As the youngest continent with a rapidly urbanizing population, Africa is leapfrogging traditional infrastructure and deepening regional integration through initiatives such as the Lobito Corridor and the African Continental Free Trade Area. Its reserves of critical minerals are taking on new strategic significance, positioning the continent as an essential partner in global supply chains and industrial growth.
However, as AI and shifting geoeconomics redefine competitiveness, can Africa fully participate or risks being sidelined?
This session was developed in collaboration with Devex.
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At Davos, leaders debated whether Africa’s “new economy” will be more opportunity or challenge. Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio argued Africa risks “being at the receiving end” because it lacks “energy supply, connectivity” and “fit for purpose education,” warning that without investment, a youthful population could become “restless.” Yet panelists emphasized levers already within reach. Old Mutual CEO Johann Jurie Strydom highlighted digital finance as a leapfrog opportunity: bringing informal workers onto payments platforms creates data for “risk underwriting” and “credit underwriting,” enabling domestic savings to fund domestic investment.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene framed today’s trade shocks as a forcing function: with “an unprecedented assault on the multilateral trading system,” Africa must “build our own domestic market,” accelerating integration across 50 ratifying countries and tackling high logistics and trade-finance costs. CGD’s Rachel Glennerster cautioned minerals are fiscally important but not job-rich; inclusive growth may come from agriculture and processing, supported by education and larger, less fragmented markets.
A recurring constraint is capital mobility: investors fear “move capital in… much easier than capital out.” Speakers urged unlocking Africa’s “$800 billion” in pension and sovereign assets and executing reforms—moving from “talking” to delivery, with stronger collective bargaining on critical minerals and trade diplomacy.
Hello and welcome all of you in the room here in Davos. Everyone who's following this conversation virtually, I'm Raj Kumar, the president and editor in chief of Devex. We are thrilled to be a media partner of the World Economic Forum and to bring you this session on one of the, I think, most timely issues in the world today. We're all talking here in Davos, of course, about many of the geopolitical issues. We're talking about AI and the new economy. We want to talk today about what it means for Africa. Of course, Africa is a diverse continent, 54 countries. But will Africa succeed in this new moment? Does this create a new opportunity for a continent that has a lot of challenges and a lot of opportunities? Will the fact that global supply chains are very much in the news, including for cell phone devices, batteries and chips and the like? Will will this moment when the world is re-examining geopolitical relationships, will it change? Things will change things for the better. It's hard to have a conversation here in Davos or any other global convening where you don't hear somebody saying, oh, critical minerals, right. Critical minerals in Africa. At the same time, it's hard to have a conversation where you don't hear some negative, some worry about the AI revolution leaving the continent of Africa behind. So I want to start because I know some of you in the room, we have a an illustrious group actually. So I want to start with all of you with just a show of hands as to whether you think the new economy that we are entering, the new global economy creates more opportunities or more challenges for the continent of Africa? Who thinks it creates more opportunities? Any hands in the audience? Just to inform our panel and our panel to go ahead. Go ahead. Yuri. And who thinks creates more challenges for the continent? You're outvoted because we have a president, a former a former Treasury secretary and the head of an African finance.
Beautiful democracy.
So it was it was a bit it's a bit weighted against the rest of the crowd. We're going to hear why our leader, our leadership feels this way. So let me begin by telling you who we have in the room. We of course, are joined by President Julius Maada bio, the president of Sierra Leone. It's a real honor to have you here. Mr. President, your first time in Davos. Welcome. We also have with us, Johan Yuri Strydom, who's the chief executive officer of Old Mutual, which is a major insurance company based in South Africa, working across the continent of Africa and China as well. We have with us as well. I'm Kelly Amini, who is the secretary general of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement Secretariat. Another major theme when you think of the new economy in Africa, the work you're doing is a key element of that. And of course, Rachel Glennerster is with us, who is the president of the center for Global Development, one of the leading think tanks in the world on these very issues. And herself a former chief economist at Fcdo and DfID, back when there was a DfID. In fact, one of the reasons this conversation is so interesting is there is no different. There is no USAID. Right. We're in a very different moment. So, Mr. President, let me start with you. You said there's more challenges in this moment. Why is that? What is the picture look like for you as the as the head of state, the head of government in a country grappling with these very trends I described.
