Abdelmonem Fawzi
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
This good advice is attributed to Albert Einstein who is widely held to be one of the greatest and most influential scientists of all time.
This witticism describes what Africa is doing all the time: looking for support, protection, or even sponsorship from the East or the West.
However, we all know that the big powers from the West or the East and multinational corporations always develop sophisticated ways of looting our resources.
There are fierce geopolitical competitions and rivalries among the big powers across the continent, leading to some subtle divide and rule tactics of the 19th century and conflicts, which are hotbeds for looting.
They even sponsor conflicts to create conditions for looting. Among many other instances proving this, African countries are forced to mortgage their minerals for loans and critical imports.
Foreign military presence is also growing on the continent under the guise of counterterrorism efforts and security.
African states are annually losing over $88 billion through illicit financial flows. Western states receive most of this money.
The recipient countries are comfortable, retaining such funds, while labelling African countries, from which the money is taken as corrupt.
Everyone knows that much of Europe and the United States have been built from the vast wealth harvested from the sweat; tears; blood, and horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.
Africa, which has about 1.2 billion people, is natural resource-rich, and holds the largest share of the world’s precious metals, some of which are rare earth and strategic in global economic production and development.
Almost every country in Africa has a deposit of natural resources. Nevertheless, we are still the poorest continent in the world.
Per capita income in African countries is among the lowest in the world. This evidences the failure of the Millennium Development Goals.
We should really stop what we repeatedly do and begin action. To do this, we have to answer the question: why a natural resource-rich continent is still grappling with extreme poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment?
This was why hopes were pinned on African ministers and senior officials at the tenth session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD-10) to call for a timely reform of global financial institutions.
This, they say, is the unified African message to the Summit of the Future to be held in September 2024 in New York.
The message which comprises commitments aligned with Africa’s priorities is to be delivered as part of the planned pact of the future to be delivered at the summit.
In their declaration on the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions to reinforce the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 and to eradicate poverty in times of multiple crises released at the closing of ARFSD-10 in Addis Ababa, the ministers called upon participants at the Summit of the Future to consider and adopt, as part of the planned pact of the future, reforms for sustainable development and financing for development in Africa.
“The summit should ensure the timely reform of the global financial institutions and architecture to make them fit for purpose and able to serve the interests of Africa and developing countries elsewhere in the world,” reads the declaration.
The declaration was agreed against the backdrop of the serious challenges faced by African countries, including threats to inclusive, sustainable and resilient growth posed by conflicts and instability, inadequate sustainable financing, debt stress, illicit financial flows, profit shifting, climate change, the loss of biodiversity, land degradation and pollution and human rights violations.
The declaration calls for the need to ensure the existence of global financing mechanisms that give African and other developing countries access to adequate and equitable concessional financing and to affordable market-based resources to accelerate sustainable development.
In addition, there is a need to reform international tax governance.
The ministers also expressed their concern at how the continent is off track for meeting most targets of the SDGs and has even regressed on some, remaining home to 55% of the world’s population living below the poverty line, as noted in the issues paper on fostering recovery and transformation in Africa to reduce inequalities and vulnerabilities.
Delivering her closing remarks, Hanan Morsy, deputy executive secretary and chief economist of the Economic Commission for Africa, said Africa has an opportunity to reverse trends and accelerate action towards realising the SDGs and the Africa We Want by ensuring access to basic social services, generating jobs, and putting in place social protection and safety nets to reduce vulnerabilities and inequalities.
“Africa needs investments of $1.3 trillion a year to achieve the SDGs by 2030 and investments of over $3 trillion in mitigation and adaption alone in order to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions,” Morsy said.
It remains to be said that Africa has the youngest population in the world, under the age of 30.
Most of them are educated and living inside and outside the continent.
These people contribute daily to the benefit of their communities and nations across the continent.
They yearn for a more just and peaceful world where Africa is adequately represented in international bodies that make decisions about the future.
As we know Africa’s present day economic and social conditions are connected with historical injustices.
Now we understand what is going on and we are strong enough to start action immediately.
