The pandemic currently on the rampage globally presents a golden opportunity to reset the African continent’s economy with the people empowered to become more productive and self-reliant, according to the Chairman of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Tony Elumelu
He stated this at the important roundtable discussions made up of African leaders including Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Special Envoy of the African Union on Covid-19 and Tidjane Thiam who is also a Covid-19 Special Envoy responsible for mobilising international economic support for Africa. During the session titled, “Resilient World: An African Call for a New World Order”, Elumelu stated: “I see this pandemic as an opportunity to reset Africa.
While reiterating African continent’s immense capacity to metamorphous into a strong digital economy”
he, equally, advocated for a grand plan that will galvanise the entire continent and make it less dependent on what he calls the circularity of debt from developed nations which has been a major bane of the development of the continent for decades
His words, “I feel that as we engage the rest of the world in providing relief, we need to look for a more fundamental solution to Africa’s challenges. I have often argued for martial plan overtime. We need to mobilise everyone. If we have a martial plan that mobilises resources to address particular issues, then we can mitigate against this constant begging for assistance.”
Talking further, Elumelu stated: “The truth is that we have resources to help mobilise people. As the founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, we committed to endow $100 million to support young African entrepreneurs and we have been seeing the positive results this has yielded so far. It is evident that if we can fix access to electricity, ensure the stability of the macro-economic environment, ensure prioritisation of the youth, empower our small and medium scale enterprises and fix youth migration, then we are in for a better and more resilient economy”
Former finance minister, Okonjo-Iweala, on her part, stressed the need for a system where youths and women will be empowered to create and produce more to boost the African economy. Whilst calling on private and government parastatals to engage in meaningful partnerships that will help to galvanise job creation and entrepreneurship among youths in Africa, she said, “As Tony pointed out, we can see this pandemic as an opportunity for the continent. We have the African Free Trade Agreement, and we have to make it real.”