With everything that is happening? I think you can only under benefit if you are prepared for it before it comes. The necessary infrastructure and also the readiness of the people in terms of, the, fit for purpose education, to benefit from what is happening in the world. We are serious problems with, energy supply, connectivity and other issues are the continent is not exactly prepared. And so in the end, we will be at the receiving end of what is happening. Should it come now? It is here already, I must say, it will take us time to to have the wherewithal to put in the necessary infrastructure, the public digital, the digital public goods to be able, the energy required that is, not only affordable, but also reliable and, to educate our, our people. The most important asset for every revolution is a revolution. The people must be ready for it. And so we have our youth full of energy, creativity. But we must invest in their education so that they will know how to translate all of these into useful purpose for the continent.
I mean, on the one hand, the AI revolution, it's going to give every student who has access to AI almost a personal teacher, right? It can revolutionize education. On the other hand, as you say, you need some basic infrastructure. You need access to electricity. You need access to the internet. You need enough personal income and wealth to be able to to pay for and access these kinds of tools. And if you don't get to those basic levels, it's a challenge. You're in this. You're in the business of investing across the African continent. 11 markets. When you raised your hand for more opportunity, and I guess you must see that because you're investing, like, what are you investing in that gives you that sense that Africa can actually succeed in this new moment?
I think I cheated because I actually raised for both because there are challenges. I think I broke the system.
Usually economists that say on the one hand.
On the other. So I think, I mean, I think there are opportunities and challenges. I think I think from the lens from a from an old mutual, and our work, I mean, we are across 11 markets. What we do is go into a market and, and channel kind of domestic savings into domestic investment. I mean, that's kind of the most the simplest way to put it. So we're kind of intermediaries. We use our.
Balance sheet premiums. And you've got all those assets to go invest.
Insurance, asset management, retail banking in certain places. So institutions like us, create the kind of economic, the financial ecosystem to be able to drive domestic investment. So without that, it's very hard to drive domestic investment. So I think the opportunity that there is, is in our lifetime to kind of see a leapfrogging of financial inclusion and financial participation in places that I think, absent digital technology would have been very hard to envisage. So whilst it's not, it's by no means, an easy pathway. If you look at the trends around mobile adoption, you look at, payment adoption, you look at the rate at which we have a payments platform that we've pioneered in Zimbabwe, which is one of our oldest markets, that has gone to 2 million users in a matter of 18 months. Even though there is an existing banking system in place. It's drawing informal people onto the platform. We're looking to move that into, into some other markets. But the point is that if you can, if you can, if you can include people, if you can get data on people, then you can do risk underwriting. You can do credit underwriting. Do you think if you look at it from a big picture point of view, there is a world in which we have far more of far more Africans, far more of the African youth actually participating in a way that you can channel savings into investment, and you can start to create viable places that are not viable necessarily for financial institutions to to operate and can become viable far quicker than than I think in previous generations.
I can see why you had two hands up, because on the one hand, if you have reliable internet, reliable electricity, you have that young, energetic, entrepreneurial population ready to adopt all these new tools. But you do need some of the infrastructure the president talked about to get there at one. Kelly, you know, you're you're trying to build kind of a piece of the infrastructure, the regulatory infrastructure, if you will. We're just, what, ten months after Liberation Day. Tariffs are now top tier issue discussed all over the world. Countries are trying to respond to that. We saw the EU just signed a deal with Mercosur, you know, developing their own new trade ties. And Africa is responding to this. It's a long story about African countries not trading well together. And in fact, I remember some of my first trips to West Africa being told, hey, if you want to travel from one country to the other, you got to go through Paris. And I said, that's crazy. And I tried to show everyone they were wrong and boy, they were right. It was not easy to get around. And and trade barriers are one of those parts of the story. So you've got real momentum now to change that. Yeah. Tell us about the trade story. And is it an unlock to the concerns the president has raised?
Well, thank you very much. First let me just say I don't disagree with the president. As a disclaimer.
You're allowed to do that here in Davos. Okay.
