With government and business leaders arriving in Cape Town for this month’s World Economic Forum on Africa (WEF-Africa) summit, Omar Ben Yedder provides a preview of what will be one of Africa's most crucial meetings of recent times.

Last year, the talk at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Africa meeting was of a continent becoming an interesting and exciting investment destination. Oil prices were hitting record highs, commodity prices were booming and stock markets were peaking. There was a renewed optimism even if certain challenges still remained, such as the food crisis and a return to higher inflation in oil importing countries. This year the mood will undoubtedly be more sober. The realities on the ground are that Africa finds itself at a critical juncture, seeking to ensure it can continue on the growth path of the past decade. This year, the agenda is very much focused on the short-term solutions needed to deal with the impact of the global economic crisis without losing track of the long-term priorities.

The key points will be:

Agriculture
One of the co-chairs of this year’s WEF will be Kofi Annan, who is also the chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra). Agriculture will continue to be an important topic and will, in fact, be the subject of the main plenary sessions, which Annan will be chairing. The question will be whether Africa can become a leader in agriculture, capable of feeding itself and also become a breadbasket for the rest of the world, bearing in mind the limitations surounding water, climate change, land ownership, access to technology and sourcing finance investment.
Last year, the focus was on spiralling food prices, and the food crisis which ensued. This year the WEF will continue addressing this issue and discuss ways of averting a future food crisis, whilst looking at the realities of agriculture and the constraints of climate change.

Finance
Financial institutions can be the major agent for change in Africa. On the back of the Africa Competitiveness Report, which discusses access to finance in Africa, the WEF will have a number of sessions to tackle this issue, looking at it across the different strata (sovereign level, institutional level and a grass-roots level). One session, entitled A New Capital Equation, comprising an all-woman panel, will discuss the changes in capital flows into Africa, from Official Development Assistance (Aid) to remittances, as well as traditional Foreign Direct Investment. With Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid and an ex-World Bank and Goldman Sachs economist, this promises to be a lively debate. Another session, called Innovative Financing for Africa’s Growth, will examine more specifically how microlending, sharia finance and new venture capital can play a bigger role in funding larger enterprises as well as the African entrepreneur.

Africa Competitiveness Report
This year’s WEF Africa will see the official launch and release of the Africa Competitiveness Report. Jointly authored in partnership with the African Development Bank and the World Bank, the report looks in detail at the individual competitiveness of 40 African countries. The report covers major ongoing issues; healthcare, education systems, energy and upgrading infrastructure (particularly transport infrastructure). There are also interesting findings from chapters detailing case studies on access to finance, trade and protectionism.
Many of the topics for discussion at the WEF Africa have been selected as a result of 
debates WEF holds with leading decision makers throughout the year. A recurring theme from businesses across the sub-
regions, from Nigeria to Kenya, Egypt to South Africa, was that of protectionism. The Forum will hold a session to discuss whether it is to Africa’s benefit to implement a more protectionist stance to protect some of its nascent industries, or whether it should open up its markets completely and adopt an absolute free market approach.

The Chairs
The chairs of the discussion groups are drawn to create a broad international representation with Jiang Jianqing, chair of ICBC Bank; Graham Mackay, chief executive SABMiller; Soud Ba’alawy, executive chair of 
Dubai Group; Kofi Annan of Agra; and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, MD of the World Bank and former foreign affairs and finance minister of 
Nigeria. The director of the programme, Katherine Tweedie, mentioned the importance of bringing in an international as well as an African perspective: “It will be interesting to hear about ICBC Bank and how their relationship with Africa has developed since their 20% acquisition of Standard Bank, and to profile this against traditional Africa-China ties. “SABMiller offers an example of a company that started in South Africa, focusing on strong management policies, which then expanded into Africa and continued to become a significant success story internationally.
“With the Dubai Group, we wanted to focus on the historical connections between Africa and the Middle East. And given that Dubai is going through some substantial challenges, what can Africa learn from this – and given major economic and political shifts globally, how is the relationship going to be like going forward?”

The Delegates
One can expect a strong mix of participants from civil society, government and business. Kenya’s PM Raila Odinga is expected to attend, as are President Rupiah Banda of Zambia and President Faure Gnassingbé of Togo. Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Finance Minister Tendai Biti will attend a special session to discuss rebuilding Zimbabwe. The host country South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, accompanied by ministers, is also expected to attend WEF-Africa in what will be his first major international forum as Head of State.
Some of the business personalities who have confirmed their participation include Jim Ovia of Zenith Bank, Aliko Dangote of Dangote group, Lamido Sanusi of First Bank Nigeria, Phuthuma Nhleko of MTN, Wale Tinubu of Oando, Nku Nyembezi-Heita of ArcelorMittal South Africa, Johnny A Dladla of Eskom and Marcus Agius of Barclays. The Hollywood actress Ashley Judd, a dedicated health and HIV/Aids activist, will also be attending.

Sub-Themes of the Forum:
The focus of the Forum will be how best 
Africa can address the global economic crisis, how it needs to position itself so that it comes out of it stronger and with a more powerful voice. The sub-themes will help address these issues. They have been broken down under the headings below.

Change Leadership
The Forum will explore how African leaders are addressing a rapidly changing environment and taking ownership of developing a long-term vision for the continent. With a global shift to greater transparency and accountability, what leadership principles will define Africa’s future and how are we shaping our leaders of tomorrow?

Rethinking the Economy
In light of the economic slowdown, what are the current and long-term priorities of 
Africa’s economies? Another question that will be addressed is to see to what extent countries are successfully diversifying their economic activity while at the same time building their comparative advantage.

