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Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
Fourteen years ago, during the debates that led to  the Millennium Declaration and Development Goals, our continent was regarded as the   “21st Century’s Development Challenge” and a scar on the conscience of humanity. At the same time, Africa too reflected on its future, on how to take the continent out of the preceding two dead decades for development. Thus, we transformed the OAU into the African  Union, vowed to tackle conflict in a  co-ordinated manner and adopted the  New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).

Fourteen years later, Africa is the  world’s second fastest growing region,  and home to six of the world’s fastest growing economies. Several others were  above or near the 7 percent threshold for  economic take off, which (AfDB president Donald) Kaberuka calls the tipping point and set to double their economies in 10 years.

We are also a continent of the future,  with a young and growing population,   a growing working and middle classes,  and our abundant natural resources,  including land, minerals, gas and  oil,  forests, biodiversity and maritime resources. Thus, I repeat with confidence:   Africa has transitioned from being the 21st Century’s development challenge, to being the 21st Century’s development opportunity.

We do know from our history and that of others, that opportunities can  be squandered and lost. It is our determination not to be characterised by  future generations of Africans for squandered opportunities that prompted us to embark on the process of Agenda 2063, a Pan African framework to rapidly move towards an Africa that is integrated, peaceful, prosperous and people-centred.

Industrialisation, domestic resource  mobilisation, finance and monetary institutions — are critical to the realisation of Agenda 2063 in the  longer  term and the post — 2015 development agenda  in the short term.

Africa must “design a comprehensive industrial development framework that is inclusive and transformative to speed up and deepen value — addition of local production, linkages between the commodity sector and other economic sectors.” Our discussions must assess the consolidation of nascent industrialisation initiatives and sectors.

This assessment must look at the agro — processing sectors in all countries for cocoa, coffee and other agricultural  products in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and  Ethiopia;  at the ICT sectors in Rwanda  and Kenya; at the textile and fashion  industries in West, Central and Southern Africa;  tourism and the blue economies of Seychelles and Senegal , of Mauritius  and Madagascar; the fishing industry in  the Gulf of Guinea; at the work done by institutions such as the Central African Forestry Commission (COMIFAC) on  forest policy convergence and with the East African Coastal forests to promote sustainable forestry and eco-tourism and whether  Botswana can indeed become the world’s leading global diamond trader.

Industrial policy assessment is  also  about assessing the impact of our infrastructure projects: the gas pipeline between Nigeria and Algeria; the  Sahara- ahel transport corridor; the  African Clean Energy Corridor Initiative; the Djibouti to Dakar transport corridor and mother others and whether these projects not only contribute towards reducing the  cost to industries, but also as drivers of industrialisation, technology transfer and skills development.

Assessment must also check best practice in terms of industrial and trade policy instruments — such as the local  content requirement that Ghana introduced  in its oil and gas industries; the monetary policy requirements for industrialisation and growth discussed by the African Central bankers the activities of our various national export and investment  promotion councils; the implementation of the African Mining Vision and  the impact of our trade partnerships on industrialisation and intra-Africa trade.

We must also know what is happening with the African private sector, both formal and informal, including the SMME sector.
In addition, there are  the emerging Pan African businesses,  in cement manufacturing, mining, oil and gas, ICT and banking and the growing numbers of young successful and  innovative African entrepreneurs (men and women) in virtually every country.

Industrial policy won’t succeed  without conscious efforts to build African  champions and without dynamic dialogue and interactions between government and the private sector, at sectoral,  country, regional and continental levels.

Indeed, industrial policy must be  accompanied by our integration efforts  towards a continental free trade area  by 2017, and we must do nothing that would jeopardise this.

We need the skills revolution to train hundreds of thousands more scientists, engineers and artisans, working together with the private sector and by investing in science, technology, research and innovation.

Institutions
The two dead decades of structural  adjustments not only saw stagnation  and de-industrialisation, but also the destruction of institutional capacity for  industrial policy, support and planning. Although we cannot turn back the clock and rebuild these capacities overnight, we can leapfrog some of the challenges through the regional and continental institutions that we agreed to put in place, to help all our countries to navigate  this path of structural transformation.

Discussions on the Statutes of the African Monetary Fund, and on the ratification and strategy for the African Investment Bank and the African Central Bank respectively are therefore important, so that we can get these institutions up and running. We must also  be reminded  about the  decision  taken  by the January 2014  Summit on the African Remittances Institute.

Domestic resource mobilisation   
We have over the last few years studied this matter in detail, ranging from the report of former president Obasanjo presented last year on Alternate source of  Funding, the 2013 NEPAD-ECA study on Domestic resources for African development to the  progress report of the Panel chaired by former President Mbeki on Illicit flows from the continent.

All these  studies show that  given  Africa’s enormous resource potential, we indeed have the means to invest in the acceleration of our development priorities, and in the process leverage and crowding in even greater funding and  resources from our partners across the world .
Fellow Africans, industrial policy, building institutions, even domestic resources mobilisation and indeed transformation, is not done until it is done. It is only then that we can say, as the Nelson Mandela taught us: it is impossible, until it is done.

Dr Nkosazana Dlamini  Zuma is Chairperson of the African Union Commission. This article is reproduced from The African Executive