We have we have over 60 years of a fragmented market. We have 42 currencies. We have a degree of, industrial development that is underdeveloped to the extent that we as a continent, all 55 of us contribute only 3%, less than 3% to, to global trade. The cost of infrastructure is high. AfDB estimates it to be about $150 billion annually. The cost of transport and logistics continues to be high. Movement of persons is difficult outside of and outside of the East African Community. So we've got a number of these, these barriers. However, however, in the wisdom of our heads of states, they said this is not sustainable. We are a continent of 1.4 billion people, with a combined GDP of 3.4 trillion USD. That is consumer spending and business spending. But if we don't accelerate integration of the market, we shall forever be a continent of potential, and we will never realize that potential. So we now have a free trade area. 50 countries have ratified it, which of course is a legal commitment, but it also signals political will. Amongst the 50 countries that we must accelerate reduction, elimination of intra-africa barriers to trade, Intra-africa barriers to investment Intra-africa investment is at only 4% because of this fragmentation. And, these divisions that have existed for a long time, we now have completed all of the negotiations that the heads of states directed the ministers of trade to undertake to create this single market. And so we are rapidly transitioning from negotiations to implementation. And at the heart of that will be exactly the points that have been made the cost of infrastructure, transport and logistics, and the cost of money, particularly for young people, the cost of trade finance, which continues to be very, very high. And so I, I think that whilst we are in an unprecedented assault on, on the multilateral trading system and global trade, I don't think anybody ever envisaged that we would be in this situation. I do believe that this is a very compelling moment for the continent of Africa to say, okay, Agoa is gone. Markets have dried up, supply chains are disrupted. Let's build our own domestic market. It may take some time, maybe ten, ten years or so. But we don't have an alternative. We have to build a domestic market so that young Africans by the year, by the turn of the century, the youngest working force in the world will be in Africa. And so how do we prepare for young, young people to be part of Africa's economy? And so I think at the at the heart of the, conceptualisation about how Africa responds to this current crisis, must be accelerated market integration.
And I think that has been the dream for many, many years. And it's this political moment, this geopolitical moment that's actually creating a lot of the political pressure to make it happen. We're seeing, you know, moves like that that we haven't seen before, the Accra reset, that President Mahama is leading this initiative to say, okay, we have to take control over our own destiny here in Africa and we can't be dependent anymore. And you're seeing more examples of that. Rachel, you've been working in global development a long time, including the continent of Africa. There's been a long question about what is going to be the trajectory for countries in Africa to develop. You can look at the countries in Southeast Asia and say, is it going to be, you know, manufacturing? Are we going to kind of take lower skilled labor, less expensive labor, and it's going to move the garment industry? That hasn't quite happened. I think critical minerals are an idea. You know, extractive industries, it's happened to a degree, but maybe without the processing being on site, without sort of developing beyond the the basic extraction. When you look at the the moment we are in, in the global economy, all the new forces around AI and trade, etc., what is the path for development for Africa now? What is when you talk to heads of state like the one in front of you, what do you suggest and advise them?
So minerals will continue to be important revenue source for Africa. I mean, I've taught many of the mines in Sierra Leone and they provide a lot of revenue to the government. So it's very important. But they don't employ many people. And so I don't think it's the long term future of an inclusive growth path. It's very useful to get the money to fund the education and the human development elsewhere. But it's not the long term development path. You need something that is much more inclusive as a as a growth strategy. Now, I'm an economist. I don't believe that I can pick the sectors, you know, with absolute certainty. But I have seen a number of countries do extremely well from agriculture and that obviously, you know, what is Africa abundant in is abundant in land. And so you see countries like Cote d'Ivoire, with really, you know, high quality agriculture and processing and exports. And I see that as, as one path that many countries may take. Now that needs quite a lot of coordination. And when people talk about manufacturing as a growth sector in the past, what is what's special about manufacturing? It's the fact that you get benefits from agglomeration. In other words, bringing people together and having a big enough market. And and you see that in agricultural processing and in agriculture as well. So I'm more hopeful than many people about agriculture. But I do think the key thing is both the human capital, which president talked about, because the other really the reason I'm optimistic is the demography of Africa, the young people that you talked about. But you're right that that only, you know, a third of the East Asian miracle came just because they had a lot of young people. Right. And now Africa is going to be the continent with a lot of young people. But you do need to have the investment in education to be able to to pull that off. And you need the trade barriers to be lower so that you've got big enough markets for people to come in and and exploit those gains.
