The renowned economist is the executive secretary of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), a Pan-African organisation based in Harare with regional offices in Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Accra. Prof Emmanuel Nnadozie spoke to Rwanda Today’s Edmund Kagire about Africa’s development challenges.
What is ACBF and what does it do?
As the name suggests, it is a Pan-African organisation that promotes the development of capacity for socio-economic development with the aim of transforming Africa. It was founded because of the strong recognition that capacity challenges were significant in the continent — in the public and private sector and non-governmental organisations. There was a need to build capacity of individuals, institutions and organisations to play their role in promoting sustainable development and transforming Africa. ACBF funds capacity building at the national, regional and continental level through AU, Nepad and APRM, among others. We help them to design the right development policies, implementing and evaluating them, develop knowledge on capacity development on the continent and widely share it, build networks that help to promote peer learning and also provide technical support related to capacity development.
So far, we have funded about 90 projects across Africa to the tune of $200 million.
What have you achieved, 23 years down the road?
We have helped to build capacity of thousands of middle-level officers in the ministries of finance and planning and statistical offices across Africa. In Rwanda, there are a lot of people who have benefited from ACBF training. The continent didn’t suffer too much from the global economic crisis because of the sound economic management that we have seen, and the capacity of a lot of the people managing these economies were built by ACBF and other partners. Most of them has gone through our economic policy management programmes at various universities or benefited from the more than 35 think tanks that we have created or supported while 15 of them are leading think tanks. We have also supported capacity building in universities, parliaments, policy units, the private sector, civil society, the media and others. We came in as Rwanda was reconstructing from the genocide and many of the people who were, or still are, managing the economy and development have benefited from ACBF programmes.
What sort of capacity challenges do African countries face?
Africa still faces many challenges of building capacity. Even though we have the capacity to manage our economies, we have not been able to build capacities to transform our economies from agriculture-based to manufacturing and industrial.
We have not really mastered the art of providing good jobs for our young people; we have 200 million young Africans and we have to provide two million jobs every year. That is not easy. We need to build the capacity of the private sector to be able to do this.
Our goal is to support 100 per cent the African agenda. That is what ACBF wants to do but what the governments, through the AU and other economic communities, have articulated in their agendas. It is up to ACBF to make sure we are supporting Africa where it matters.
Two very important things: One, strengthening the African organisations — the AU, APRM, Nepad and the RECs — to play their roles more appropriately, not just in articulating Africa’s vision but also promoting regional integration and capacity for regional integration. We also need to improve capacity to engage with the world.
The second is, we are still facing serious challenges in policy implementation and strategies; you often go to a country and the issue is no longer the right policies but that they are not often implemented. Reinforcing that area is what Africa should pay great attention to.
What do you see as the challenges to Africa’s transformation?
Empowering the private sector is one thing we are prioritising. How does Africa, for example, add value to its natural resources, its primary products, instead of exporting them raw? A study by the Economic Commission for Africa shows that 90 per cent of the value of Ethiopian coffee is captured outside Ethiopia, and that is the case for Rwanda and any other country. That is unacceptable. It is possible, if you look at the coffee value chain, that these countries can get a higher level dividends. They cannot be at the top of the value chain but should be somewhere near there.
The capacity for adding value to primary products before they are exported is something I think is very essential because it is the only way we can increase jobs, improve people’s incomes and sustainably reduce poverty on the continent.
For many years Africa has been said to be taking its place on the global economic pedestal but unfavourable trade with Europe, US or Asia continues.
What can be done to reverse this?
Each country must make addressing capacity gaps as its number one priority because of the serious nature of the poverty on the continent but particularly youth unemployment. It will require strong and ambitious leadership. We must pay attention to building leadership capacity; some African countries are doing things that were not possible before. We are seeing that it is doable.
I’m not saying this because of the Chinese example or even the success stories of the Asian Tigers; we are discovering that even here in Africa it is possible.
For example, Ethiopia has started exporting shoes — designer shoes — to New York, Paris and other places. They had been exporting hides and skins because they produce a large amount of those and in good quality. But for more than 50 years all they did was export.
One day, the country’s leaders said, look, we are not going to be exporting these anymore. We are not going to do so by breaking the rules of the World Trade Organisation or by putting in place draconian measures but we are going to use fiscal measures.
They said, yes, we can export, but if you want to export, this is the amount of tax we are going to charge you. They also said, we can give exporters 10 years to transition out of that, but they also said we will put in place an environment that we will allow them room to transition. So, we have the policy dimension, fiscal dimension and strategy dimension. They showed them how they can rise in the value chain and the benefits of doing that. So the government engaged with the private sector to provide not only the capacity to add value to primary products but also incentives such as the necessary business environment, infrastructure, energy, water and security.
In fact, the Chinese, who initially benefited from the primary exports, realised that it was actually cheaper to manufacture shoes in Ethiopia and they came in and built massive factories with local partnerships.
Is there political will from African leaders for a similar thing to happen elsewhere?
There is a debate about whether there is such a thing as ‘political will’ but leadership capacity is what is important, to design the right policies, because these have to differ from one country to the other.
For example, Rwanda has policies on building capacities for high technology and modern agriculture, which I think is playing out well. I think this is what all African countries should do — come up with policies and implement them.
How do you engage with Rwanda?
We have supported policy research in Rwanda and private sector strengthening over the years. The projects we have supported in Rwanda have been quite successful.
We have supported the Institute of Policy Analysis & Research (IPAR), the National Capacity Building Secretary (NCBS), Rwanda Private Sector Federation. All these projects have received support up to the tune of $10 million.
This interview first appeared in The East African on 30th August 2014.
