The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development secretary-general speaks to NTV’s LABAN CLIFF ONSERIO about how Africa is dealing with trade and investment challenges.

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You are chairing the organisation committee for UNCTAD 14. What is on the cards?

The World Investment Forum, for the private sector, is the most exciting. It has a trading floor and a match-making tent, where entrepreneurs can meet investors, fund managers and innovators looking for partnerships in Africa. We will also have a commodities forum and the youth forum.

Where are the women?

Women are not a standalone group in our work. However, we have a day dedicated to strengthening women’s enterprise.  We will have a gala night to award the most successful women entrepreneurs. We will also have a Kenyan cultural fashion show.

What is the economic potential of the three African regions?

Southern Africa has been hit more than any other region in Africa apart from Nigeria by the bust in commodity supercycle. South Africa last year witnessed a 74 per cent decline of foreign direct investment compared with 2014.

West Africa has a mix of beneficiaries: Countries that are not energy-dependent and those like Nigeria that are substantially energy-dependent. 
The Arab Spring countries of North Africa are still grappling with terrorism, threats to the nation-state and recovery.

East Africa looks like the exception.

East Africa has seen the most stable increase in FDI in spite of the global economic slowdown. Most importantly, East Africa as a net importer of oil has been a beneficiary of the fall of oil prices.

If the conditions in East Africa improve, the possibility of becoming a major driver in manufacturing related investments  exist on a scale that has not been witnessed before.

What conditions?

There has to be a coherence between the private sector needs and public sector engagements. Political tensions must be eased, especially in Kenya, where the next year, a campaign year, is critical.

Africa is a rich continent. What holds it back?

A combination of things. You settle for low ceilings; you set very low targets; you are not ambitious enough; you let petty things like corruption distort your priorities and sap your energies.

You have said before that there is too much talk without action. Do you think the WEF and Unctad 14 fall in this category?

At the WEF we had a number of good suggestions. I was particularly impressed by some government leaders who said they had wished more of their policymakers were in Kigali. 

In 2014, global FDI to Africa totalled $52 billion. In the same year, tax evasion, tax avoidance and illicit transfers out of Africa totalled $100 billion.

That means if we level the investment field, if we review the investment agreements we have with others, we can reduce the loss of money — which is much more than what we are getting from new investments in Africa.

International governance on tax evasion and smoking out those who have stashed money in tax havens is important, and foreign aid will not be sufficient for our ambitious infrastructure projects. 

So, what should Africans do?

Africans must talk among themselves but also with the rest of the world. It is true that Africa has surrendered space to the World Economic Forum, which is a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation.

We have failed to create a forum where African academia, civil society, government and private enterprises talk together about our challenges. How can we raise the ceiling? That discourse is possible without having to go through a Geneva-based NGO.