It's interesting that, Yuri, when you're thinking about investment, that's the first place you went to is the young population and the opportunity that, that, that that creates. But there are there are some overhangs to, you know, if you're a young person in Africa, you're inheriting a debt situation that may be pretty difficult to deal with. We're talking about tariffs, really the only the latest shock many countries in Africa had to deal with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and what that meant for agriculture markets that had a huge impact on rice prices and other prices in Sierra Leone. They had to deal with the debts that were accumulated during the pandemic. They didn't have the same fiscal space that the US and the West had. So I guess, Mr. President, as you think about a really challenging role that you have to balance the the old problems that are still with you, debt, the agricultural prices, you know, youth unemployment and educational challenges with the new opportunities and AI revolution payments platforms and the ability for investors like you to come and invest in markets in a way that they wouldn't have in the past, how are you balancing that, that transition today?
It's quite hard. And that is where proper economic management comes in. And we have to imagine a future that is sustainable. We have a population that is very young, and we have to make sure that we can sustain the growth path on which we have embarked, and that means that we have to invest increasingly in developing that population. I say this because I'm thinking of the next problem ahead of African states. We all are happy about our population being young, but if you don't find a way to manage their creativity, their energy, they will be restless. And that is going to compound our problems. So in my opinion, inasmuch as the world is definitely going to other spheres of development, AI and other things, we will try to catch up on those at the same time. Even talking about the dividend from, the, resources that we are talking about increasingly are making sure that we, we add value within the continent. We are doing so because I believe that it will create more jobs. And, you pointed out, agriculture has been very important. I believe that entirely. And in fact, agriculture or food security is the flagship for my government because it solves the problem of the youth. It is the best, when it comes to creating jobs all around because of the different stages from production to value addition.
Right. It's the high end processing that's important too, right? Not just producing the products, but actually being able to process them in country.
The entire value chain. It employs a lot of people. And what it does is not it caters for the elites but also caters for the villagers. Those are in the far to rich places who we will support to embark on agriculture that benefits them. And right across the value chain, it is going to employ different groups of people the rich, the medium size, especially the women. My call for agriculture agricultural transformation has been captured more by the women. They are more receptive. We have a lot of women in that sector who are doing extremely well, and we hope to be able to capture the youth so that we can tap into their energy, stop them from coming across this, desert into the Mediterranean Sea and dying. For the most part, we want to retain that energy, but we are losing it more because they will always go for greener pastures. So for me, agriculture I have identified as a way to deal with one broad based economic development right across the country, not just for the elites in the cities, but also deal with malnutrition and food security itself. But it is also with employment, unemployment, which is real. One of the issues that can lead to unrest, social unrest and create more problems. But it brings money to to the state. So it is these multi-dimensional aspects of agriculture that, after spending a lot of and we still are doing so for education. The first time I dedicated it to education, because this is an enabler that gives us the authority to be able to be part meaningful, part of the global economy. And so I have embarked on agriculture. We are not I mean, education, we are not entirely out of the woods because we are laying the foundation for, serious movement in that direction.
You have the Education Outcomes Fund, for example, operating in the country, and you're famous for having changed the rules to allow pregnant girls to go to school. You made a number of reforms in the country in education.
And we we are making sure that we bring the women along. You see, the youth and the women constitute, of course, the greatest part of our population. And because of the multiplier effect of women in communities, when you bring them along, there is a room for more movement and more upward movement of social mobility for a lot more people than just, we the men. I mean, I have nothing against We the men, but I think we make more, more, more progress when you come, when you take the women and really empower them.
