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Why a black Davos won’t happen till Big Men sit out

Saturday January 24 2015

Last week, the World Economic Forum held its 45th meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

I suspect even chaps on Mars know that the WEF meeting in Davos is the biggest and most prestigious gathering in the world of business, bringing together political, academic, and other leaders of the world to talk about the planet, its promise, and its perils.

Britain’s Independent newspaper put together some numbers to show how big a deal the Davos meeting is.

More than 2,500 people are attending. More than 100 countries are represented. There are 40 heads of state and government. There are 14 Nobel Laureates in the house. All of 1,700 private jets are expected to enter Swiss airspace to fly billionaires and government leaders to Davos. The Davos meeting alone brings $81 million into the Swiss economy.

It was a terrible week to try and meet Africa’s leading sons and daughters on the continent. Very many of them were off to Davos.

The whole is interconnected, but still we have to ask: When shall Africa have its equivalent of Davos so that those 1,700 private jets come to land in Kigali or Entebbe?

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As it happens, the biggest such meetings in Africa are the regional ones organised by the same Swiss-based World Economic Forum here. Last year’s was in Nigeria. This year, it will be held in South Africa.

The only thing rivalling these are the African Development Bank’s annual general meetings, but the AfDB is not a private entity. And, even then, the modern, savvy AfDB only happened once we opened it to international shareholders.

In the days when it was run by 3-1-1 Africans in agbadas and other African costumes, it was dying.

East Africa, bettering other regional blocs, has the East African Business Summit, but these days it too has become as erratic as the rain in Morocco.
I thought the early EABS was really unique, and had a bright future.

The very first one was held near the foot of Mountain Kenya, if I remember correctly, and the photographs were wonderful. There were business leaders shivering and wrapped in Maasai blankets around camp fires.

The big men never used to attend, unlike today’s summits when the presidents are the stars of the show.

And right there could be the reason why these things don’t flourish here. At this WEF, I watched online a mind-blowing presentation by former US vice president Al Gore on climate change.

Many former presidents, prime ministers, and ministers from around the world who attend Davos. Hardly any from Africa.

Though the situation is much better today, presidents in Africa are still persecuted when they leave office, or become poor. Ministers and MPs fall on hard times. The Kenyan media likes stories of former MPs who now live in tin shacks and have been long abandoned by their wives.

Many rich men and women also rise and fall with governments. No African former VP has gone to become a global climate change guru like Al Gore, or a brainy do-gooder people-bringer-together like Bill Clinton.

That mix of big government and private sector experience is good stuff for meetings like Davos. So, it seems, to get a black Davos, we need to fix our politics.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com) Twitter: @cobbo3

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