp;



The
Bank provides support to attract investors in the agro processing space via
fiscal, regulatory, and infrastructure incentives.&nbsp;To make the
concentrated, all-in-one-place SAPZ activity work smoothly, innovative
companies pursuing SAPZs in Africa need investors. 



Investor
opportunity abounds, boosted by prospects of an integrated African market via the Continental Free Trade
Agreement (AfCFTA),
which promises to usher in the economies of
scale needed for SAPZ-produced
or processed goods to participate in strong
regional agriculture value chains catering to &nbsp;a population of more than a billion people with
a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion. This
can then provide a springboard to global markets. &nbsp;



We
see this vision for Ethiopia, a nation embracing the SAPZ concept with support
from African Development Bank and other partners, to promote the advancement of
Ethiopian crops like oilseed, wheat and maize, beef and dairy livestock and of
course, its world-famous coffee. With SAPZ projects launched in Ethiopia, the
impact is expected to translate into $1.5 billion in private sector investment
and the creation of 400,000 jobs – with 70% of them targeting youth. 



We often hear the
clichés about ‘Africa Rising’ and Africa being the ‘new hot spot’ for
investment. Yet Africa has not suddenly appeared! It is home to more than half
of the world’s fertile, yet largely uncultivated, cropland. African agriculture
is a big business opportunity – by most estimates, the continent’s food and
agribusiness market will be worth one trillion US dollars by 2030. Yet this
requires investment.



Only $7 billion per
year is invested in Africa’s agriculture sector – that needs to rise to about
$45 billion per year to harness agriculture’s power and move Africa up the
value chain to create jobs and revenue. It is time to put investment money
where many mouths have been talking about Africa’s ‘Green Revolution,’ for
years. It is time to equip Africa with the financial tools to grow into the
reliable food production resource that feeds Africa as well as ensures that
Africa does its part to feed the world. It is time for Africa to move from an
aid paradigm to an investment paradigm &#8211; this is what we are doing this week at
the Africa Investment Forum, in Johannesburg, South Africa.



Dr. Jennifer Blanke is the
African Development Bank Group’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and
Social Development.

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mandla1000

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South Africa is not inward looking. This is according to the country’s <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/videos/2019/11/05/exclusive-in-conversation-with-sas-president-cyril-ramaphosa/">President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking to CNBC Africa in an exclusive interview</a>. He was responding to a question by Pierre Celestin Rwabukumba, CEO of the Rwanda Stock Exchange on South Africa’s regional integration policy, which <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/countries/southern-africa/south-africa/south-africa-economic-outlook">according to the African Development Bank</a>, is often seen as inward looking and to what the most industrialised country should be doing as a leading country on the continent for the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.



Elaborating Ramaphosa said: “I was a bit taken aback when the report said we are inward looking because in real effect South Africa isn’t. I have been travelling in a number of countries on our continent, recently I went Tanzania alone, and I found that there were 228 companies from South Africa that operate there and indeed if you go throughout the continent you will find that a number of South African companies that trade there. From a government point of view we have missions in nearly all the African countries on our continent, so in that alone we are a more of an outward looking type of South Africa.” 



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zt5JcPaP0iU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>



He added that South Africa wants to enhance this and that is why the African Continental Free Trade Agreement is going to have a major beneficial effect.



Explaining, Ramaphosa said this is because South Africa is going to be able to utilise the agreement to move goods and services from a non-tariff point of view and people will be able to move around the continent as well.



He however said the benefits will not only be a great opportunity to develop South Africa’s economy, but that of other countries. 



“We want to trade more effectively with other regions on our continent and the Africa Free Trade agreement just gives us a greater opportunity which we are going to exploit to greater effect. South Africa is going to be much more open for business, trading and investment. 



“We also want other African countries to come and invest in South Africa &#8211; this has been a sore point for me because not many African companies have been investing in our economy. We therefore want to enhance trade. I want to be drinking more and more coffee from Rwanda, Uganda and places like that rather than coffee from Columbia and places outside our continent and we want those economies to come and invest in our economy as well.”

President Ramaphosa: Why SA is not inward looking

HARARE, Nov 4 (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe police have given public sector workers permission to march for better pay on Wednesday in what is widely seen as a test of President Emmerson Mnangagwa&#8217;s willingness to tolerate dissent.



A notice received from police by the Apex Council of public sector unions said the protest could go ahead but also warned that police would stop the march if it turned violent.



&#8220;The regulating authority still reserves the right to stop the gathering should it turn out to a public order threat or violent. Police will monitor,&#8221; Oscar Mugomeri, police commander for Harare central district, wrote in the letter.



Mugomeri could not be reached for comment on Monday.



Unions say Mnangagwa&#8217;s government has not responded to demands for U.S. dollar-indexed salaries to cushion public sector workers against inflation that economists say reached 380% in September.



Daily life in Zimbabwe is getting harder, with prices of basic goods, fuel and electricity rising as hope fades for a quick economic recovery under Mnangagwa, who took power after the late Robert Mugabe was ousted in a coup in 2017.



Mnangagwa has banned several opposition protests and faces accusations that he is using Mugabe&#8217;s heavy-handed tactics.



Police have been on high alert since January, when fuel protests turned violent and at least a dozen people were killed during a security crackdown.



Unions want the lowest government employees paid the equivalent of $475 (7,251 Zimbabwe dollars) a month compared to the 1,023 Zimbabwe dollars they earn now.



Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, who projects the economy to contract by 6.5% this year, has said the government cannot meet the workers&#8217; demands.



Charles Chinosengwa, spokesman for the Apex Council, which represents 230,000 workers &#8211; excluding the health and security sectors &#8211; said unions were mobilising members from across Zimbabwe.



&#8220;This is strictly a labour issue. We don&#8217;t need support from politicians, we are saying hands off to politicians,&#8221; he said.



Shortages of foreign currency, fuel and power are among the most visible signs of a crisis that has revived memories of 2008, when hyperinflation wiped out savings and forced the government to abandon its currency.



Mnangagwa says Zimbabweans should be patient while his government pursues economic reforms, including gradually cutting subsidies on fuel and electricity and the re-introduction of the domestic currency.



$1 = 15.2654 Zimbabwe dollars 



(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

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