So these are all areas that you're talking about that used to be funded by overseas development assistance. The UK has cut their budget by 40%, hitting countries like Sierra Leone very hard. The US, of course, has cut their budgets significantly, including eliminating USAID, the other European powers. The conversations in other rooms here in Davos are about, you know, we've got to invest more in defense. We've got to reach 5%, and we're going to take that money away from aid budgets. At the same time, development finance is growing. So we have the world Bank. We have the African Development Bank. I see some ideas here from the African Finance Corporation. We have a growing set of development finance institutions, the DFC and the US, that you would think are set up to address the very challenges the president started off with around energy, around other forms of infrastructure. Rachel, what is it? That's what is it that's needed. You know, these institutions are not new. They're moving, they're changing. But what is needed to capture the moment at the kind of time scale that's required right now on the continent of Africa.
So we need to continue to invest in Ida, which is the, part of the world Bank, which provides subsidized loans to low income countries like Sierra Leone and and other countries across the continent. And that has a very high return, because, you know, you put in as a donor, if you put in $1, the bank is able to make very subsidized loans, for, you know, at least three times as much as, as the, the $1 that's put in. So it's a very high return thing. And with it comes a lot of technical assistance and advice on prioritization. And when that works well it works extremely well. So I think, you know, the world Bank provides a lot of great advice on education and, you know, how to prioritize your spending on infrastructure. I think so. I have one one area where I disagree a little bit with the priorities of the bank, which is on, on infrastructure, on, on energy. So there's a big push to expand access to electricity across the continent to all households. And I understand politically why that's a very attractive thing to. But it's extremely expensive in low density countries, which a lot of Africa has a low density of population. So you have to bring those wires a very long way, or you do microgrids which which some countries are doing. But the real economic gain from investing in electricity is to provide reliable electricity to firms. And that's where you're going to get the growth, because there's a lot of evidence that providing more reliable electricity increases output of firms and attracts investment in firms. So I really would like the focus on infrastructure, particularly on the energy infrastructure, to be getting reliable electricity to firms because they think that's because if you're poor and you get electricity, the evidence suggests that you don't benefit much because you can't afford to buy the appliances that make electricity useful. I mean, yes, you can charge a phone, but but you can do that anywhere. You know, you can do that with relatively simple solar technology.
So you're referring to the M300 initiative, world Bank, African Development Bank are engaged in to electrify 300 million households. I guess I want to just bring it to you. The same issue here. You must be coming up against the development finance institutions. They provide perhaps a certain level of safety. They can provide guarantees for investors to go into new markets. As you're exploring new markets, are you seeing what are you seeing when it comes to development finance.
So so we so our private markets business which is significantly invested in infrastructure, this is a $15 billion business. We actually have Dfis as our clients. We actually partner with them and assistance. So there's you know, you put an investor group together in a fund, and, you know, at the same time you look for projects to invest in. So I think there's a lot of activity. I think the question is, and this is an internal conversation we've had is surely there's more opportunity on the continent. We are quite heavily concentrated in South Africa. What is it going to take for us to be able to take, to be able to, you know, take advantage of the opportunities? And I think that there's some soft issues around simply relationships and understanding what's there, building, building connections and so on. I would raise and it was a comment I wanted to talk about, about kind of fungibility of capital as an issue. It's quite difficult for private operators, for listed businesses like ourselves, to be deploying capital and activities where the certainty of being able to kind of get capital out is always much easier to move capital than capital out, where you have that cloud hanging, it's very hard to take a long term view and, and make investment. And I think.
This is because of taxation that would not allow you to take money.
No, I think there's balance of payments challenges in a number of the economy.
Liquidity.
Absolutely. And I mean, you talked about the debt the debt creates partly is weighs on the balance of payments because there's a servicing of foreign debt. So that's an issue that I don't think we can get away from. It's got to be solved. And I think it is more of an impediment to sort of institutional investors across the continent than perhaps we realize, I wanted to just get back to something that Kelly said, which is that I think that the financial integration piece of what we're busy with, I think could result in quicker gains than because it's, you know, you're not relying on building of ports and, and roads, but but financial integration, the ability to be able to match more easily move capital from one place to another, the integration of public markets, harmonization of regulation. I mean, those are the sort of things that I think if you enable institutional investors like ourselves to sort of really view the continent as a continent with the very least a region as a region, and not see 55 individual markets, I think you unlock something. It's very hard if you're mobilizing capital to, to be thinking of, of the continent in 55 markets.