Global Shifts, Regional Effects
What macroeconomic shifts are shaping the global agenda and what are the implications for Africa? How would an increase in protectionism and a withdrawal of aid commitments affect both developed and developing nations and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals? How can the G20 address the systemic risk in the global financial systems and build a stronger, integrated approach to stabilising growth over the long term?

Collaboration across Borders
A new world order calls for the re-evaluation of traditional relationships and the opportunity to forge new ties across borders. Regions, countries and businesses are looking for creative solutions to strengthen trade, infrastructure and business practices. How can new public-private partnerships unlock Africa’s significant potential for energy production, agriculture development and the delivery of key social programmes? How can better 
political collaboration lead to increased peace and stability on the continent?

Growth through Innovation
How are scientific, technological and social developments creating building blocks for future growth? Can Africa jointly address the issues of economic stimulus and climate change through renewable energy initiatives? What progress is being made with innovative healthcare solutions and delivery? How can investment in girls and women across the social spectrum lead to long-term social and economic benefits?

Interview

Ensuring Africa’s voice is heard

African Business spoke to the Africa Director of the WEF, Katherine Tweedie, about this year’s programme, which again promises to be invigorating and varied in terms of coverage.

Omar Ben Yedder: We now live in a fast-moving environment; what we’ve seen happening in the past year would have once taken five years or more to unfold. In terms of our response to these changing circumstances, is it more difficult to find an agenda that reflects the needs of African countries?
Katherine Tweedie: You can look at it a number of different ways. One is that the world has shifted incredibly over the last 18 months and I think for us to be responsible, we need to address what those shifts are and what the implications are for African economies. That covers much of what we have tried to address in the programme. However, there are certain topics, certain issues, which are longstanding and which continuously need to be addressed. It is important to track progress year after year even if we get criticised for bringing up some of the same topics, agriculture, for example, being one such topic. We’re trying to find a good balance between finding some of the fast-moving shifts and also making sure we don’t lose track of the important long-term priorities.

AB: Looking at last year’s WEF-Africa, there was much talk of Africa as an exciting investment destination and many countries were benefiting from high oil and commodity prices. This year, world commodity prices have retreated sharply, affecting many countries in the sub-regions. What we can expect economically in the next year?
KT: We definitely can’t stick our heads in the ground and say Africa hasn’t been affected by the crisis. We’ve been particularly exposed in certain areas, such as commodities, and certain industries, such as the automobile sector. However, I also think that are a lot of positives that we can highlight, especially within the banking sector. If one looks at banks in South Africa or Nigeria, none of them have actually required a bail-out and that was due to them pursuing relatively conservative fiscal policies and a restricted exposure to international assets, which at the time was somewhat criticised but, in retrospect, it managed to keep African banks relatively insulated.
I also think that credit policies have been relatively conservative, which means that we have averted the creating of a credit bubble with cheap credit. I think one of the interesting things, even if growth is expected to slow to below what we were forecasting 18 months ago, is that when you compare overall GDP growth for Africa, it’s positive. An investor looking for real growth would definitely be looking at opportunities in Africa. Nigeria continues to be an interesting opportunity; Ghana and South Africa likewise, of course. I think that mood will be realistic in terms of we are facing a challenging times, but it’s important to see emerging opportunities that are here on the continent.

AB: You mention there are some short-term objectives and longer-term challenges: what would you define as the short- and long-term objectives?
KT: For the short term, I think there is something coming up from the G20 directive. And we have a session on that: what is Africa’s role in restructuring the global finance community? It’s important that the African voice as a whole is heard strongly. There was a very strong delegation in London with key voices, i.e. Donald Kaberuka, Trevor Manuel, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Meles Zenawi. Africa is on a relatively strong economic trajectory and African countries should be considered in this global reassessment. Another short-term focus is how to deal with the fallout from the resources sector with regards to the job losses across various sectors. That is going to have an immediate effect on the social and economic fabric of the nation state. How do you deal with that impact, which is immediate, while also looking at the longer-term imperatives to bridge the skills gap? You have got employers who’re crying out for skilled employees. Then you have the vast unskilled majority and a very high unemployment rate, and what are we doing, in liaising between the government and business, is trying to bridge that skills gap.

AB: What are your personal objectives as the Africa Director? What do you want delegates to get out of this year’s WEF on Africa?
KT: I’m of the notion that discourse is one of the first steps towards progress and when I look at the platform which we create, with a strong history of bringing leaders together in Africa, it’s very important to have the right combination of civil society, government and business coming together to debate the key issues affecting Africa, both the negative and positive issues. The first outcome for me is building a very strong programme that doesn’t shy away from prickly subjects and choosing good moderators who bring out the best from the panellists. If you can get one or two leaders to think about something in a different way, that’s a sign of success. It’s an opportunity to learn, to interact together and to walk away inspired to effect change in their own lives, in their own businesses, in their own policy-making decisions – to me, that’s success – success that can’t necessarily be measured. But it’s a platform we create for others to use and to effect positive change in their everyday life and working environment.
From a big picture perspective, I hope this will be an opportunity for the international business community to interact with our governments and to give a strong message about key issues and key decisions that need to be made. And from a more intimate perspective, it’s an important time for them to be reassessing their views on Africa and Africa’s place in the world. As a whole, we’ve made a lot of progress in the past decade. And we haven’t lost the billions lost in conventionally safe markets. So this is a time to re-examine investment risk, and risk when it comes to Africa.

* Katherine Tweedie has been the World Economic Forum’s Africa Director since August 2008.