What is Africa's future in the globalised world? And in view of its current economic situation, how is the continent going to become more competitive? These were among the fundamental questions debated by more than 200 people during a symposium held on 3-5 March in Dakar.
The meeting was organized by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the government of Senegal, along with the African Development Bank (ADB), the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Coordinating the whole effort was African Futures, the Abidjan-based programme of UNDP's Africa bureau that helps African countries draw up long-term studies for a better-planned social and economic future.
One of the meeting's main tasks was to re-interpret Africa's current development strategies from the perspective of responding to the challenges of globalization. Four main themes emerged: the macroeconomic framework for competitivity; governance problems; factors for competitivity at company level; and African responses to the external environment.
Debates were vigorous in the individual workshops. Presenting the "macroeconomic framework" theme in one workshop were Mr. Adebayo Adedeji, head of the African Centre for Development and Social Studies (ACDESS), and Mr. Jacques Giri, of Sociétés et Développement, an institute in France.
In the second workshop, Mr. Ibbo Mandaza, head of the Southern Africa Research Institute for Policy Studies in Zimbabwe, and Mr. Soumana Sacko, a former prime minister of Mali, addressed the regulatory and administrative framework in African countries and explored the obstacles to progress. They were immediately challenged by Mr. Ahmed Mohiddin, of the UK-based non-governmental organization Africa Foundation, who declared that "stating the principles of a legislative framework is not enough to create one." He went on to insist on participation by the citizenry -- "those who actually make the real economy" -- in economic decision-making.
Hot discussions continued on the theme of making African economies more competitive. Participants raised pertinent issues such as human resources, finance for research, science and new technology, establishing industrial standards, and diversification of economic activity. Another workshop took up tough questions about managing both human resources and financial means, with interventions by representatives of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the African Development Bank (ADB) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
In yet another workshop -- on the external environment and African responses -- Mr. Befekadu Degefe (ECA) and Mr. David Luke (OAU) stressed the relevance of regional integration. Ms. Claire Mainguy, a professor from the University of Strasbourg, was sharply critical of the external trade constraints facing Africa, while the well-known Egyptian economist Mr. Samir Amin lambasted outdated policies in his paper, "Multipolar Globalization: Alternatives to Regionalism."
By limiting themselves to fighting for higher raw commodity prices, without defining an appropriate development strategy that integrates the continent's sub-regions, Africa's economies are condemned to remain dependent on market fluctuations, participants observed. They also affirmed that with external debt growing and swallowing an increasing portion of export receipts, foreign trade can neither provide the basis for economic take-off nor help organize domestic investment policy.
Volatile capital flows, the debt overhang and the absence of transparency were among the elements identified as undermining Africa's economies, and compounding the lack of long-term development planning.
But another obstacle to the progress and competitiveness of African economies, participants noted, is the concentration of power by governments. For a healthier macroeconomic environment, institutional reforms and decentralization could be the solution, some argued.
In discussing regulatory frameworks and procedures for designing economic programmes, some speakers said that company taxes and fiscal policy often do not provide incentives and sometimes facilitate archaic management practices. The results are businesses and products that cannot compete internationally.
Such issues of regulation and deregulation led participants to evaluate regional integration processes. They concluded that there remains little sense of strategic harmonization across African economies, which therefore are ill-prepared for the third millennium.
To the pervasive question of how African economies can become competitive, Mr. Youssoufia Wade, president of Senegal's National Employers' Council, declared: "The pursuit of competitivity at any price does not seem realistic." Nevertheless, others tried to tackle the question. Should there be better definitions of the criteria for good management and profitability? Where exactly are the elements of competitivity to be found -- in redefining the rules of governance, in the harmonization of business legislation, or in the priority given to certain economic activities?
Defining competitivity as "an ensemble of technical criteria for profitability that include technological means as well as human resource development," participants worked their way through the internal and external factors that determine Africa's progress in this area. Should Africa seek to leverage its largely unskilled and low-cost workforce, or should the emphasis be on developing economic activities that require a highly skilled workforce and facilitate the growth of "high-tech" research? In either case, said Mr. Amin, the basic issue is to enhance competitiveness, but "the strategies must also differ."
Some speakers continued to insist on a preponderance of profitability criteria in their definition of competitivity. Others, such as Mr. Amin, questioned this approach -- favoured in the dominant schools of business and management -- and suggested that the notion of competitivity must itself be put in the context of an overall development strategy, with a clear indication of Africa's own priorities.
By the end of the debate, a consensus emerged that the absence of planning and the lack of a perspective on the future limit Africa's ability to draw up a viable development strategy and become competitive. Participants agreed that it is vital, therefore, to lay the basis today for an appreciable level of competitivity tomorrow.
Participants stressed, in their Dakar Declaration, that analysis must start by identifying the external and internal obstacles to development that also stifle the creative initiative of thousands of small entrepreneurs.
The declaration notes that a number of African countries have established viable frameworks to promote economic recovery. However, it states, such recovery may not be achieved if the declines in Africa's export earnings and in its inflows of foreign direct investment are not halted and reversed.
"This is all the more true when changes in the global economy and
in geopolitical relations are taken into account," says the declaration.
"The most significant phenomenon of all is that of globalization which
has brought about the integration of goods, services and capital markets.
These new linkages of global commerce require a commitment to and observation
of new regulations." For Africa, it concludes, "This in turn means
considerable challenges."