Why don't you pick up on that? Because when we think about trade, of course, the natural inclination to think of goods. But what about specifically financial integration regulations, being able to move capital around the continent more easily? Is that part of your remit? Are you focused on that?
In part it is, the the AfCFTA does not regulate the the movement of capital. Obviously, it has an impact on intra-africa trade in the protocol on trade in services. There is an obligation which the 50 governments that have ratified the agreement, there's an obligation by governments to enable free movement of capital. But the complication is that you you require the central bank authorization from, from the regulator. Some will tell you about capital, exchange controls, others will will will talk about, macroeconomic instability and others will talk about, the need to have liquidity, in the country. So it will require a further, a further discussion, with central banks so that, we, we can be of the same understanding about enabling the movement of capital across the continent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, which, as much as the trade agreement may aspire, that you allow movement of capital to deploy capital to invest in a manufacturing plant or you take it out. They still, domestic regulation by by the regulator. I would say also that there's about, maybe $800 billion worth of illiquid capital in Africa sitting with pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and so on. And so the point you make about the loss of, USAID and others, again, that should compel us, to work with the private sector and to say, well, how do we unlock this $800 billion in, in, in, in illiquid assets.
And.
The development finance institutions, the Mdbs have some of the tools, right, guarantees, political risk guarantees and others.
Yes.
Yes, absolutely. Between African Bank, AfDB. Samaila. They have a lot of money. They have, the capability to finance Africa's industrial development, crowding in private capital and providing risk mitigation to private capital. And so we rely on them, largely for, for mobilizing this capital that is required to close the gap of the, overseas development assistance that we relied on for, for so long. And so I believe that this, as much as it is a crisis in the short term, in the medium to long term, if the private sector and those that have the capital, the $800 billion, work closely with governments as well as the development finance institutions, we can unlock, the, the, the liquidity that is required. And let me just make one final point on this by way of an example in, in, in September, under the leadership of President Ruto, who's the African Union champion on climate change, we received a commitment from about ten commercial banks, including development finance institutions, to unlock $100 billion of financing for green industrial development in Africa, and they are able to do that from their own balance sheet, collectively combined, of course. So this is an example that actually the continent of Africa can do it. Maybe the scalability, you know, can be debated. But we have the capability to mobilize the capital that is already there domestically. Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, we've been using your name in vain a lot tonight. So maybe I'm going to I'm going to see if you want to share a comment. And I will say we only have a few minutes left, but we'll take 1 or 2 comments from the floor if we can. And we have a microphone, I think that can be brought around to you. I think maybe, perhaps, so I see a hand there.
And another one behind.
You.
Two behind.
The couple behind us. Okay, let's see if we if we can, we can get a mic. Let's let's start with this gentleman over here. And we have just a few minutes. I'll ask everybody to keep it very brief and we'll try to get get a couple comments.
Good evening and pleasure to be here.
I think we heard you.
I think the key thing for me is, you know, we're not looking at Africa in the right way. Yes, there are challenges, but there are also significant opportunities. And I think what we should focus on is what has happened in spite of the challenges. So today, Africa, the world's largest petroleum refinery, has been built. The largest fertilizer plant has been built. The largest digital free zone area is being built. We have several large infrastructure projects being developed and being financed. And to your point, we have significant domestic capital sources available on the continent. What we should focus on. I raise my hand that there's a challenge. The biggest challenge is our mindset. And I think it's more the mindset of the leaders. The leaders have to embrace the moment. The moment now is one of execution, not talking. We have to focus on execution. How do we get things done? How can we have $500 billion in our pension funds and they don't fund infrastructure? How can we have $150 billion with our sovereign wealth funds? And they're not focusing on transformation. How can we have, you know, all the vast minerals that we have and we don't have a single code for community development to ensure that our communities have buy in for all the transformation that needs to take place. So really, it's for us to take a step back and think of what we want to achieve in 20 years, 15 years, ten years, five years and focus on what is the path now to five years 15 bearing in mind the target of of 20 years. So again, for me, it's really we need a conversation of president Bill and his and his colleagues. I mean, last few months with many, we were in Rwanda. We had a conversation around the African Renaissance retreat, and we said there was a need for a conversation with the heads of governments. The heads of governments need to take the agenda for development more seriously. I mean, what is happening within them?
It's starting to happen now. I mean, the crisis is creating some of that movement, but I appreciate.
We need more. We need more things done, you know? So, for example, if we simply just change regulation for pension funds so you can invest 5% in infrastructure, private equity, 15% infrastructure bonds, 5% in private equity, venture capital, you will see change then. We will now think about okay, how can we do the financial intermediation. How can we do the risk innovation to ensure that capital flows. Then we would see that we have a lot more capital domestically to fund our development. We need to be thinking of how can we move away from having our foreign savings outside the continent? Why should our savings be outside the continent? How can we get the world comfortable with our domestic institutions as repositories of savings? How can we mobilize a lot more savings amongst our people? Those are the things that we should be looking at.
Yeah, it's a very important point. We're going to take the mic and see. We had a comment here. I know there's a number of hands. I think we're only going to get one more because I want our panel to have a chance to respond. I'll ask you to also keep it very brief if you can, please.
Thank you very much.
I'll tell us who you are.
As well. My name is Rolake. I'm with Arise News, but I also run a financial advisory business. So my question is really around the topic says how can Africa prosper in the new economy? But one of the features of this new global economy is that economic issues are used as political levers. Right? So we see an intricate link between geopolitics and trade as we're witnessing. And I think from a continental wide integration point of view, one of the missing links is a single African voice that represents Africa at the global table. So whilst we're moving towards integration from a trade perspective, our trade diplomacy vis a vis the rest of the world also needs to be watertight. And I feel like unlike ten years ago, when we had a strong level of Pan-African diplomacy, that fragmentation still exists at the political level. Now, I'm not advocating for political union, but I do think we need the key political champions on the continent to knock heads together. And the final thing I would say is critical minerals. There's a new front that's opening up in terms of critical minerals. And we've had a first phase of mineral exploitation on the continent that didn't go well for our people. Now here's another chance, because the world is talking about critical minerals, how our government's going to position Africa for not just extraction, but full value creation in this new global dispensation.
Thank you. Thank you very much for that. I might just start with you, Yuri, because you know, your job, you're the private sector equivalent in some ways. To some you hold some of the assets, the very assets he's talking about that he thinks could be better invested domestically in Africa. What do you think about his comments? Do you do you see these barriers to your ability to invest in African infrastructure yourself?
I mean, I think I think that's actually I was nodding vigorously. I think my I think I'm very aligned with the fact that I think that mobilising domestic investment, across the continent is vital to getting in foreign capital, you know, because because if the, if the capital which is closest to the risk is not investing, then the capital that's further away typically doesn't get crowded in. So I do think it's a really important lever. I mean, there are barriers that we've spoken about, but I do think that we are making significant progress in the last number of years on on pulling the right levers. So, you know, we have to we have to deliver, we have to execute. And I think at the moment that we're in, I think it is right that it is clear that we need to do it for ourselves. I do think that that's clear. And so, you know, we should seize that moment.
That's something this, this crisis, if you want to call it that, has really clarified. I think for a lot of countries, they have to take care of their own situation. Even here in the EU, thinking about in Europe, thinking about how do we speak with one, one voice? Kelly, you know, this idea of not political integration, but political voice, you know, presumably the African Union would be the place for this to have a very clear perspective from the continent. Are you seeing that or what? What is the barrier to that? And let's pick up particularly around critical minerals, because that is the rush moment. There does seem to be a lot of interest globally in Africa's resources there. Is there a continental wide view on we're going to do it differently this time when it comes to extraction.
Well, the African Union has a has a critical minerals strategy for the continent. But of course, unfortunately we continue to see governments negotiating unilaterally. So I do believe that there is a need for us to, to be more, different regions of the continent have different critical minerals endowment, which require different perspectives in negotiating investment for processing of those critical minerals. Because by nature of the minerals themselves. But they are there should be basic, guidelines or principles as we negotiate with third parties on the critical minerals. And I concede that, we are not there yet. There's a strategy document, but the implementation is not AEW implementation. The the I hope that this is the moment when that will happen. I think that Madame raised another very interesting point, and that is when we are negotiating trade agreements with third parties. The the African Union is not a supranational organization. We are not the European Union. We don't have a Lisbon treaty type of a provision that enables us to negotiate, let's say, with a third party as a bloc. It clearly the circumstances, I believe, require that we think about that because if you take, for example, the expiry of Agoa and the fact that now individual countries in Africa are being pulled, to Washington to negotiate individually, that is not in Africa's interests. We have to negotiate as a collective, but we don't have the legal authority to do so as it stands. So that's something that that would have to be looked into.
Thank you. And, Rachel, just very briefly, we only have a minute and I want to hear from the president. You know, it seems like you heard a little bit of a prescription from Africans about what they want to see, domestic resource mobilisation, which is a big buzzword in the development community today. Do you feel like you're in these conversations at the multilateral level? Do the multilateral institutions get that yet? And are they changing their own mindsets in the same way? Somalia talked about African leaders changing their mindsets.
I mean, for things like, resource, domestic resource mobilisation. I mean, I think that has always been a big priority for the international community and particularly the national financial institutions. I think I mean, I've heard people say that, you know, the the big international institutions are moving very slowly to accept kind of the new world order because they haven't been hit so badly, so they haven't adjusted as much. But I think they will have to, and but, I mean, I think they've always had a sense, you know, they've always tried to work, closely with their partners on the ground. So I think it's really important, though, that you get the political will in Africa to both, you know, do the domestic resource mobilisation. And again, I commend, President Bo for some of the work on, on property taxes, which I think is a real model for the rest of the continent. But none of this investment, this private investment is going to come while you've still got these really fragmented markets. So it's so this the trade and the investment are not two separate issues. They're all linked up.
They're all.
Linked up. President, I want to end with you, Somalia. Talk about mindset as, as the biggest challenge. You're in these rooms with your counterparts, fellow heads of state and government across Africa. Do you see the mindset shifting among your counterparts in other countries?
I think, he was right to say so. We as leaders need to change as quickly as the world itself is changing. And we are still talking history in terms of mindset. And, the environment is changing so fast that a lot of us have missed the point in terms of capital, it's going to be difficult to mobilize a capital at this juncture from outside, because they are shy of our investment climate. The codes, how they can repatriate profit. But at the same time, the, what is interesting is that they are never shy to come for our resources. Even with wars, they can come for resources. But, there are a lot of other conditions that keep them away. Again, we do not have a collective bargaining power as a continent, which has been pointed out lately. I've seen the AFC, Afreximbank and others becoming really aggressive to support African ventures. I think I will encourage them along that path. We at the political game need to change how we think about the world and how important, a regional market is for us. We are talking about 1.4 billion people, West Africa alone, which I chaired. The authority is about, seven, 470 million people. These are markets.
That are relevant enough to create wealth for our citizens. But it needs quite a lot of input. And we have seen, you know, we are guarding our sovereignty, you know, using the the boundaries to separate us instead of using them to unite us towards economic prosperity for our citizens. So as he was saying, I have I'm working on an echoes of West African economic, summit, not the political one, where we, we bring in all the private sector in the subregion, put them them and talk to them. And so we now identify practical steps to break these borders so that they can actually do business. And we can force they can force us. I want them to force us business, I mean, political leaders, to break these boundaries so that they can move services, money, business and everything. People can move. So that is coming. And I would like to get the buy in of AFC and all the others to really come to this table, because it's not going to be politics. They are going to lead, we are going to be listening and we want prescription that can go into action, not rhetoric that is going to be kept in, communiques that never get to, to to the ground.
Well, let me just say it has been a lively discussion and a lot of really exciting points to hear. It was exactly a year ago here in Davos that we at Devex broke the story that USAID was going to disappear. It was going to stop work. And it has been since then a roller coaster. Lots of challenges. But those conditions have created a lot of opportunity to and you heard a bit about it in our discussions today. I think it really is a new moment for Africa, something we're covering all the time. And I appreciate this excellent conversation. Please join me in thanking our panel. Thank you, Mr. President. Great to be with you. Thank you.
Thank you.